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My Investments Update May 2024

My Investments Update – May 2024

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my April 2024 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £23,502. Last month it stood at £23,859, so that is a fall of £357.

Nutmeg Main Port May 24

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,760 (rounded up) compared with £3,781 a month ago, a fall of £21. Here is a screen capture showing performance over the year to date.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha May 24

Finally, at the start of December 2023 I invested £500 in one of Nutmeg’s new thematic portfolios (Resource Transformation). In March I also invested a further £200 from ‘Refer a Friend’ bonuses. As you can see from the screen capture below, this portfolio is now worth £755 compared with £759 last month, a small decrease of £4.

Nutmeg Thematic port May 24

It’s obviously a little disappointing that the value of my Nutmeg investments has fallen a bit this month. This is entirely to be expected with investments, however, where ups and downs are the norm. It’s also worth observing that their overall value has risen by £1,392 or 5.29% since the start of the year (not counting the £200 bonus I invested in my thematic portfolio in March).

You can read my full Nutmeg review here. If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last eight years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

  • Don’t forget, the new tax year began on 6 April 2024 and and you now have a whole new £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance for 2024/25!

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,570 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £14 in my Kuflink cash account.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual ISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £179.53 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 10 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 3 are breaking even, and the remaining 16 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £38.96, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £140.57. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially after Kuflink raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

  • As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange is particularly good if you want to compound your returns by reinvesting rental income. This effectively boosts the interest rate you are receiving. Personally, once I have accrued a minimum of £10 in rental payments, I reinvest this money in either a new AE project or one I have already invested in (thus increasing my holding). Over time, even if I don’t invest any more capital, this will ensure my investment with AE grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

In 2022 I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,275.17, an overall increase of $252.91 or 24.74%.

EtoroHomeMay24

EtoroPortMay24

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.

  • eToro also offer the free eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here. Note that it can also serve as a cryptocurrency wallet, allowing you to send and receive crypto from any other wallet address in the world.

I had two more articles published in April on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is What Is Thematic Investing and Is It For You? In this article I looked at the pros and cons of thematic investing. My editor at Mouthy Money edited the article to remove the specific examples I gave, in case this was construed as personal financial advice. As a consequence the published article is a bit shorter and vaguer than I intended! However, readers of PAS will know that I have thematic investments with Nutmeg and eToro. So far – as mentioned earlier – both have been doing well, but of course there are no guarantees this will continue in future. Thematic investing isn’t for everyone, so take a look at this article, read about the pros and cons, and see if you think it might have a place in your portfolio.

Also in April Mouthy Money published How to Avoid Becoming a Telephone Scam Victim. In this article I set out some tips and advice to avoid falling victim to phone scams. As with online scams, which I discussed in another recent article on Mouthy Money, telephone scams have become an unfortunate reality of daily life in the UK. It’s important to be aware of the risk, and to ensure that any elderly friends and relatives who might be particularly vulnerable don’t fall for them.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I am a particular fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her latest article Eight Ways to be More Mindful With Your Money sets out various ways you may be able to save money relatively painlessly by adopting a more frugal mindset. You can see all of Jane’s articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in April. I won’t bother mentioning those that are no longer relevant now, but the others are listed below.

In Why Now Could Be the Ideal Time to Take Advantage of Your New Tax-Free ISA Allowance I pointed out that (other things being equal) the start of a new tax year is the perfect time to invest in a new ISA. The main reason for this is that the sooner you invest, the more time there is for the power of compounding to start working. There are other good reasons as well for investing now – read the article for more details 🙂

I also published two sponsored guest posts in April. Sponsored posts help pay my bills, but I only accept those that I feel offer genuine value and interest to PAS readers.

Six Tips for Getting Free Stuff Without Dealing With Scams has some good tips for getting valuable freebies online without opening yourself up to a torrent of spam. And Seven Top Money-Saving Websites for Freebies sets out seven websites where you can apply for (genuine) freebies. Understandably my sponsors didn’t want me to link to all the sites as well as the one they were actually promoting, but you should find them easily enough with a little help from Google.

Finally, I posted My Review of the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper. This is obviously another sponsored post, although in this case I received a free item to review rather than being paid for it. As you will see, this offer came at an opportune time for me. I was genuinely impressed with the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper, even though it took a bit of  effort to get it up the stairs and onto my bed!

Also this year I became a regular contributor to the Over 60s Discounts website. You can read my latest article here: Could You Claim Attendance Allowance? As you will gather, this is all about this invaluable benefit for older people with care needs. It’s estimated that over three million people are eligible for this benefit but not claiming it. Read this article to discover if it’s something you – or an elderly friend/relative – would be qualified to apply for.

I highly recommend registering at Over 60s Discounts, by the way – they list a growing range of discounts and bonuses for older people, including some that are unique to O60D.

Also in April I enjoyed a short break on the beautiful Isle of Man (see cover image). It was the first time I had visited the island, and in fact the first time I had been anywhere by plane since Covid.

I had a great time, with wall-to-wall sunshine until my last day when I was going home anyway. It was a heritage-railway-themed holiday, so I got to ride on the island’s steam and electric trains, and also travelled on buses between towns not served by the railways. The trip was arranged by Newmarket Holidays, and I do recommend this if you are new to the IOM and want a well-organised introductory tour covering all the main places of interest (with a heritage-railway bias, obviously). I will aim to post a fuller review of my Isle of Man holiday on PAS soon.

  • The one downside to the trip was the chaos on my outward journey from Birmingham Airport. There is loads of building work going on there and, coupled with an apparent shortage of staff, this caused massive queues and delays. Although I arrived before the check-in opened, it took me almost two hours to get through security. By then it was the final call for boarding, so I had to do a mad dash to the gate to avoid missing my flight. There are posters up at the airport saying that all this work will result in a better experience for passengers, but I’ll believe that when I see it. Currently I don’t recommend flying from Birmingham if you can possibly avoid it.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

The cover photo, taken by me, shows an Isle of Man Steam Railway train arriving at Port Erin station. 

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss. Note also that posts on PAS may include affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered, but it does help support me in publishing PAS and paying my bills. Thank you!

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Review of the Simba Hybrid Mattress Cover

My Review of the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper

I was recently offered the chance to review the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper (see cover photo). This is a premium mattress topper from the well-known Simba sleep brand.

I must admit, incidentally, I hadn’t realised the variety of sleep products Simba offer. I knew about their mattresses, of course, but wasn’t aware they also sell quilts, pillows, mattress toppers, and so on.

I currently sleep on a Slumberland king-sized mattress which – despite being barely three years old – is starting to sag. My sleep quality had deteriorated and I was waking up with an aching back and hips. Not good at all 🙁 So when I got the opportunity to test out Simba’s hybrid mattress topper, naturally I leapt at it.

I have tried mattress toppers before, and in fact got a cheap one from Amazon prior to receiving the Simba product. It helped a little but clearly wasn’t going to be the solution for me.

The Simba hybrid mattress topper takes sleep comfort to a whole new level. For starters, it’s deeper and heavier than my previous mattress topper. It came rolled up in a (very) large cardboard box. I wrestled it upstairs and opened it without any help (nobody else being around at the time) but ideally I’d say this is a two-person job.

The mattress topper comes tightly wrapped in a clear plastic bag. Once I removed it from this, it lay flat on the bed without curling. Unlike some sleep products I have ordered in the past, you don’t have to wait for it to expand to its full depth.

From the first night onward I was hugely impressed with the Simba hybrid mattress topper. It is no exaggeration to say that it felt as though I was sleeping on a brand new mattress. It is smooth, cool and comfortable to lie on and (for me anyway) offers just the right medium-to-firm level of support. I am sleeping deeper and longer before waking, and the aches and pains in my back and hips are a thing of the past.

I thought it might be useful to reproduce here the diagram from the Simba web page showing how their hybrid mattress topper is constructed and the different layers it contains…

Simb

As you can see, the Simba hybrid mattress topper includes a number of different layers (hence the ‘hybrid’ in the name, I assume). You can read more about this on the Simba web page, but briefly at the top there is a soft, breathable sleep surface, with a foam comfort layer under that. In the middle is a spring support layer (just like in a mattress), with a high-density foam base below that. This is very different from most cheap mattress toppers, which are basically just quilts with a cotton/polyester filling.

Obviously because of its layered structure, you can’t turn the Simba hybrid mattress topper over. You can rotate it from end to end though, and it’s probably a good idea to do so occasionally to even out wear. No instructions are provided about this, however, so that’s purely a suggestion, based on my previous experience with mattresses.

Are there any drawbacks to the Simba hybrid mattress topper? Well, I did notice a slight ‘chemical’ smell which took a few days to disperse. It didn’t bother me, but ideally you might want to let your new mattress topper air for a day or two before starting to use it. I’m afraid I was too impatient to wait, though!

In addition, as this mattress topper contains springs, I wouldn’t recommend trying to wash it (it wouldn’t fit in a standard washing machine anyway!). It does though come with a removable, washable cover. Essentially, you need to treat this product as if it was a mini-mattress in its own right. That isn’t really a drawback to the Simba hybrid mattress topper, just a feature of it.

Overall, I am happy to give the Simba hybrid mattress topper my highest personal recommendation. If – like me – you have an old mattress that is starting to sag, it should prolong its useful life. Also, if you have a mattress that is too hard, it should make it softer and more comfortable for you. It’s not cheap (at the time of writing £219 for the single version or £329 for the king-size I received) – but, as so often in life, you get what you pay for. Easy payment by interest-free instalments (up to 12 months) is also available subject to status.

I should add as well that delivery is free and fast: next working day if you order before 2 pm or two working days if you order after 2 pm. There is also a range of options for buying a Simba double topper.

Many thanks again to my friends at Simba for allowing me to try out their hybrid mattress topper. If you have any comments or questions about this post, as ever, please do post them below as usual.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post (gifted product).

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
7 Top Tips for Money Saving Websites

Guest Post: 7 Top Money-Saving Websites for Freebies

Today I have another guest post for you on the subject of saving money and getting freebies 🙂

My friends at Hot Free Stuff have put together this list of seven top money-saving websites where you can get freebies, discount codes, downloadable coupons, and more.  Check them out, and don’t forget to sign up for free emails from Hot Free Stuff to get all the latest free offers daily!


 

Are you a stressed-out mum (or dad) trying to make the family budget work?

It takes juggling to make the household budget balance without the need for taking a calculator on every shopping trip. That is because just a click of your mouse or a swipe of your tablet can reel in huge savings on credit card bills, home goods, fashion, electricity, and fun-filled family activities!

We have done the work of trawling the Internet to find you seven of the best money-saving websites around. We’ll help you get freebies, codes, downloadable coupons and more, so that you can do more with your budget every week. Here is our point-and-click guide to savings…

HotFreeStuff.co.uk
This site gets you access to lots of free samples you can really use, from lotions to perfumes. Save money using this site on lots of household goods and get a chance to try new products for free as soon as they are available.

Gumtree
At this so-called ‘classified community’ you can snap up lots of great deals on pets to property. There are many listings for rentals and jobs throughout the UK and Ireland. You will enjoy the deals, but you can also get free items via the freebies section. Just scroll beyond the ads and sponsor links to find many free listings for household items and furniture. At the time of writing there were listings on the London site for free sofas and mattresses, a working Hotpoint fridge-freezer, and free haircuts. Just a word of caution – we suggest for any classified site that you take someone along with you to collect any items, and be careful about giving away too much personal info when responding to ads.

HotUKDeals
This site has been around for well over a decade and is the most reputable place for people to share information on the freebies and discounts they have picked up on their website travels. It is free to register and features include ‘Top 10 Hottest Offers’, requests for offers, and fun, free competitions to enter.

My Voucher Codes
Get over 2000 discount codes at Britain’s biggest voucher website. Tabs include top listings as well as categories, together with the ability to print out vouchers.

Groupon
Never underestimate the power of Groupon! Many times it can seem like a venue for free or cut-price beauty treatments. There are, however, great deals on family attractions, meals and holiday getaways as well.

Moneysaving Expert (MSE)
This massive site set up by financial journalist Martin Lewis has saved the UK millions. It is clearly written, easy to understand, and has lots of information on getting deals on everything from home and car insurance to broadband and mortgages.

Travel Supermarket
This is the best site to find travel deals and compare flights and hotel offers in one easy-to-navigate resource.


 

Many thanks to Hot Free Stuff for sharing their advice and information. If you have any comments or questions – or other tips and resources for saving money – please do share them below as usual.

Hot Free Stuff

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post.

 

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
My Investments Update April 2024

My Investments Update – April 2024

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my March 2024 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £23,859. Last month it stood at £22,994 so that is a welcome increase of £865.

Nutmeg main port April 2024

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,781 compared with £3,640 a month ago, a rise of £141. Here is a screen capture showing performance over the year to date.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha April 2024

Finally, at the start of December 2023 I invested £500 in one of Nutmeg’s new thematic portfolios (Resource Transformation). As you can see from the screen capture below, this is now worth £759 compared with £530 last month, an increase of £229 since last month.

I should though say that £200 of this is ‘new money’. This came from a ‘Refer a Friend’ bonus, which I decided to pay into this pot rather than withdrawing. So if you disregard that, this portfolio has actually risen in value by £29 since last month.

Nutmeg Thematic April 2024

March was obviously another good month for my Nutmeg investments. Overall – and disregarding the £200 RAF bonus – I was up £1,035 or 3.55%. And since the start of the year (again disregarding the £200 RAF bonus in March) I am up by £1,882 or 7.15%. In these turbulent times I am more than happy with that.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here. If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last eight years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

  • Don’t forget, the current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 and after that the 2023/24 tax-free ISA allowance of £20,000 will be gone forever. But the good news is that you will then have a whole new £20,000 ISA allowance for 2024/25!

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,570 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £14 in my Kuflink cash account.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £173.90 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 8 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 7 are breaking even, and the remaining 14 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £35.05, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £138.85. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

  • As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange is particularly good if you want to compound your returns by reinvesting rental income. This effectively boosts the interest rate you are receiving. Personally, once I have accrued a minimum of £10 in rental payments, I reinvest this money in either a new AE project or one I have already invested in (thus increasing my holding). Over time, even if I don’t invest any more capital, this will ensure my investment with AE grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

In 2022 I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,303.49, an overall increase of $281.23 or 27.51%.

Etoro port April 24

Etoro List Apr 24

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.

  • eToro also offer the free eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here. Note that it can also serve as a cryptocurrency wallet, allowing you to send and receive crypto from any other wallet address in the world.

I had two more articles published in March on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is Saving versus Investing – What’s the Difference and Why You Should Do Both. People often get confused between saving and investing, and it doesn’t help that the words are sometimes used loosely and interchangeably. In reality, though, there is a clear difference between them. In this article I explain why saving should always be your first priority, but ideally you should do both.

Also in March Mouthy Money published my article Are Solar Panels Still Worthwhile? As you probably know, solar PV panels generate electricity from sunlight. Growing numbers of homeowners (me included) have them on their roofs. At one time solar panels came with generous payment tariffs known as FiTs (feed-in tariffs), but those days are long gone. So in this article I examine what incentives exist today for installing panels and whether the sums still add up. I also look at the other pros and cons of solar panels.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I am a particular fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her latest article Save Money on Gifts Throughout the Year sets out some top tips  for saving money on gifts without (of course!) being a skinflint. You can see all of Jane’s articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in March. I won’t bother mentioning those that are no longer relevant now, but the others are listed below.

One was a reminder that the Trading 212 welcome offer has reopened. If you haven’t done this before, you can get a free share worth up to £100. As I said in the article, my free share in AMD is now worth £151.88! This offer closes on 16 April 2024.

Also in March I published Don’t Miss Out! Use Your £20,000 ISA Allowance Before It’s Too Late. This was a reminder to use your 2023/24 allowance before it vanishes on 6th April 2024. Obviously you will need to move very smartly if you are going to do this now. But (as I said earlier) the good news is that everyone will have a fresh £20,000 allowance from that date.

Also this year I became a regular contributor to the Over 60s Discounts website. You can read my latest article here: Grand Adventures on a Budget – How to Save Money on Days Out With Your Grandchildren. I highly recommend registering at Over 60s Discounts, by the way – they list a growing range of discounts and bonuses for older people, including some that are unique to O60D.

One other bit of news this month is that I finally got around to buying a home storage battery to connect to my solar panels (see my recent MM article about panels). I used a local (Staffordshire) company called The Energy Box for this, and am very happy to recommend them.

I’ve had my battery for just over a fortnight now and it’s been quite eye-opening. Using the battery app I can see how much electricity my solar panels are generating at any time and how much I am using in my home. I can also check the battery charge level and whether it’s charging or discharging. Even at this time of year, if there’s a bit of sunshine I am generating enough electricity in the day to cover my needs and charge the battery to a level where I’m running the house from it till well into the evening.

In the summer I’d expect to be generating enough to live off solar-generated power entirely, meaning there will only be the dreaded standing charge to pay. So I will actually be saving more money than I originally anticipated, though admittedly it will still be a number of years before the cost is covered.

It wasn’t just a financial decision, though. My other aim was to be able to continue as normal in the event of power cuts (which I expect to become more frequent in coming years as the UK transitions away from fossil fuels), and that should be the case too. The only issue might be a power cut in the depths of winter when the battery hasn’t charged up from the panels. Even so, if I know (or suspect) a cut is coming I can charge the battery in advance from the mains.

I’ve written an article going into more detail about home storage batteries (including my own) for my regular clients at Mouthy Money. This will be published in April, so keep an eye out for it!

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

Note also that posts may include affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered, but it does help support me in publishing PAS and paying my bills. Thank you!

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
Investments Update March 2024

My Investments Update March 2024

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my February 2024 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the last 12 months shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £ £22,994. Last month it stood at £22,386 so that is a welcome increase of £608.

Nutmeg main port March 2024

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,640 compared with £3,530 a month ago, a rise of £110. Here is a screen capture showing performance over the last 12 months.

Nutmag Smart Alpha port March 2024

Finally, at the start of December 2023 I invested £500 in one of Nutmeg’s new thematic portfolios (Resource Transformation). As you can see from the screen capture below, this is now worth £530, an increase of £11 since last month and £30 or 6% over the three-month period since I first invested.

Nutmeg thematic port Mar 2024

February was obviously a good month for my Nutmeg investments. Overall I was up £737 or 2.79%. In these turbulent times I am more than happy with that.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here. If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

  • Don’t forget, the current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 and after that the 2023/24 tax-free ISA allowance of £20,000 will be gone forever!

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,570 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £14 in my Kuflink cash account.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £168.53 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 10 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 4 are breaking even, and the remaining 15 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £40.01, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £128.52. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

  • As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange is particularly good if you want to compound your returns by reinvesting rental income. This effectively boosts the interest rate you are receiving. Personally, once I have accrued a minimum of £10 in rental payments, I reinvest this money in either a new AE project or one I have already invested in (thus increasing my holding). Over time, even if I don’t invest any more capital, this will ensure my investment with AE grows at an accelerating rate.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

In 2022 I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,238.51, an overall increase of $216.25 or 21.15%.

eToro Welcome March 2024

eToro port March 2024

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.

  • eToro also offer the free eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here. Note that it can also serve as a cryptocurrency wallet, allowing you to send and receive crypto from any other wallet address in the world.

I had three more articles published in January on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is How to Save Money on Motoring. Like everything else in life the cost of motoring is going up and up, so in this article I set out a variety of ways – from ride-sharing to driving for fuel economy – you may be able to reduce it.

Also in February Mouthy Money published Are You Making the Most of Your Annual ISA Allowance?. As mentioned earlier, the 2023/24 tax year ends in just a few weeks’ time. And after that the £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance for that year will be gone forever. In this article I describe the different types of ISA – Cash ISA, Stocks and Shares ISA, Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) and Lifetime ISA (LISA) – and explain how they work and the differences between them. I also provide some tips and advice for making the most of your annual ISA allowance.

My final article published on Mouthy Money last month was Can You Save Money on Your Shopping with JamDoughnut? Regular PAS readers will know that I am a fan of the JamDoughnut app, which enables you to save up to 20% on purchases with a growing range of retailers. The article also reveals how you can get a £2 head-start by using my referral code.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I am a particular fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her latest article Frugal Skills to Save You Money sets out a selection of life skills that can save you money (and aren’t hard to learn). You can see all of Jane’s articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in February. I won’t bother mentioning those that are no longer relevant now, but the others are listed below.

In Get Your Will Written Free of Charge in March I revealed how you can get your will written (or updated) free of charge during Free Wills Month. This regular event supports a range of leading charities. Obviously the hope is that you will include a bequest to charity in your will, but there is absolutely no obligation to do this. Free Wills Month is now up and running. If you want to take advantage and get your will written free, I recommend acting now as there are only limited spots available.

Also in March I published a guest post titled Building Your Own Home – It’s Not Just for the Super Rich! This post was written on behalf of Suffolk Building Society, who are trying to raise awareness of the self-build option in the UK. As they say in the article, they can provide mortgages to purchase land suitable for self-build projects. SBS emphasize that this option is suitable and available for ‘ordinary people’, not just the super-rich folk you see on TV shows like Grand Designs!

I also published Saving for a Rainy Day or a Stormy Breakup? The Surprising Facts About Secret Savings Accounts. This post is based on some eye-opening research from my friends at Smart Money People, which revealed (among other things) that one in ten people in a serious relationship, including marriage, civil partnerships, or cohabitation, maintain a secret savings account. Find out more in this post.

Finally, in What is AER and Why Is It Important to Savers and Investors? I revealed what AER is and why both savers and investors need to understand it. This was really a follow-up to my article last month about the importance of compounding to investors. The article reveals how more frequent compounding increases AER (annual equivalent rate) and includes the formula used to calculate this.

  • Also, from January this year I became a regular contributor to the new Over 60s Discounts website. You can read my latest article here: Who Cares for the Carers? This is about help available for unpaid carers in the UK, both financial and practical. I highly recommend registering at Over 60s Discounts, by the way – they list a growing range of discounts and bonuses for older people, including some that are unique to O60D.

One other thing is that this month I switched my Santander 123 Lite current account to a Santander Edge current account. I will try to find time to write a separate post about this soon. But briefly, my main reason was because having an Edge current account allows you to open an Edge savings account, which offers a market-leading 7% interest rate (AER) for amounts of up to £4,000 for one year (it then falls to 4.5% AER).

The Santander Edge account has slightly higher fees (£3 a month as opposed to £2) and the cashback on offer is slightly less. However, when I crunched the numbers, the value of having an Edge savings account easily outweighed this. Though I am fortunate in that I had £4,000 I could put into it immediately from another, lower-paying savings account. If I hadn’t had that, it wouldn’t have been worth switching to the Edge account.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

Note also that posts may include affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered, but it does help support me in publishing PAS and paying my bills. Thank you!

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The power of compounding and compound interest

How to Harness the Power of Compounding

In the world of investing, there’s a powerful force that has the potential to turn small contributions into substantial wealth over time.

This force is known as compounding, and when combined with the magic of compound interest, it becomes a powerful tool for building wealth and long-term financial success.

For savers and investors, harnessing the power of compounding can be the key to achieving your financial goals.

The Basics of Compounding

Compounding is a simple yet highly effective concept that involves earning interest on both your initial investment and the accumulated interest from previous periods. In other words, it’s the process of generating earnings on an asset’s reinvested earnings. The longer your money remains invested, the more significant the compounding effect becomes.

Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the point. If you invest £1,000 with an annual interest rate of 5%, you would earn £50 in the first year. In the second year, however, you wouldn’t just earn interest on your initial £1,000, you would also earn interest on the £50 you earned in the first year (at 5% that would be another £2.50). Over time, this compounding effect can result in exponential growth.

The Magic of Compound Interest

Compound interest takes compounding to the next level. Unlike simple interest, where you only earn interest on the principal amount, compound interest allows you to earn interest on both the principal and the previously earned interest. This compounding occurs at regular intervals, such as annually, quarterly, or monthly, depending on the investment vehicle. In general, the more frequently compounding occurs, the faster your money will grow.

Compound interest can make a significant difference to the growth of your wealth. Whether you’re investing in stocks, bonds, or other financial instruments, the power of compound interest allows your money to work harder for you, potentially accelerating your journey towards financial freedom.

The Importance of Time in Wealth Building

A critical factor in maximizing the benefits of compounding and compound interest is time. The earlier you start investing, the longer your money has to grow, and the more substantial the compounding effect becomes. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘time value of money’.

For example, let’s compare two imaginary investors, Jane and Bob. Jane starts investing £1,000 per year at the age of 25 and continues until she’s 35, contributing a total of £11,000. Bob, on the other hand, starts investing the same amount at 35 and continues till he’s 65, contributing a total of £31,000.

Assuming an annual return of 7%, Jane’s investments will grow significantly more than Bob’s due to the extra years of compounding, despite the fact she invested £20,000 less than Bob in total. In this scenario, Jane’s investment would grow to over £193,000 by the time she is 65, while Bob’s would reach around £148,000. The difference is striking and emphasizes the importance of an early start in wealth building.

Key Steps for Investors

  1. Start Early: The earlier you begin investing, the more time your money has to compound and grow. Even small amounts invested regularly can lead to substantial wealth over the long term.
  2. Reinvest Earnings: Instead of cashing out your investment earnings, reinvest them to take full advantage of compounding. Reinvesting dividends and interest compounds your returns, accelerating wealth accumulation.
  3. Diversify Your Portfolio: A diversified investment portfolio helps spread risk and enhances long-term returns. Consider a mix of stocks, bonds and other assets to optimize your investment strategy.
  4. Stay Disciplined: Consistency is key when it comes to compounding. Stick to your investment plan, contribute regularly, and avoid unnecessary withdrawals to maximize the long-term benefits.

Practical Examples

Although compounding is often discussed in regard to cash savings, as indicated above the principle applies very much with stock-market-type investments as well.

To take one example from my own experience, regular readers will be aware that I have some money in the P2P property investment platform Assetz Exchange [referral link]. This platform specializes in relatively low-risk social housing projects where rents are typically paid by charities and housing associations or the government (e.g. asylum seeker hostels). Here is a link to my original review of Assetz Exchange.

With all my AE investments, I receive pro rata rental distributions every month. My investment is quite modest so these aren’t huge amounts in themselves. But once they have added up to a reasonable sum (say £10 or more) I reinvest them in another AE project or increase my holding in an existing one. From the following month I then start receiving distributions from these investments as well. That means my investment and monthly returns are building steadily, month by month, through the power of compounding.

Obviously that’s just one example. But Assetz Exchange works particularly well for this, as the minimum investment per project is so low (as little as 80p in some cases). So even if you are only investing relatively small amounts like me, you can still harness the power of compounding to grow your money.

That’s just one possible approach, of course. Another would be to invest in dividend-paying shares and reinvest the dividends when they arrive in more such shares. This approach to investment was discussed a while ago on PAS in a guest post by Lewys Lew.

Whatever your chosen investment vehicle, reinvesting your interest, income or dividends will help you grow it faster using the power of compounding.

Final Thoughts

As I hope I’ve shown in this post, the power of compounding and compound interest is a wealth-building secret every investor should embrace.

By understanding these concepts and implementing a disciplined and long-term investment strategy, you can harness the power of compounding to achieve your financial goals.

Start early, stay committed, and let compounding work its magic on your road to financial success 🙂

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this post, please do leave them below.

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
How to start copy trading with etoro

How to Start Copy Trading With eToro

In my post today I’m focusing on the trading and investment platform eToro. I originally reviewed eToro in this post.

eToro is a global fintech company with its HQ in Israel. The company has registered offices in Cyprus, the UK, the US and Australia. It is a hugely popular platform with 25 million customers from over 140 countries across the world. They offer a range of share trading and investment services.

eToro is regulated and authorised in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That means if eToro were to go bust any cash deposits with them up to £85,000 would be protected. Of course, the FSCS doesn’t protect you if you lose money simply due to your investments performing poorly.

What is Copy Trading?

Copy trading is a very popular feature of eToro. As mentioned, it allows you to automatically copy the trades of established eToro investors and benefit from the profits they (hopefully) make.

eToro has hundreds, probably thousands, of approved ‘popular investors’ whose trades you can copy automatically on the platform. They each have a profile page where you can find out more about them and their investment strategy.

On a trader’s profile page you can see various stats about them, including how many copiers they have and how many people are following them. You can also check their profits over various timeframes (though of course this is no guarantee of how successful they will be in the future).

eToro operates in US Dollars, though that isn’t an issue for UK investors (see tips, below). There’s a minimum investment of $200 (around £165) for copy trading. However, many approved traders recommend a higher minimum than this. That’s because, when you sign up to copy a trader, eToro automatically duplicates all of that person’s trades in proportion to the size of your investment. 

eToro has a minimum investment size of $1 and if a trade would work out less than that pro rata it won’t be executed. It follows that traders whose strategies typically involve placing large numbers of relatively small trades generally recommend a higher minimum starting investment.

One of the biggest attractions of copy trading is that no charges are payable. The traders in question receive commission from eToro for the business they bring in for the company. So in effect you are getting privileged access to the skills and expertise of these people at no cost to yourself.

You are allowed to copy up to 100 different popular investors, though you can of course start with just one.

How to Copy a Trader

Before you can start copy trading, you will need to register for an account with eToro and deposit some funds with them. I talked about this in my original eToro review.

Once you have done this, you can check out popular investors on the platform by clicking on Discover in the left-hand menu of your dashboard when logged on, then clicking on CopyTrader near the top.

A new page will open showing the most popular copy traders and also those whose copier numbers are currently growing the fastest (probably due to good recent performance). Here’s a screen capture showing part of this page at the time of writing:

.Copy trading 1

You can also use the search facility to search for popular investors according to where they are based, what they invest in, and how much profit they have made within a certain period.

Once you’ve found an investor you want to copy, click on the green ‘Copy’ button on their profile page. A pop-up box such as the one below will then appear. Enter the total amount you want to invest at the top. 

Copy trading etoro 2

You also have to choose whether you want to copy all existing open positions as well as new ones. ‘Copy Open Trades’ is the default, and if you want to do this you should leave the box in question ticked. If you uncheck the box, only new trades opened after you start investing will be copied.

One drawback with copying all open positions is that you’ll be investing in these trades at the current price, whatever it is, instead of the price when the trader concerned opened their position. If the price has gone up since then, the profit potential may be less. On the other hand, if you opt only to copy new trades, it may be some time before your money is fully invested. There are pros and cons either way, but ultimately the longer you stay invested, the less difference this decision is likely to make.

Another choice to make here concerns the CopyTrader Stop Loss (CSL). If your copy value falls by that amount, the CSL will automatically terminate the copy relationship and return the remaining money to your eToro balance. You can set this figure anywhere between 5% and 95%. My advice is not to set it too high, as even a brief ‘wobble’ will then trigger the stop loss and crystallize your losses (see tips, below).

  • If any of the above sounds at all daunting, note that everyone on eToro also gets a $100,000 virtual portfolio to practise with. You can copy trade using this virtual money to see how the process works and what returns you make.

My Experience of Copy Trading

In June 2022 I invested $500 (then about £412) copying a Netherlands-based eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest). I chose him for various reasons, including his eToro profit record and the number of followers he had already.

On his profile page he came across as a likeable, straight-talking individual, as well as being an experienced and knowledgeable trader. He posted regular updates on his strategies and on investing generally. I also liked the fact that he always took the trouble to answer questions posted by his followers. His recommended minimum starting investment was $500.

Unsurprisingly in these volatile times, my investment has been up and down, but it is currently (after 18 months) about $125 (25%) in profit. All things considered I am very happy with that.

In due course I may top up my copy trading investment with Aukie2008. I may also diversify my investments, either by following another approved trader or perhaps via another themed smart portfolio. As regular PAS readers will know, a few months ago I invested $500 in the Oil Worldwide smart portfolio. As the screen capture below shows, this has done okay, though not as well as my copy trading investment. It’s still early days, though.

eToro port Dec 23

Top Tips for Copy Traders

Here are some top tips to help you make the most of the copy trading facility on eToro. These are based partly on my own experiences, but also on other comments and advice I have seen.

  1. As mentioned above, check the minimum recommended investment for any trader you are thinking of following and be sure to invest this amount of money or more.
  2. Note also the risk score assigned by eToro. Each approved trader is allocated a score between 1 and 10, with 1 representing very low risk and 10 the highest. Scores are based on the number, size and type of trading activities they engage in. If you are just starting out you might prefer to begin with someone relatively low risk (say 5 or lower) and work up from there as you gain experience on the platform.
  3. Other things being equal, when following a trader I recommend choosing ‘Copy Open Trades’. This will ensure all your money is put to work immediately. As mentioned above, it does mean some positions may not have the same profit potential as when they were opened, but the longer you remain invested, the less this will matter overall.
  4. Also, as mentioned earlier, don’t set your CSL too high. Doing so will mean even a slight wobble may trigger your stop loss and crystallize your losses. Personally I wouldn’t set this figure any higher than 70%, but it’s your decision, of course, based on your tolerance for risk.
  5. To keep currency conversion costs to a minimum, I strongly recommend opening a separate eToro Money account. This will allow you to deposit instantly to your eToro account without paying currency conversion fees or charges.
  6. Remember one key principle of successful investing is diversification. You should therefore consider copying a number of traders with different investment strategies rather than just one. In addition, eToro offers a range of other investment opportunities as well, including individual company shares and themed portfolios.
  7. Even though you’re following an approved trader, you should still monitor his/her results carefully and be prepared to switch if it seems they are losing their touch.
  8. I recommend reading all the updates on the trader’s profile page too. Not only do these provide valuable background about their strategies, you can also learn a lot about the thought processes of professional traders.
  9. Finally, don’t forget that everyone on eToro also gets a $100,000 virtual portfolio to practise with. You can use this to try out copy trading or any other type of investment without risking any real money.

Closing Thoughts

If you’re looking for an interesting (and somewhat unusual) investment opportunity, copy trading on eToro is certainly worth considering. 

In effect, your portfolio is managed on your behalf by an experienced professional trader, whose expertise you get access to at no direct cost to yourself. There are plenty of approved traders to choose from, and you can study their past performance and personal updates via their profile pages before picking one (or more) to follow.

For more information about eToro, please see my original eToro review. Alternatively you can sign up directly on the eToro website via this link [affiliate]. I will continue to update Pounds and Sense readers about the performance of my eToro investments in my monthly updates (such as this one).

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this article, please do post them below.

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

Note also that this post includes affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered.

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This is a fully updated version of my original (2022) blog post about copy trading on eToro.

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My Investments Update January 2024

My Investments Update – January 2024

Happy New Year! Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my December 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £22,292. Last month it stood at £21,282 so that is an increase of £1,010.

Nutmeg main port Jan 2024

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,501 compared with £3,351 a month ago, a rise of £150. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha Jan 2024

Finally, at the start of December I invested £500 in one of Nutmeg’s new thematic portfolios (discussed further below). This has now grown to £523, an increase of £23 or 4.6%. That would equate to an annual interest rate of just over 55%. Naturally I don’t expect that to happen in reality!

Nutmeg Thematic Jan 2024

December was obviously another very good month for my Nutmeg investments. Excluding my new thematic portfolio, their total net value rose by £1,160 or 4.71% month on month. That represents an increase of £2,872 (12.53%) since 1st January 2023. If you add in the increase in value of my thematic portfolio as well (£23), that gives a total increase of £2,895 since the start of the year.

This is obviously a much more positive outcome than appeared likely just a few months ago. It clearly demonstrates the importance of taking a long-time view where investing is concerned and not panicking when the inevitable downturns occur.

As regards thematic portfolios, I discuss these in more detail in my full Nutmeg review. Personally I opted for Resource Transformation. Nutmeg’s description of this portfolio is copied below:

As the global population has risen, so has our demand for energy and resources. In recent years, the way we use resources has also shifted to meet changing consumer demands and national policy shifts towards a lower carbon future.

This theme aims to provide exposure to companies that will participate in these changes and service our energy and material needs in the future. This includes the next generation of energy production, which includes renewables and non-renewables, the mining of metals and materials needed for mass-market electrification, and the treatment and transportation of water.

This appealed to me for various reasons. Clearly energy production will be crucial in the coming decades as the world attempts to transition away from fossil fuels. But I also like the fact that the portfolio includes both renewable and non-renewable energy providers. Realistically we are still going to require fossil fuels for many years, not least to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

The Resource Transformation portfolio offers plenty of diversification, with all investments in the form of ETFs (exchange traded funds). In addition, only a maximum of 20% of your investment will be in ETFs specific to the theme, with the other 80% more broadly diversified. Actual percentages depend on the risk level you choose. I went for the highest (10/10), so 20% of my investment will be in RT-themed ETFs. But if I’d opted for a lower risk level the proportion of my investment dedicated specifically to the theme would have been less (down to 10% for the lowest risk level, which is 5 for thematic portfolios).

If you are new to thematic investing and want to dip a toe in the water, it does seem to me that Nutmeg thematic investments could be a good, relatively low risk way of doing so, with plenty of diversification. Though of course there are never any guarantees where investing is concerned and you can always lose money when doing this.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,600 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have around £300 in my Kuflink cash account, after a couple of other loans were paid off with interest. I will probably withdraw this to help pay for a holiday in 2024 🙂

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to three years. Interest rates currently range from 7% for one year to 9.83% gross for a three-year term.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £155.08 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 7 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 1 is breaking even, and the remaining 19 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £42.61, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £112.47. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

  • As mentioned last time, I recently reinvested £40 of my rental income from Assetz Exchange in a house for asylum seekers in Sunderland. This property is being managed by Mears on behalf of the Home Office, so I think the chances of them going into default are pretty remote! My £40 investment in this property has already increased in value by 54p and I have received 22p in revenue. It all helps 🙂

The overall fall in capital value of my AE investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

Last year I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,224.88, an overall increase of $202.62 or 19.82%. In these turbulent times I am very happy with that.

Etoro Jan 24 main

eToro Jan 24 port

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.

  • eToro also recently introduced the eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in December on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is How to Make Money Teaching English Online. As I say in the article, this can be an excellent home-based money-making opportunity which offers great personal satisfaction as well. Prior teaching experience isn’t necessarily required, though if you have some it will certainly help.

Also in December Mouthy Money published my Christmas Gift Guide for Older People. Obviously Christmas has now passed. But if you are looking for gift ideas for older friends and relatives (maybe for birthdays or anniversaries) you may still find this a good source of inspiration 🙂

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I particularly like the ‘Deals of the Week’ feature compiled by Jordon Cox (‘Britain’s Coupon Kid’) which lists all the best current money-saving offers for savvy shoppers. Check out the latest edition here.

Mouthy Money are also currently running a competition to win one of five free copies of Freedom: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It by Robert Gardner (see Amazon image link below). Visit this page of the Mouthy Money website for further info and to enter.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in December. I won’t bother mentioning those that are out of date now, but the others are listed below.

I guess My Top 20 Posts of 2023 is self-explanatory. The posts are chosen based on comments, page-views and social media shares. They are in no particular order and I excluded any that were no longer relevant. I hope you may enjoy revisiting these posts, or seeing them for the first time if you are new to PAS.

The other post was Take The Penny Challenge to Save £667.95 by This Time Next Year! This post sets out a clever, relatively painless way to save up a useful sum by the end of 2024. Do check it out!

On other matters, the opportunity to get a free share worth up to £100 with Trading 212 has reopened. If you haven’t done this before, you can get a free share worth up to £100. You just have to sign up on the website and deposit a minimum of £1 into your account.  This offer is running till 27 January 2024. See Get a Free Share Worth up to £100 with Trading 212 for more info.

You can also still Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood. This DIY wealth-building app is aimed especially at people new to stock market investing. The minimum investment to qualify for the free share offer is £50 – but on the plus side, they now guarantee your free ETF share will be worth at least £10.

I wanted to mention as well that I am still using and getting good results from the cashback app JamDoughnut. You can see my review of JamDoughnut here, along with a referral code that will get you a £2 bonus when you sign up. To be honest I’m a bit surprised more PAS readers haven’t taken advantage of this opportunity. Not only can you get discounts of up to 20% using the app, they also hold regular contests and promotions offering additional bonuses and discounts.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today, so I will close by wishing you a very happy and prosperous new year. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
My Investments Update December 2023

My Investments Update – December 2023

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my November 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll start as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £21,282. Last month it stood at £20,214 so that is a welcome increase of £1,068.

Nutmeg main port Dec 2023

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,351 compared with £3,183 a month ago, a rise of £168. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha pot Dec 2023

November was obviously a good month for my Nutmeg investments after a disappointing previous three months. Their total net value rose by £1,236 or 5.28% month on month – a rise of £1,712 (7.47%) since 1st January 2023. This has obviously been another roller-coaster year, but as things stand I think that’s a pretty decent annual return. I am hoping the trend will continue with the traditional Santa Rally in December!

Santa sleigh

Of course, as I always have to say, investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

As you may know, I recently revised and updated my full Nutmeg review. This was mainly to incorporate details of their new thematic investment styles, but I took the opportunity to update some other information and performance stats as well.

As it says in the updated review, the new thematic style provides a globally diversified, risk adjusted portfolio with a tilt (up to 20% of equity exposure) towards your chosen theme. The majority of the portfolio will be actively managed by Nutmeg’s investment team, whilst the ’tilted’ part of the portfolio will be made up of ETFs that their investment team believes will deliver the best returns from the trend in question (to be reviewed annually).

Currently three themes are available, these being Technical Innovation, Resource Transformation and Evolving Consumer. Nutmeg thematic portfolios are only available on Risk Level 5 or above. There’s a minimum investment of £100 for Junior ISAs and Lifetime ISAs or £500 for stocks and shares ISAs and pensions. There is a 0.75% management fee. For more details about what each of the themes comprise, check out the Nutmeg website.

I like the new thematic styles on Nutmeg and have just invested a modest amount in one myself (I opted for Resource Transformation). I will talk more about this in my next monthly update in January, and will obviously keep PAS readers informed as to how it fares.

  • Nutmeg’s thematic styles are similar in concept to the so-called smart portfolios on eToro, which I discussed in this recent blog post. They appear to be more broadly diversified, however, so may be a good choice for those who are new to thematic investing and want to dip a cautious toe in the water first.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £2,100 invested with them in 12 different projects paying interest rates typically around 7%.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

As mentioned last time, there is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean the option to ‘test the water’ with a small first investment has been removed. It will also make it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to three years. Interest rates currently range from 7% for one year to 9.83% gross for a three-year term.

As you may gather, you can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £149.50 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 6 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 3 are breaking even, and the remaining 18 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £42.37, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £107.13. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

  • As a matter of interest, I recently reinvested £40 of my rental income from Assetz Exchange in a house for asylum seekers in Sunderland. This property is being managed by Mears on behalf of the Home Office, so I think the chances of them going into default are pretty remote!

The fall in capital value of my AE investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

Last year I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,203.02, an overall increase of $180.76 or 17.68%. In these turbulent times I am very happy with that.

eToro Account Dec 2023

eToro port Dec 23

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.

  • eToro also recently introduced the eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had another article published in November on the excellent Mouthy Money website. This explains how you may be able to Write and Publish Kindle e-Books for Profit. This is something I have done myself in the past, and when I was researching this article I was impressed to discover it’s easier than ever now. It’s a competitive field, but definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for an extra string to your sideline-earning bow.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I particularly like the ‘Deals of the Week’ feature compiled by Jordon Cox (‘Britain’s Coupon Kid’) which lists all the best current money-saving offers for savvy shoppers. Check out the latest edition here 🙂

You might also like to know that Mouthy Money are currently running a competition to win one of five free copies of Freedom: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It by Robert Gardner (see Amazon image link below). Visit this page of the Mouthy Money website for further info and to enter.

I also published various posts on Pounds and Sense in October. I won’t bother to mention those that are out of date now, but the rest are listed below.

Key Things to Consider When Making a Gift or Loan to Married Children was an eye-opening guest post by Joanna Toloczko, a partner, family law solicitor and mediator at UK law firm RWK Goodman. Joanna’s article discusses what can become a major issue for parents when making gifts or loans to their married children. Specifically, it looks at what you can do to ensure that your wishes are respected should the worst happen and the marriage fails.

I also published (or more accurately republished) How to Make More Money From National Grid Powersaving Events. For the second winter in a row some energy companies are offering incentives to customers to reduce their electricity use during periods of peak demand, with payments made to those who succeed in doing this. In this article I explained how these schemes work and what you can do to maximize your earnings from them.

Also in November I published an article about a survey from HSBC regarding how British people choose life insurance. There were some interesting findings in this, including the growing numbers of people deciding against getting life insurance due to the cost-of-living crisis. As I note in this article, this could sadly prove to be a false economy.

Next up, I published a short post about an important (in my view) change to the tax-free ISA rules in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. This is a rule change I warmly welcome and have in fact been advocating on PAS (and elsewhere) for some time.

Finally, I published a fully updated post on the subject What Are the Best Video Calling Tools for Older People? This is particularly relevant in the run-up to Christmas. Video calling can provide an invaluable means for older people (and others) to keep in touch with far-flung friends and family. In this post I set out a wide range of options you can use.

On other matters, the opportunity to get a free share worth up to £100 with Trading 212 has now closed, but you can still Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood. This DIY wealth-building app is aimed especially at people new to stock market investing. The minimum investment to qualify for the free share offer has been raised from £20 to £50 – but on the plus side, they now guarantee your free ETF share will be worth at least £10. What’s more, for the next month Wealthyhood say they will plant a tree for every new account opened 🏝

I did just want to mention as well that I am still using and getting good results from the cashback app JamDoughnut. You can see my review of JamDoughnut here, along with a referral code that will get you a £2 bonus when you sign up. To be honest I’m a bit surprised more PAS readers haven’t taken advantage of this opportunity. Not only can you get discounts of up to 20% using the app, they also hold regular contests and promotions offering additional bonuses and discounts.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter (or X as we have to learn to call it now). Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. Do hope you are keeping safe and warm in the current Arctic spell. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:
Investments Update November 2023

My Investments Update – November 2023

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my October 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll start as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £20,214. Last month it stood at £20,945 so that is a fall of £731.

Nutmeg main port Nov 23

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,183 compared with £3,295 a month ago, a fall of £112. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha pot Nov 2023

The net value of all my Nutmeg investments has fallen this month by £843 or 3.47% month on month. That’s obviously disappointing, but both pots are still up on where they were at the start of the year. Their total value has risen by £476 (2.08%) since 1st January 2023. I’m not saying that’s anything to cheer about, but due to world events nearly all stock market investments have taken a hit in the last few weeks, and Nutmeg is no exception.

As I always say, investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

As you may know, I recently revised and updated my full Nutmeg review. This was mainly to incorporate details of their new thematic investment option, but I took the opportunity to update some other information and performance stats as well.

As it says in the updated review, the new thematic style provides a globally diversified, risk adjusted portfolio with a tilt (up to 20% of equity exposure) towards your chosen theme. The majority of the portfolio will be actively managed by Nutmeg’s investment team, whilst the ’tilted’ part of the portfolio will be made up of ETFs that their investment team believes will deliver the best returns from the trend in question (to be reviewed annually).

Currently three themes are available, these being Technical Innovation, Resource Transformation and Evolving Consumer. For more details about what each of these comprises, check out the Nutmeg website.

Nutmeg thematic portfolios are only available on Risk Level 5 or above. There’s a minimum investment of £100 for Junior ISAs and Lifetime ISAs or £500 for stocks and shares ISAs and pensions. There is a 0.75% management fee.

I do quite like the new thematic styles on Nutmeg and may well be investing in one myself. They are similar in concept to the so-called smart portfolios on eToro, which I discussed in this recent blog post. Nutmeg’s thematic styles appear to be more broadly diversified, however, so may be a good choice for those who are new to thematic investing and want to dip a cautious toe in the water first.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,400 invested with them in 12 different projects paying interest rates typically around 7%. I also have just over £600 in my cash account after several loans were recently repaid.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

As mentioned last time, Kuflink recently changed their terms and conditions. There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500.

Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean the option to ‘test the water’ with a small first investment has been removed. It will also make it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to three years. The rates currently on offer are shown in the graphic below.

Kuflink Auto IFISA

As you may gather, you can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my AE portfolio has generated a respectable £145.22 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 6 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 2 are breaking even, and the remaining 16 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £37.80, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £107.42. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

Obviously the fall in capital value of my AE investments is disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the most recent price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I have chosen to reinvest in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

My investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

Last year I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).

In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.

As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,151.38, an overall increase of $129.12 or 12.63%. in these turbulent times I am happy enough with that.

eToro portfolio 1

eToro portfolio 2

Incidentally, if you’re wondering what the bottom item in the list is (PRX.NV), it’s a partial share in Dutch internet company Prosus NV. I don’t honestly know where this has come from – it’s not something I deliberately bought. I assume it may be some sort of bonus from eToro, or maybe it’s connected with my copy trading account with Dutch investor Mike Moest. But I’m happy to have it in my portfolio, obviously!

You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment.

  • eToro also recently introduced the eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in October on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first was How to Make Money From Retail Deal Arbitrage. This is a relatively under-used approach to online auction trading (though you don’t necessarily have to use online auctions at all). It normally proceeds one item at a time, so you don’t need large amounts of space (or capital) for stock. You can ramp it up to multiple items later if you like, though.

I also wrote Could You Make Money as a Freelance Proofreader and Editor. This can be a great sideline, or even a full-time business, for anyone who enjoys working with words. No special tools or equipment are required, so it’s quick, cheap and easy to get started. It’s reasonably paid, and you can work from home at hours to suit yourself. It’s also suitable for older people and people with disabilities (with the one proviso that it becomes harder if – as in my own case – your eyesight isn’t as good as it once was).

I also updated my article published last month titled Will a Heat Pump Save You Money? This is obviously a hot topic and one where policy is constantly changing. I thought I should update it with the latest information about government bribes – sorry, incentives – to get one. Do take a look if you haven’t already!

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I particularly like the ‘Deals of the Week’ feature compiled by Jordon Cox (‘Britain’s Coupon Kid’) which lists all the best current money-saving offers for savvy shoppers. Check out the latest edition here 🙂

I am also a fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her articles – such as this one on Frugal Swaps to Save You Money – are always worth a read. You can see all her articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published various posts on Pounds and Sense in October. I won’t bother to mention those that are out of date now, but the rest are listed below.

Exploring the Potential of Investing in Alternative Rental Properties was a guest post by my colleague Jackie Edwards. Jackie is a semi-retired property developer and restorer. In her article she presents the case for businesses and individuals to invest in rental properties for the growing over-50s market. At the end of the article I also suggest an alternative method for those whose pockets may not be as deep to invest in this field.

I also republished my post about the opportunity to Get a Free Share Worth up to £100 with Trading 212. This reopened after closing briefly. It is now available till 27 November 2023.

I also published Will You Get the Warm Home Discount? The 2023/24 WHD scheme opened in October. As last year, those eligible will receive a £150 discount off their energy bills. Most people no longer have to apply for WHD and should receive it automatically. Read the article to learn more, along with other support towards the cost of your energy bills that you may also qualify for.

Finally, I published a short post about Over 60s Discounts, a new website dedicated to helping older people save money. It’s free to sign up, and there are loads of savings, discounts and concessions on offer. Read my blog post for more info, and check out the website yourself!

On other matters, the opportunity to Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood is still open. This DIY wealth-building app is aimed especially at people new to stock market investing. The minimum investment to qualify for the free share offer was raised recently from £20 to £50 – but on the plus side, they now guarantee that your free ETF share will be worth at least £10. What’s more, for the next two months Wealthyhood say they will plant a tree for every new account opened, so what’s not to like 🙂 🏝

Another thing that happened in October is that I finally got some of my money back from the Bricklane property REIT. I invested several thousand pounds in this a few years ago. At first all went well, but then came the Grenfell Tower tragedy followed by the cladding scandal.

Bricklane (or more precisely investors such as me) owned a number of properties which required (expensive) remedial work. Bricklane didn’t go into liquidation, but they felt they had no option but to sell their entire property portfolio and distribute whatever funds were generated (after all costs had been covered) to investors.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, investors in the Bricklane London fund (including me) should all now have been repaid. I got about £880 of my £1,000 investment back, which I suppose isn’t too bad considering. The Bricklane Regional Capitals fund, in which I also invested, is taking a bit longer to wind up, and I am not expecting to see any return from this until some time next year.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter (or X as we have to learn to call it now). Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 🙂

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

Note also that posts may include affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered, but it does help support me in publishing PAS and paying my bills. Thank you!

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