A couple of years ago my wife and I had an idea to release equity from our home to buy a student property to let to bring in a few extra quid each month. The more we looked into it the more we found it wasn’t worth it. We’d be making peanuts.
Some friends of ours at the time had set up a company trading stocks & shares and we ended up investing with them. We had a really good couple of years with yearly returns (after tax) in the 20% region. I already had a rental property that was only making around 6% a year which is pretty standard for where we live.
Our friends mentioned above, last year were introduced to a London based financial company through a wealthy friend of theirs who was a client of this company. Basically our friends contacted us all to discuss this new opportunity and pretty much all of their clients (me included) have joined. I’ve sold my rental property and added that to the investment too.
Return-wise we’re bringing in far more than house rental did. To think the high street financial institutions are making us all next to nothing.
its been pretty life changing. My wife has been able to take a career break to raise our little girl…and I’ve got some money for track days and bits for the Lotus.
This thread isn’t intended to boast or show off. I’m genuinely interested to hear what successful investments us Exigers are involved in. It may help others out on here if they’re in the position I was in with money tied up in property that wasn’t bringing in any meaningful income. There are brilliant opportunities out there…it can be frustrating without a helping hand from decent friends or acquaintances who have the right contacts.
I struggle to see his property rental makes sense at today’s house prices. 20 years ago and it was a very different matter. Like lots of investments, timing is critical and once it becomes popular it may be too late.
Diverse portfolio has always been my thing, property, shares, trust, bonds. When you take a tumble on one the others keep you sensible. My S1 Exige was one of my investments at the start of the banking crisis, you can drive it round Donington Park as well, you can’t do that with an ISA.
My wife was my best investment. Upkeep is eyewatering but I’ve been offered two camels for her, which is startling considering my initial investment was FA.
Cars mostly, bought and sold a concourse Escort Cosworth for a nice profit, then bought a very low mileage concours Escort S1 RST which in 12mths, doubled in value and gambled on a very low mileage 340R, which must’ve gone up in price since I bought it in August ? The S1 Exige is my worst investment , paid £24k 14yrs ago and it’s not worth much more
Have to agree!
Mrs T is worth every penny . . . she spends on herself. She’s got a shock coming when I lash out on new suspension and re-furb but our holiday, which begins tomorrow might help her forget the amount involved.
Apart from my day to day online retail business (I wouldn’t recommend anyone going into retail!!) I’ve done well out of a few cars over the years but becoming a commercial property landlord was a turning point financially. The best advice I was ever given was to always ‘stick to what you know!’ Whenever I’ve ventured outside the box it has cost me.
Back to original post…sounds a bit boiler -roomy to me. Apols if it is not.
Follow my advice…buy at the top …sell at the bottom …always works …usually how I end up…
Still it has been good fun along the way.
Yup I’m naturally deeply sceptical of any such scheme and of the opinion that if it sounds too good to be true it invariably is. In my experience there seems to be no real substitute for hard graft as a way of providing a deterministic lifestyle. I may well be totally wrong though.
Sometimes you get investments unwittingly - I bought loads of vinyl LP’s in my yoof - always 2 copies 1 to play and 1 to save - the value now of some mint copy LP’s is absolutely eye-watering - Loving the vinyl revival
Not at all gents. I approached it with an open mind and asked all the questions anyone with the afore mentioned concerns would ask and I was more than happy with it.
I have friends that lost 100s of thousands in a investment thing recommended by friends , they had high returns for a couple of years , they kept investing more as the returns had been great , even got there family and friends investing , turned out that it was a scam , nothing was invested , the company went bust owing a huge amount to lots of people ,the money has gone and unrecoverable . Not saying it’s the same but it puts me off anything like that even if I had they money .
It’s certainly not a scheme / scam / fraud / laundering or whatever.
There are people trading stock in their own homes making 50% profits year upon year. There are genuine companies doing this but on a larger scale for clients with a few quid to trade with.
Surprisingly it’s not rocket sceince what they do but there are safeguards that should be in place which in this case there are.
There are also several people making good money out of the horses, but usually only the book makers. The money doesn’t come out of nothing. If the economy isn’t growing then someone’s on the losing side.
The idea that there is a simple formula to making large profits on any market is at best naive. Sorry, suggest you enjoy the profits while they last , but remain wary and diversify. .
It always strikes me with these schemes that it’s just too easy to extract capital, pay a proportion back as healthy returns to drive take up, then wind it up and disappear with the surfeit. Like I said before I’m deeply sceptical.
Glad that it’s working out for you Adam. If you have a few years of returns like that AND get your capital back then you’ll be laughing. Not for me though…
, paid £24k 14yrs ago and it’s not worth much more 
- I bought loads of vinyl LP’s in my yoof - always 2 copies 1 to play and 1 to save - the value now of some mint copy LP’s is absolutely eye-watering - Loving the vinyl revival 