How much are you paying yourself?

It's a very important question, especially for someone like myself who works full time. I think ceejay is correct that who have to look at this relative, but not just to cash but also to how other "hands off" investments might perform.

I tracked the time I spent on managing my P2P portfolio pretty closely in 2015. My P2P portfolio at the time was well in excess of £500k. I was using FC, TC, AC, SS, MI and LI (with nearly all of LI in their REOPs SICAV fund, which returned 9%). FC and SS were algo-driven strategies. The time spent was maintenance and calibration of the algo (though this also ignores the sunk cost from 2012/13 as part of the team developing it). TC and AC required DD, but this was compensated by additional fees from underwriting. MI was auto-invest so fairly hands-off. Total time per week was around 11 hours. Top returns were generated by FC at around 21% (recycling cashback and trading), AC 19% (underwriting added around 7% to the running yield) so they delivered around £400/hour and £250/hour, respectively. TC and MI were the lowest delivering around £120/hour. Relative to the hands off REOPs fund, however, TC and MI were delivering only £45/hour which really didn't make them worthwhile. Overall portfolio return was around £220/hour.

I haven't calculated the situation for 2017 precisely but it's far worse. The portfolio is less than half the size of 2015. I've runoff the FC portfolio (trading it in scale without cashback just isn't worth the time) and SS is also almost run-off (I can only hold longer dated loans in smaller size to preserve liquidity). These have been replaced by MT and Abl type platforms but these are much more time consuming in DD terms. Total time per week is around 7 hours and return about £100/hour. This, however, is being flattered by the fact my TC and parts of my AC portfolio are in run-off so they require no DD. Relative to say a hands-off fund like REOPs, I estimate the Abl/MT type platforms are only adding say £25-30/hour. This is the driver for me unwinding P2P: the outsize returns are gone, the risks are increasing (given more mature loan books and the stage of the credit cycle) and hands-off alternatives are generating as good returns. 

Brandy?

Well for me it’s got to be the Forum surely? You can't do P2P without it. The collective knowledge – mostly shared – the sheep in stokes clothing, the banana smoothies, the flying pigs, and the pure camaraderie of it all – most times .

with some of these hourly rates think some people are making more then the people running the P2P companies

But we can dream.It is a fun question but really depends on the pot of money,you could put a million in a couple of set and forget and take 5 minutes to do it and have a great rate.Been doing p2p for about 10 months & while i have not thought to work it out,the time i spend reading some really good posts on here & doing some DD etc adds up to probably a few hours a week but the reward seems worth it.Strangely i may earn more by spending more time on it but i think the fun(if that's what you can call it) would go out of it.But no doubt if you are not working and treat it like a job there are still some good rewards to be made.By comparison i spend a night in the new year & one in the summer checking funds in my ISA & pension which feels better on a time v profit ratio

Minimum wage seems a lot to me compared to the state pension I have been getting for the last 15 years, without the luxury of a public sector pension.   However I don't see the point of spending time managing investments when there are good alternatives requiring little attention.

I recently decided to buy a narrowboat in England which meant liquidating about a third of my P2P money.   I then needed to decide whether to reduce my UK investments or those in European platforms, so thought about the differences between the two.  

This thread highlights the main difference, which is that all my Euro platforms need little attention as all have automatic investment mainly with guaranteed buyback of defaults and any cash I deposit will be earning immediately, as loans are always available.   The British platforms only have loans available occasionally and the only auto investment arrangements result in pathetically low interest rates.

So far, with the exception of Bondora which I have been exiting for some time, it has been the UK platforms which have shown the highest default rates because of the buybacks in Europe, so I reduced my holdings in those where possible, with one proving difficult because of high defaults and large queues for selling.

I will now need to spend a lot less time managing what I have retained, which means a much better hourly rate.   The unknown is whether there is a much higher platform risk with the Euro investments, but hopefully the much higher interest rates and having several of them will offset that.

Well, a month or two back when BT decided that I didn't need internet for a couple of weeks.......