Well, it looked like summer was well and truly over up here and it was time to dig out the warmer clothes already, but then it turned all sunny again! I don’t know what to wear any more!
Life is more or less back to normal – the family have all gone home so the house is all quiet again.
Work has been busy, despite many people being off for the summer holidays – one week, I’m one of the employees of the month (yay!), the next, they’re asking me to work on the bank holiday (I’ll get the day back in lieu).
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence…?
Anyway, I had several social outings this month so how did that affect my savings in August?
I saved 35.8%, which sees my average savings rate going down to 44.9%. Still a decent savings rate in the scheme of things but not great for the target I’ve set myself!
The above savings includes top ups from £148 matched betting profits (from last month), £18.06 from TopCashback* and £137.42 affiliate income from OddsMonkey (thank you to all who signed up via my links!).
Shares and Investment Trusts
No new investments, I just topped up existing ones.
Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.
(Entire portfolio here)
Future Fund
I didn’t really notice what the markets were doing so all I can say is that with extra capital and reinvested dividends, my Future Fund now stands at £149,204.30, still steadily making progress towards my next big milestone.
Dividends and Other Income
Dividends received this month:
After last month’s record-breaking income, I received a more down to earth amount of £248.25. Total dividends this year now stands at £2,058.40, so I’m two-thirds of the way to reaching my goal. All dividends are reinvested, bundled up with whatever extra capital I invest monthly.
So here’s how things look on the main dividend income graph:
Matched Betting (MB)
With great relief, the domestic football season started this month, so plenty of new offers and of course, football accumulators (accas) to get stuck into. I ended last season on a negative after a bad run on the accas so have decided to cap my bets on these to £10 to keep the variance down.
Anyway, it was a great month and I managed to get £894, my second highest month in profits since I started MB. For those interested, the profit ratio of actual MB (football and horses only), no-lay accas and no-lay EW betting was 18/18/64.
People often ask me how much time I spend on my MB as they think it’s only worth them doing if they get what they deem to be a decent hourly rate.
I don’t tend to log my hours because I think an hourly rate is what you consider when you’re doing a job and MB is a hobby which I do in my free time by choice. Anyway, I thought I’d make a note of my time spent on MB this month.
It took me just over 22 hours to earn the £894 so that’s just over £40/hour. This is a lot more than what I earn in my salaried job!
In the same month, I also spent time on some other hobbies, for which I earned an hourly rate of £zero/hour:
- over 60 hours reading/commenting on blogs and tweets
- around 40 hours watching TV
- around 28 hours reading (books)
Of course, as you can gather from my monthly updates, my usual profits aren’t anywhere near what I’ve earned in August, but as none of my other hobbies (which I spend more time on) earn any income whatsoever, for me, it’s worth my spending a bit of spare time on MB.
Total MB profits so far this year stand at £2,643, still well behind on my target but if I can score a decent average over the last few months of the year, I should be there or thereabouts.
As mentioned before, the matched betting guide I subscribe to is OddsMonkey*, which is great for beginners and experienced matched bettors alike with quality tools such as the Oddsmatcher, Each Way Matcher, Extra Place Matcher, Dutch Finder, Racing Matcher and Acca Matcher. There are step by step guides and also a friendly forum for you to ask questions and get help on any of the offers.
Matched betting isn’t for everyone but you won’t know if you don’t try! Anyway, check out (with no obligations) the free trial*.
Goals Update
Here’s how things look right now:
Yes, finally got one non-fiction book in the bag – a couple of fiction novels and then I hope to move onto the next one which should be an easier read!
Might struggle with the library books goal now – have books lying around the house which I was planning to read this year. Think more time reading books, less time reading blogs is in order, haha!
Anyway, hope you all had a great August!
[*referral/affiliate link]
Hi Weenie, great job on the Matched Betting – that does it, I’m going to get back to it for sure this month. It was in this very blog that I first heard of it so all credit to you for both introducing me and re-motivating me – thanks
Cheers FT9T5
With the start of the football season, it’s probably the best time to start! Go for it and good luck!
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H Weenie -looks like another good month.
And that matched betting income is fairly spectacular – what a great hobby, that pays you tax free.
And glad you’ve got the house back to yourself again and all calm is restored.
Hey Ms Zi You
I know, I forgot to mention the tax free bit, which is of course another added bonus!
Hi Weenie,
Congrats on another good solid month – although below your targeted 50% savings rate that is still one heck of a good savings rate!
The dividend graph is also coming on nicely, that has to give a nice warm fuzzy feeling looking back over the years and seeing the increases going?
Really appreciate you logging the hours on the MB side of things – that is something I think I need to start looking into, even if I can only earn £100 a month extra, it could pay for a few bits extra!
Cheers,
FiL
Hi FiL
Thanks. I know it’s still a good savings rate but you know, just not to my own expectations!
Yes, it’s great seeing that dividend graph going up. Hopefully the last few months will bring in enough to bag my target.
Glad that my logging my MB hours were useful to you. When you first start out, of course, you’re likely to take more time/longer, but as you get used to the tools, you’ll be a lot quicker, so less time. £100 a month is certainly doable!
If you ever need a hand getting started, give me a shout and I’ll gladly help out.
Great job on the matched betting! I’ve often wondered how much time is needed to spend on MB each month, so thanks for breaking it down. £40/hour sounds like its well worth the time and effort. I’ll be starting on it from late December, so I hope there are some good opportunities then.
Hi Mindy
Note that I won’t always earn £40/hour – this was a particularly good month! Assuming I spend the same amount of time last month, then the rate drops down to around £13/hour, not so great but as I said, it’s a hobby, not a job.
All the best with starting later in the year – as with @FiL, if you need a hand, drop me a note.
Did I read that right, 64% of your MBing income is from AP EWS? That’s pretty awesome if so! What stakes and parameters are you using for it?
Hi Guy
Yes, that’s right. My max bets are £4/EW (I can’t stomach the huge variances like TFS does!), min odds 6.0, 95% rating, <100% arb rating. I use 'dynamic stakes', ie lower stakes for higher odds. I use mostly gubbed accounts where I'm not severely stake restricted. Some of them still give me BOG so definitely worth milking them.
Hello Weenie. Nice blog. In what way were your accounts gubbed?
Thanks for sharing all this inspiring information.
Hi Bernie
The gubbed accounts I’m using are the ones where I can’t take part in any offers, such any offer paying free bets or bet club offers. As mentioned above, the stakes aren’t severely restricted and a couple offer best guaranteed odds still.
Thanks for the fast response. I hope you have a winning weekend!
I’ve just started Matched Betting, encouraged by your results and through your links – massive thanks! I’ve earned £96 so far for a couple of hours work/learning, and as I’ve just retired I view it as a free money making hobby. Its a great side hustle – I can pick it up or put it down to suit myself (and holidays), and being entirely tax free it doesn’t affect your tax situation or benefits.
I did make a few mistakes, lost about £3 of potential profit, but that only served to make me more determined to grasp it.
My last free bet offer took less than 10 minutes to make £8.23, and they just keep coming 🙂
Hi KenD
I’m glad that my writing about my experiences persuaded you to enjoy some matched betting success of your own!
I know – what a great hobby which you can just pick up or drop whenever you like, spend as little time or as much time as you wish. I hope I’ll still be able to matched bet when I retire – the tax free situation is ideal as it won’t affect any allowances or benefits.
I’ve been matched betting for over 2.5 years and I still make mistakes, including backing/laying the wrong horse (with similar names), forgetting to lay, or laying the wrong amount! What I have to try to remember is that I’m not losing my own money, I’m losing ‘potential profit’ so best thing to so is just move on to try to make other profits!
Sounds to me that you have got the hang of things – all the very best and may the odds be in your favour! 🙂
Another good month weenie, kudos!
Re: no lay EW, I started using this technique on 3rd August and have now made 38 wagers, enough for the results to have some small statistical significance (?). Starting with a nominal £200 bankroll as a ‘proof of concept’, my results are
Lose: 28 wagers, -£155
Place: 7 wagers, +£21
Win: 6 wagers, +£192
Total 38 wagers, +£58
The rules I apply are very simple:
– Rating of 98% or better for $Markets, 95% for Betfair.
– Min odds 6.0 (decimal)
– EW stake of 1% of bankroll rounded up to next £, or £2.50 (ew) whichever is larger.
Note – I currently only use about 8 bookmakers, and only check the Oddsmonkey site 2-3 times a day, so could scale up. Also, if the odds shorten after I place the each way bet, I generally lay the win part, so far this has paid off so my real results are slightly better than shown.
My best winner was ‘Fantasy Justifier’, £4 ew which won at decimal 15. That made me smile.
Thanks Philip. That’s a great ROI you’ve gotten yourself and long may that continue.
I’ve experimented with different ratings and found that I’m quite happy with the 95% rating. My stakes range between £1 and £4EW. I use around 10 bookmakers, of which 6 are gubbed.
Here are my wagers so far in Sept:
82 bets:
14 wins (of which 9 < 98% rating) 27 placed (of which 10 < 98% rating) Total staked - £467.66 Profit - £255.40 ROI – 54% A great month so far but variance will kick in at some point to reduce that ROI. Or maybe not, if I'm lucky! Compare that with a similar period in July: 82 bets 4 wins (all > 98% rating)
26 placed (of which 9 < 98%) Total staked £503.10 Loss: -£174.12 Ouch. I was losing faith at that point but the strategy is to keep going and expected value will win in the end! Nice win on Fantasy Justifier, it's not one which I saw and if I had seen it, at 15 odds, I would have only backed it £3EW.
Hi Weenie,
Your future fund is so close to £150K now, you must be feeling excited to see it cross that threshold.
It was interesting to see your time analysis on your hobbies! Every time I read about ew betting I’m tempted to give it a go, but it requires an OM subscription so I feel like if I do it, I need to be all-in for at least a month to justify the sub. If I do have a go I think I’ll need to revisit TFS 1st post so that I can work out what to do!
*spolier alert* I had a pretty good August with my income hustles…I might just have had my first month where I hit my target! Will be doing an update post soon!
Have a great September.
Corinna
Hey Corinna
Yes, I am excited at getting to £150k – feels like I’m climbing a bit of a hill but I’m near the top!
The sub for OM isn’t much considering what you can earn just from normal MB offers, never mind EW betting. Check out TFS’ latest post where he’s earned over £10k in profit for August alone! I know, the mind boggles, but he’s on big stakes – I’m just showing what can be achieved with more moderate stakes.
Great news on your August income hustles, well done!
Hope you have a great September too.
Wow! I really need to look into this matched betting hobby. I wonder if it would be taxed in Spain.
Hi Mr Lyn
Best to do your own research but I believe you’re taxed on gambling profits in Spain as it’s classed as ‘income’, unlike in the UK where it’s tax free.
Also check Betfair will take bets from Spain. I’m currently on holiday in the US & Betfair are not accepting bets from me here 🙁
I think Betfair does accept bets from Spain. But with around 20% tax on prizes it might be tough to make it work.
Thanks for the answer! I´ve read a bit about it and it is indeed taxed.
Hi Weenie, congrats on getting ever closer to your annual goals. Some serious dividend income this month and year to date. Keep going. i’m sure you’ll smash the £3,000 mark.
Thanks MG UK – I think I should get there.
And I can see from your blog that you’re not doing too badly yourself on the dividends front – congrats!