All good things ...

In 2005 (give or take a few months) the bank interest rates dropped from a respectable 5% down to well below 1% depriving many of a source of passive income. The more alert of us noticed P2P lending was now a thing, and we started to look into it.

Many of us jumped on the P2P bandwagon and enjoyed 4% ~ 8% returns for many years ... until we didn't. Zopa, Funding Circle and others ceased their retail P2P lending in late 2021. If that wasn't bad enough, the crypto markets started to crash in late 2021 and still show no signs of recovery as of October 2022.

It almost made me feel like going back to a 'proper' job, but the thought of dealing with woke office politics sent shivers down my spine, so I looked around. Below is what I found so far:-

Crypto Staking if you have cryptocurrencies it is possible to 'stake' it either via an exchange (Gemini, Kraken & Coinbase) or special wallets like Exodus. Staking basically allows you to earn interest on your crypto. I did this with ATOM via Exodus and earned 18% over a few weeks. The only reason I stopped was that I wanted to test the whole process, from start (staking) to finish (un-staking) to ensure it does what it says on the tin.

MasterWorks allows you to invest in high-end art. Returns 'seem' to be between 10% ~ 40%. From their website: "Masterworks is the first platform for buying and selling shares representing an investment in iconic artworks. Build a diversified portfolio of expertly-vetted works curated by our industry-leading research team."
→Test #1 2022-Oct-14, paid $500 (£480) for 25 shared of 'Early Moses' by 'Jean-Michel Basquiat'

WiseAlpha lets normal people invest in corporate bonds that would normally unavailable to them. Typical returns are between 3% ~ 10% from Tesco, Formula 1, Virgin Media and more. It was started by Rezaah Ahmad in 2016. More to follow ...

Savings Accounts could be viable again as banks seem to be raising interest rates and as of Oct 2022 stand at 2.25%. Not as good as 15 years ago, but better than nothing.

So, you can see that not all is lost. If you pay attention and move cash away from lame institutions, you will be able to afford to live it up a bit !