I was a little distracted last month and this continued to be the case this month. With various social outings, the weeks have just gone by in a haze.
Work has continued to be chaotic and also very weird, as my boss has now been laid off and I have a new boss, someone I had a dotted line report to previously. Whilst I get on with my interim boss, I miss my old boss already!
On a personal front, I actually secured a date the old fashioned way! That is, there wasn’t a Tinder-swipe or online dating profile in sight! I got dancing with someone at my friend’s wedding, we swapped numbers, we went out on a date. Ok, so there was to be no 2nd date (sorry, he had too many young children to support!) but hey, it’s good to see that old-school ways can still work in today’s dating environment! 😉
Anyway, how do things look on the numbers front?
So I managed a savings rate of 40.7%, not quite as good as last month but not bad considering the social events.
My average savings rate continues its downward trend  –  it’s now at 46%. I accept that it’ll be impossible for me to achieve my end of year target of 50% – even 45% might be a stretch with the festive season coming up. I’ll keep going anyway.
This month’s income was boosted by £50 from rent received and £39.97 from TopCashback*.
I also chucked some more of my matched betting profits into some property crowdfunding via Property Moose. The website has now introduced a secondary market so it is now possible to sell or buy ‘shares’ if you wish, although of course, if selling, these need to be purchased by other members of Property Moose.
Future FundÂ
The falling sterling and buoyant markets continue to be good for my portfolio, which now stands at £86,509, a gain of 4.3% from last month.
Dividends and Other Income
Dividends received this month (which will be reinvested):
A nice sum of £156.81 in dividends hit my accounts, my second highest income received ever!  Last October, I only received £24.63.
Anyway, this means that with two months to go, I’ve surpassed one of my goals, which was to receive £720 in dividend income – YAY! 🙂
Current total stands at £792.92 and it’s possible that I may reach £1000 by the end of the year – wow, I’ll be sooooo chuffed if that happens!
Average dividend income so far is £79 per month, average over 12 months now at £66.
Anyway, here’s my dividend income progress:
Shares and Investment Trusts
From the sale of three of my Monkey Stocks, I topped up on my last remaining Monkey Stock, Temple Bar IT. Â I also added to my holding of Brunner IT.
Current portfolio can be found here.
Matched Betting (MB)
What should have been just a low earning month for me turned out to be a disastrous one.  It was going to be low earning because I had social stuff on over three weekends (friend’s wedding,  birthday outing and random social outing), so not a lot of time for MB.
Hoping to make up for the lost weekends (for some reason, I felt a bit ‘anxious’ that I was missing out on profits), I upped my MB, including setting up a load of accumulators.
Alas, it appeared that I hadn’t really learnt my lesson about not MB when hungover tired and I made a couple of BIG careless mistakes which ended up costing me over £200 in profit! Whilst the loss didn’t technically leave me out of pocket (since I’m not gambling), it was a huge dent in my profits. What a muppet!
The final week/weekend of the month was spent calmly just doing my usual thing even though I was sorely tempted to risk a bit more to try to win my profits back.
So, I could just dwell on the bad and feel sorry for myself that I only made £109 (my lowest so far) in profit or I could celebrate the fact that despite the almighty cock up, I still made a profit – I’ll go for the latter, woo hoo and phew!
I’ve not quite hit the next milestone yet, my total profits being a shade under £3000 since I started MB eight months ago.
It’s just as well that I do not actually rely on my MB funds to cover expenses etc otherwise I’d be very very upset about the loss.
Anyway, the matched betting guide I subscribe to is OddsMonkey*.  It’s a great website for beginners and seasoned matched bettors alike – for beginners, there are plenty of tutorials which provide you with step-by-step guides on how to make profits and to work through special offers. (NB – None of the guides tell you not to MB after a night of drinking copious amounts of alcohol so perhaps learn from my mistakes here!)  For the more experienced, the tools offered by OddsMonkey are fantastic, including the Each Way Matcher, Dutch Finder and Acca Matcher, all of which I use. Anyway, you can join for free to try it out.
Ooh, I just realised that this month’s Dividend Income was greater than Matched Betting Profit! A first!
Non-Financial Goals Update
Here’s how things look on the goals front in brief:
One goal down, 4 to go.
Of these, I think I’m more likely to achieve the reading ones than the others!
I could chuck cash into my emergency fund just to achieve my goal by the end of the year but I feel like I should be investing my cash first. As I mentioned in an earlier post,  I intend to top up the fund with a bit of my redundancy money in any case but that will be in the new year.
So, Winter is Coming Here – I’ve already had to scrape ice from my windscreen in the mornings – brrrr!
Hope you all had a great October!
[*referral link]
Loving the dividend income this month, and that it was more than your MB income. One is truly passive income and the other is most certainly not! (Although still a great source of extra income if you have the time).
I don’t think I’d ever dare doing some complicated acca bets whilst hungover, I can barely work out the straight forward back and lay ones when my brain is in a state and constantly panic that I’ve messed it up haha. Don’t think I’ve done any big ones so far touch wood though.
Shame about your date’s non suitability but glad to hear the old fashioned methods can still work from time to time 🙂
Hey TFS
Yep, true about the dividends v MB – so glad that the divis roll in regardless and take no effort whatsoever!
The acca bets are fine as long as you’re organised. I do the back and lay ones and these are only worth doing if you have time and your social life is a little quiet! In this digital age, I’m sure it’ll make you laugh that I put post-it notes up to remind me of when I’m scheduled to lay some legs of my accas haha!
Hi Weenie,
Congratulations on a stonking dividend income month – I can bet that put a huge grin on your face when you saw it, they all add up 🙂 I dont know if the High Yield always pays out in October, I was expecting it in September, but it helped in my October numbers (I smashed all other Octobers as one of my gamble shares had doubled its payout).
I would take it as it was great to get a profit in matched betting regardless – you *made* money so thats the main thing 🙂
Keep up the good work!
London Rob
Hey London Rob
Yes, it certainly did put a big smile on my face! I too was expecting the High Yield to pay out in Sept but I guess it doesn’t really matter when it pays out, as long as it does! Well done on your gamble shares – I look forward to reading more about those in your ‘forthcoming’ blog 😉
Agree, I made some money, even though it was not as much as usual but better than nowt!
Hi Weenie,
Great to see your dividends so high for the month. Are you still investing in shares for dividend growth investing, or are you focussing on other investments for now? Just curious whether your dividend income figures are likely to keep growing year on year.
Nice work re securing the old fashioned date! Dating was something I struggled horribly with when I was single. Particularly trying to meet people from online sites/apps. I think meeting people the old fashioned way, when it’s possible, is the nicest way.
Hope you have a great November.
OR
Hi OR
My dividend income is likely to continue to grow year on year, as I continue to invest. You could say that I am focusing a little more on dividend growth investing at the moment (just to build up some momentum…the snowball as it were!) but that’s not to say I’ve abandoned my main strategy of investing in my index tracker funds. Switching some of my funds into ETFs has added to the dividend income received but ultimately, I don’t want to just rely on the income from ETFs as at some point, I may have to sell these to top up my income.
When I was online dating, I realised that you have to date/kiss a lot of frogs before you find someone who’s been in sniffing distance of a prince! Meeting people the old fashioned way is the nicest way I think but is actually harder these days. Maybe I need to find another wedding to go to haha!
Thanks and hope you have a great November too.
Have you compared the performance/dividends of the active bit of your investments against the passive investment?? It would be interesting to see if all the effort into researching and making those choices are making a difference. Perhaps it helps you get more involved and know more about the different industries and markets as time goes by or just a fun thing to do.
I am interested in the MB and propertymoose you are dabbing in as well. Seems like more research for me to do!
Hi FIREplanter
The answer to your question is no, I haven’t.
At a guess, I would say that the passive bits are probably doing BETTER than the active bits! I can’t say that all my active choices have been good (a few have been bad!) yet I can’t say that any of the passive choices have been bad (and many have been good).
Why do active investing at all? Not to beat the market or because I think I know better (as if!) – I do it just to make things interesting really and because I have time on my hands. I know investing should be boring but being interested is part of the incentive to keep me going.
At some point, it’s possible I’ll not want to tinker around with spreadsheets and not have the time to monitor my investments. If that’s the case, then I will look to simplify/switch my portfolio into more passive investments.
All the best with MB and Property Moose – let me know if you have any questions.
Hi Weenie
Great to see the dividend income growing. If you do manage to hit £1k that will be a massive milestone.
Best Wishes
FI UK
Hey FI UK
Hope you’re ok and yes, I shall be very happy to hit that £1k!
Great news on the dividend income! Sorry to hear about the £200 MB loss but as you say, not an actual loss so that’s good. I have to say, I absolutely hate MBing…it’s where tedium and terror meet for me
Hi Ellie
Yes, I just have to be glad that the £200 MB loss was just on paper and not a hit on my pocket or bank balance.
I think I understand what you’re saying about hating MBing – whilst I still enjoy it as a hobby (though I wasn’t enjoying it when I was £200 down!), I’m actually looking forward to taking a break from it. Let’s see how much I can make this month and next.
That’s a nice savings rate for the year – don’t beat yourself up :-). I have never heard of matched betting, but it sounds just like gambling to me. I’m kinda afraid to go check it out.
Also, nice work on continuing to build that dividend income!
Hi MoneyAhoy
Thanks! Matched betting sounds like gambling but it isn’t. I used to gamble a lot and the big difference is that with matched betting, I’m making a profit! Gambling only led to losses!
Yes, continuing to build that dividend income is something I want to really work on for some truly passive income!