No open positions in LM portfolio
Still nothing going on. Markets appear to be heading down - or sideways - but not up.
But life isn't all about investing, there's plenty more to do in the meantime until we see an upward trend again.
Betting System Update:
One highlight of the last few weeks is that I found some software which automates the placing of bets for one of the betting systems I have been talking about.
The creator warns that it should only be used on "gubbed" accounts which means with bookmakers who limit the stakes on the bets they will accept from you.
As I've no shortage of those I've currently got it set up to automatically place qualifying bets for me at three different bookmakers. Only small stakes (50p each way or so) but it works well.
If the software continues to work and takes a lot of the legwork away from me then I see no downside to using it.
And if the bookmakers catch on and ban me then who cares? They don't allow me to place big wagers so it does tend to be a bit of a faff to manually place these bets. Leaving a PC on for a few hours a day whilst it does it all for me is far better and ultra-efficient.
The 2nd betting system (the one which gives bets on football matches) is slowly inching up. In fact the chart has a clear bottom-left-to-top-right trend displayed, although there are some outlying peaks and troughs. It's certainly high variance but I'm confident it will consistently make money in the long-term. So confident, in fact, that I'm upping the stakes by 50% starting tomorrow.
Wish me luck.
Something struck me last week about bank accounts and fees.
Being a parent to a toddler I get to watch a few TV channels that cater for little people and when it isn't a channel provided by the BBC they are kind enough to show adverts too.
In between the toy adverts there are occasionally adverts for bank accounts for children. I've seen two - one that has a charge of £1.99 per month and the other is £2.99 per month.
What a great way to get children used to paying a monthly charge for their bank accounts - provide them with accounts which charge money each month. By the time they are old enough to work they will be used to paying monthly just to have a bank account.
Urgh.
I pay £2 per month for my Natwest account but that's only because it pays me £5 in rewards.
So each month I'm £3 up.
There is no way I would pay simply to have an account and I think the banks know that many of my generation feel the same.
We went to uni and were given fee-free bank accounts with interest-free overdrafts. Then we graduated and were given graduate accounts that still had interest-free overdrafts. There were no fees unless you went over your overdraft limit.
If there was no upside involved with paying a fee then I would simply use a basic bank account with no fees.
These child-friendly accounts with fees are the thin end of the wedge. I don't like the idea of children losing portions of their pocket money just for the "privilege" of having a debit card. Using cash is fee-free.
I'll be ensuring that wherever I can my children use cash for receiving money and also for spending money. My hope is that seeing the coins and notes disappear out of their hands when they buy something will be a valuable life lesson.
£3 per month for a 10 year old to have a bank account with no rewards? No chance.