LM portfolio as at 14/11/2026:
| Code | Sector | Date Bought | Cost | Value | Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LM114 LM114-2 LM114-3 |
Retailers | 09/06/2026 06/07/2026 27/08/2026 |
£5050 | £5630 | 11.50% |
| LM122 | Closed End Investments | 06/07/2026 | £1760 | £1860 | 5.85% |
| LM123 | Non-life Insurance | 07/07/2026 | £1760 | £1840 | 4.17% |
| LM124 | Life Insurance | 07/07/2026 | £1770 | £1940 | 9.45% |
| LM126 | Chemicals | 03/08/2026 | £1790 | £2030 | 13.94% |
| LM127 | Industrial Support Services | 07/09/2026 | £1770 | £1860 | 5.30% |
| LM128 | Closed End Investments | 23/09/2026 | £1760 | £1750 | (0.42%) |
| LM129 | Construction and Materials | 23/09/2026 | £1770 | £1830 | 3.51% |
| LM130 | Travel and Leisure | 14/10/2026 | £1770 | £1730 | (2.33%) |
| LM132 | General Industrials | 05/11/2026 | £1770 | £1740 | (1.47%) |
| LM133 | Construction & Materials | 05/11/2026 | £1760 | £1650 | (6.45%) |
| LM134 | Media | 05/11/2026 | £1760 | £1730 | (1.25%) |
| LM135 | Real Estate Investment and Services |
05/11/2026 | £1750 | £1810 | 3.07% |
| LM136 | Beverages | 10/11/2026 | £1780 | £1790 | 0.71% |
The Portfolio
Investing has taken a bit of a back seat at present whilst I concentrate on getting rid of all my debt. Of course I still buy and sell shares (see table above), it's just that I seem to spend less and less time looking at shares or thinking about the positions in both my LISA and my SIPP.
It's likely going to prove a positive in the long term. Portfolios don't go up in value more if you hover over them and when I have done my end-of-week ShareScope checks, there isn't a huge surplus of investment possibilities that stick out. Happily I seem to already be in many of the shares that are turning up in the 52 week and all-time high lists.
When all my debt is gone I'll be in a position to be able to add even more money to my investment accounts - beyond even the £4k a year that the government will add a bonus to in the LISA. I keep reminding myself of this. No debts means no repayments means much, much more free cash to throw into shares. I've just got to knuckle down and get these credit card balances down to zero. I've done it before and I can do it again.
Consider the above chart, a share I previously held under the code LM102. The big red arrows show roughly where I got in but the actual prices were £15.42 and £18.79. I got out where the price crosses the 10% stop loss - specifically £17.04.
Yesterday it closed at £9.70. Were I stil in it, I would be looking at a position in my broker account with a red "-43%" in the Gain/loss column.
No thank you.
I lost £17.78 by following the 10% trailing stop-loss and letting it tell me when to get out.
It obviously knew something...
The Debt
The eBay buyer I mentioned in the last update never did pay me for the third item so I relisted it. Now that sellers no longer pay any fees it doesn't matter if a buyer doesn't perform, you just give them a couple of weeks and if they don't pay you can put the item back up for sale. There's no need to put a claim in to have fees refunded or anything like that anymore.
Evidently I couldn't use that money to slash some of my debt. That doesn't mean I didn't manage to find a large money stick to whack my Santander credit card with.
My first strike came from a free £25 that Starling gave me for opening an account. The offer was very simple - open an account through Martin Lewis' affiliate link, spend £25 and get £25 paid into your account with no strings. That money was immediately sent across.
Next I cleared out the rest of my Betfair balance and threw that at the card. I've given up with football trading for the moment. I'll take a break whilst I get rid of this debt - safe in the knowledge that I can always pick it up again in the future. If it was a reliable money-maker I'd continue but it's too up-and-down and it doesn't take much of a losing streak for me to lose the enthusiasm to commit to watching the markets and placing the bets. Starting again isn't terribly difficult, I just deposit £50 in and it's ready to rock.
I ripped through a few new bookmaker accounts to "abuse" their bonus offers. It's not a massive earner anymore although it certainly doesn't take much time or effort. Despite a silly mistake that cost £8, I managed to quickly profit to the tune of £98 so once everything cleared to my bank account I paid it off the Santander account.
Finally I dealt a very satisfying blow using the profit from the betting system I've been using for the past couple of years with a mate. This had built up since the beginning of the year so we split the profits, leaving a generous bank in there for me to use in the next few weeks to rattle through a load of new bookmaker bonus offerings. Total from this was just over £600.
There was a little bit more from reducing my emergency fund down to a flat £1,000 and the excess was transferred over. Plus I paid the minimums on the M&S and Natwest cards and cleared the small balance on the Virgin card.
Net result is this:
| 26/10/2026 | Now | Delta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| M&S | £3,816.22 | £3,720.82 | (£95.40) |
| Natwest | £4,494.99 | £4,450.04 | (£44.95) |
| Santander | £5,808.82 | £4,918.54 | (£890.28) |
| Virgin | £166.46 | £0.00 | (£166.46) |
| Total | £14,286.49 | £13,089.40 | (£1,197.09) |
I've had a re-think about emergency funds and the money I'm holding in various savings accounts. Aside from a pot that I've built up to cover any vet fees for our two daft cats, I'd put away a few quid each money "just in case".
Some was in Marcus earning 3.24% and some in a Natwest "Digital Regular Saver" account earning 5.25%. Both are instant access.
When I knocked the total between these two accounts down to around £1,000 it ended up split roughly 25% Natwest / 75% Marcus but going forward I'll be adjusting this as so:
(1) Each month I pay £50 into the Natwest account by standing order
(2) When that £50 goes into the Natwest, I'll take the same amount out of Marcus plus any interest/roundups to get back to a flat £1,000
(3) That surplus will then be paid off the Santander CC.
Example: there's a total of £1,017.30 in my emergency fund today - split £263.62 / £753.68. On the 4th December another £50 will go into Natwest and if there are no further changes I will then transfer £67.30 out of Marcus and straight off the Santander card.
For the maths geniuses out there, that will leave me with £313.62 and £686.38 - a nice, round, elegant £1,000.
And in about a year the Marcus will dwindle down to nothing and the Natwest, with the higher interest rate, will hold the entire emergency fund.
A good plan, if I do say so myself.
The Ramble
In summer 2000 I graduated uni and ended up back at my Dad's house for a few months whilst I worked to secure some employment. It wasn't ideal after 3 years living away but I wasn't hanging around at home all that much. I quickly got some temp work in an office and if I wasn't working I was out with friends.
Even weeknights.
It's something that struck me the other day when I was grabbing some more Budvar from B&M where they always have an offer on; 3 x 500ml bottles for £5. I get some whenever we're there.
As I reached for a bottle from the shelf a long-forgotten memory popped up out of nowhere.
Now back when I was still at "home" I would go round to a mate's house pretty much every night and we'd stock up on beer from the off licence then sit in his parents' front room drinking and watching TV. His parents spent all their time upstairs so they didn't mind us commandeering the lounge.
Sometimes we'd pop out to the pub and have a couple of beers in this one particular place where they served Stella in ice-cold pint glasses but pretty much every night was spent drinking cheap cans of beer. Often a couple of other mates would join us.
Typically at the offy we'd go halves on a crate of beer (24 cans) which would usually last 3 weeknights - weekends were a different story.
What my mate started to do around this time (late 2000) was pick up a single big bottle of beer as a "treat". And this beer was Budvar. Back then if you wanted a bigger bottle then the only thing in the offy was Budvar, everything else like Becks, Budweiser, Coors, Stella etc was 330ml. Now you can get a variety of beers in up to 660ml size.
Sadly my mate passed away nearly ten years ago at the ridiculously young age of 38. My Dad's also not in the best of health, suffering from dementia and currently in hospital whilst they determine the best plan of action going forward.
It just struck me how I've gravitated back to drinking Budvar, maybe in some sort of tribute to my mate and to reminisce on those simpler times, the last time I lived at home with my Dad. I'm just glad I'm subconsciously paying tribute with Budvar and not cheap cans of Fosters. Budvar's a far superior drink.
Just recently I lost another friend from my teenage years and he was only 50 - that's the fourth friend who has died in less than ten years, all from the same group.
Not much fun this getting older lark.