September 2025 update

September marked a return to the normal routine after the mad summer, I was back at work the day after we got back from the cruise (well, sat in the office at home anyway!), and the kids were back to school. Still plenty to update you lovely people on though!

Finance update

Breakdown for September:

• ISA up £14k
• Pension up £10.6k
• GIA/easy access savings up £2.8k
• Crypto up £5k
• House price up £5k

• Total: up £41.2k
  

After a slight lull in gains during August, normal service seems to have been resumed, ending up £40k for the month. There's been a lot of talk of frothy markets at the minute, and seem to be in an "everything bubble", where everything all goes up at the same time, rather than opposing assets which 'should' behave contrary to each other. This seems to suggest that there is too much liquidity in the markets, not enough buckets to put your money, so people are piling in to everything; equities, houses, Gold (see last months update), and yes even crypto.

2025/26 tax year:

Total change since the start of the tax year is now +£148k.

I've made a major asset change at the end of September, one which I touched on in my update last month. I've rebalanced my portfolio, carving out a good chunk of my index tracker funds into Gold, roughly 10%.

I've managed to do this really easily on Interactive Investor, being able to sell out of the FTSE Global All Cap, and into a Physical Gold ETF in a matter of days. I've done this in my SIPP and plan on doing the same in my ISA as well, even though the Gold price has gone mad since then!

I've also been buying the odd stock with the relatively small amount I have in my GIA, some North Sea Gas companies, and the other day one paid out some dividends. It was only £30, but my entire holding for the stock is only £600, so a 5% payout isn't too bad, especially if the dividends are paid twice a year, so 10%! The dividend allowance of £500 is something I've not really focussed on, but with allowances of the wealthy under the constant gaze of Governments, it's something I'm definitely going to make the most of whilst it still exists!

In other - less exciting - news, I've swapped out my savings from Chase (rate was dropping at the end of October), and onto Cahoot (5% up to £3k). I've also got a new credit card, the Lloyds Ultra Credit Card; 1% cashback on all spending (no special categories unlike Chase!), fee-free spending abroad and the card has no annual fees as well. I spotted this when it first came out and it was good confirmation that it has been all over the regular Personal Finance people since then, Martin Lewis newsletter etc.

Non-Finance update

Sleepover at The Deep aquarium

• A real perk of beign a Beaver leader is that you get to go on some cool trips away. In previous years we've stayed over at Gulliver's Theme Park and Conkers outdoor centre, but this year we stayed over at The Deep aquarium in Hull. Sleeping in front of a huge tank full of sharks, swordfish, turles and rays was an absolutely immense experience!

 

Allotment goes Jumanji!

• Despite having taking all summer off I have somewhat neglected my allotment towards the second half of the year. During the cruise I was away for 2 weeks and was relying on the odd rainshower in order to avoid coming back to a whole heap of dead crops.
• I came back in September to a jungle of broccoli, potatoes, courgette and lots and lots of absolutely huge gherkins! Not your run of the mill normal green finger sized gherkins, these were the size of your forearm! With lots of them being overripe and turned yellow.
• What to do with roughly 15kg of overripe gherkins? Too big to pickle them. In the end I made some gherkin relish making two version, one of which is very picallilli-esque, the other one is more of a mix between lime pickle and curry sauce, both very nice! Given how much of it I've got I've been giving it away to family and work friends, but it's all been sterilised and sealed so it should last through the winter months to pair with some strong cheese.

 

Aside from that I've been doing plenty of bike riding with family and friends, picking fruit and enjoying the sun before Autumn settles in. October has been fun already, and lots planned for the second half; I'm off to Prague with childhood friends tomorrow for 4 days, and then in October half term we're off to Paris for 4 days!

 

That's it, that's the update,

See you next time!