Another month that went by in a bit of a blur – took some days off to spend time with the family, which coincided with the few ‘heatwave’ days that we had up here – lovely.
So I managed a savings rate of 41.1%, a little better than last month. Some more entertainment/outing costs with the family, some of which won’t manifest themselves until August, so those will eat into my savings rate next month.
My average savings rate has continued to drop –  it’s now at 48.2%. Still pretty good  I guess but looking like it’s on a downward spiral at the moment!
This month’s income was boosted by £95 from rent received and a £10  win from the British Red Cross charity lottery. I also channelled another £290 of matched betting profits into Property Moose.
Future FundÂ
The markets continue to be kind to my portfolio, which now stands at £77,740.29, a gain of over 7% from last month.
Dividends and Other Income
Dividends received this month (which will be reinvested):
After last month’s big dividend payout, we’re back to normal with a more average sum of £40.36.  Still, this compares favourably with last July’s £22.26.
Total dividends received this year now stand at £476.19, so I am still on track to achieving my yearly target of £720. Average dividend income so far is £68.03 per month, average over 12 months now at £39.68.
Instead of receiving interest from my P2P investments, I suffered a small default (with Funding Circle), so ended up down by -£5.26 compared to last month.
Shares and Investment Trusts
I made a new investment in Brunner Investment Trust, which seemed to still have a decent discount in the wake of Brexit.
Current portfolio can be found here.
Matched Betting
Not a lot on the matched betting front, with the end of Euro 2016 and Wimbledon. IÂ dabbled a bit on the horse racing, a bit on the golf, that’s pretty much it. With family around, I didn’t spend much time looking for opportunities.
This month nearly turned out to be my lowest month so far, until on a whim, I decided to do a casino/slots offer (I very rarely do these) and ended up winning £119.70!
I made £388 profit this month, making my total earned from matched betting £1945* since I started in March, so a monthly average of £389. I’ll keep an eye out for these types of offers but, well, I’m just more wary of casino offers in general.
Not Risk Free
Matched betting is sometimes described as risk free – compared to gambling, it could be considered as such but there are risks and one of them is that bookies (in particular smaller and new ones) can go belly up and you can lose your money.
The gambling website Win Cash Live has gone into administration. I had £56 in my account and it’s unlikely that I will ever see that money again. I should have withdrawn all the money out after some recent wins but I thought I’d keep some in there to put on future bets.
Looking over my records, I made a total of £108 profit from Win Cash Live, but this recent loss still sucks.
From now on, I’m going to try and just keep money in the accounts of the more established/bigger bookmakers and withdraw from the small ones. I’ll also think twice about signing up for new accounts with unknown/unheard of gambling websites. I should do ok just from reload offers on existing accounts.
Anyway, I can’t wait for the football season to kick off in a week’s time – not just so I can put in some decent matched betting but I miss watching football. The Olympics in the meantime might keep me entertained as a spectator – go Team GB!
Non-Financial Goals Update
Here’s how things look on the goals front in brief:
Am hoping that I don’t have to dip into my emergency funds for more ‘family expenses’ but otherwise, it’s looking good.
I managed to do a double-whammy across two goals, ie I read a financial related book I borrowed from the library – I’ll do a bit of a review at some point.
Hope you all enjoyed a great and glorious July!
Unlucky on the wincashlive situation but I guess the luck balanced out with the casino win! What offer was that with out of interest? I’ve had pretty good success with the 888 casino ones but none others so far (although not done many).
I’m also enjoying the Olympics (especially as they have put golf in for the first time in over 100 years!) and looking forward to the footy season… well which is now tomorrow! 🙂
I looked at all the so called brilliant premier league offers out there and they all look a bit pants if you ask me. £2 free bet every time your top goalscorer bet scores a goal, can’t be bothered with that!!! :OD
Bet365 have offered some decent % deposit bonuses though so doing them. They are awesome.
It was a Hills £5 risk free spin offer, so I’ll look out for those kinds of offers again.
Yes, am enjoying the Olympics, including the new events like golf and rugby sevens.
Hear what you’re saying about the football offers – we need more of those Bet365 offers! Most others appear to have gone down the Euro 2016 route of very small wins, although there are a couple who are doing £5 per goal. I’ll do a couple of them to see how it goes, will also check out some of the acca deals too. Here’s to a great season for both of us!
Have recently received my £50 i had stuck in WinCashLive back from my bank. I made a VISA chargeback claim, was very simple.. just a phone call and 1 singled-sided form to complete. If you paid via a VISA debit card you should contact your bank to reclaim the money.
Cheers for that piece of advice Guy – I’ll have a look through my debit card statement and will give the bank a call (yes, it was a Visa Debit card)