I put £1.5k into crypto, stocks and dividends to find the best earner – after a month, one asset is crushing it

WE’VE all seen ‘finfluencers’ flooding social media, flashing their wallets seemingly having made hundreds of thousands of pounds in cryptocurrency. But I find it quite similar to a gambler telling you that they won £1,000 on a horse at Ascot this year, yet failing to mention the £2,000 they lost at Cheltenham. Margaret Smith is investing £1,500 of her own cash into cryptocurrency, the S&P 500 and dividend stocks to answer one question Credit: Margaret Smith She follows up with a weekly £5 investment into each portfolio – can cryptocurrency beat the big US companies of the S&P 500? Credit: Margaret Smith It’s braggy, boring and for the most part lacks any actionable insights. Everyone tells you to invest, but nobody actually shows you what the day-to-day emotional roller coaster looks like. Sign up for the Money newsletter Thank you! So, I am starting an experiment through my TikTok and Instagram named MagsonMoney. I’m putting £1,500 of my own cash on the line to answer one question: If you invest £5 a week, where should it go? High risk, steady growth, or passive income? The setup We are starting with £500 invested into each of the following portfolios: Portfolio 1: The Wild Card – Cryptocurrency. This is our pure volatility play. It can drop 20% in a weekend or double in a month. We’re tracking how much stomach it takes to watch £500 swing violently. Portfolio 2: The Benchmark – The S&P 500. This tracks the 500 biggest companies in the US – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon. It’s the gold standard of steady, long-term wealth building. Most read in Money It has bad years, but historically, it’s the machine that powers the stock market. Portfolio 3: The Income Engine — Dividend Stocks. Instead of chasing massive price jumps, this pot focuses on reliable, boring companies that literally pay us cash just for owning them. We’ll be reinvesting those dividends automatically to see how fast that compound interest snowball can roll. Why are we starting with a £500 lump sum? Fractional dividend payments are rounded down to the nearest penny, meaning if your share of a stock’s dividend is less than £0.01 / $0.01, you receive nothing at all. So in order to properly track how dividend stocks measure up, this is the minimum floor we need to start with. Ditching the ‘market timing’ trap One of the biggest mistakes I made when starting my investing journey was trying to time the market, which is an impossible task even for seasoned investors. Instead I’m using so-called Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), which is a strategy where you invest a fixed amount at regular intervals. By investing £5 every week into each portfolio, I can avoid panicking over whether the market will crash tomorrow, like I would have if I’d invested a large lump sum all at once. For complete transparency the buys will be done as follows: Crypto: Purchased at £10 every two weeks (the platform’s minimum buy-in) S&P 500: A straightforward £5 per week Dividend stocks: The £5 per week will sit in the cash account portion of the portfolio until it reaches £50 which is the minimum buy-in for the Almost Daily Dividends Pie that we will be using on Trading 212. When Bitcoin crashes, how does it feel compared to a bad day on the S&P 500? When the market goes sideways, how much do those dividend payouts actually cushion the blow? You’re going to see the raw, unfiltered data – the green days and the deep red days. The rules before you invest BEFORE jumping into investing, it’s super important to remember that all investments come with risk. Markets go up and down, inflation can bite, and there’s always a chance you could end up with less money than you put in. That’s why having a strong safety net in place before you invest your first pound is so key. Start by knocking out any high-interest debt (like credit cards) and building an emergency fund tucked safely away in an easy access savings account. That way, if life throws a curveball like a sudden car repair or job gap, you won’t be forced to sell off your investments when the market happens to be down. What happened in week one? Crypto The total is at £466.08, with £456.08 of that in Bitcoin. Yep, we are straight into the red – down by £34. Bitcoin took a nasty hit in my first week, sliding down toward the $60k mark. Why? Record outflows from institutional exchange-traded funds (ETFs) combined with a macro tech sell-off had investors fleeing riskier assets. But we are also playing the long game here: I also picked up $10 of USDC stablecoin. Next, the S&P 500. Total sits at £504.95, up by £4.95. Exactly what you expect from the benchmark: steady, boring, and stable. While crypto was having a meltdown, the top 500 US companies barely blinked. A tiny green sliver to keep our spirits up. And finally, the current leader: Dividend stocks at £521.29, up by £21.29. Now, full disclosure: I did get a £12 free bonus stock just for signing up, but even without it, this pot is thriving. Why is it up? The market is nervous about inflation and interest rates. When big investors get scared, they pull money out of speculative tech and pour it into safe, defensive, cash-generating companies – like consumer goods and insurance – which pumps up our dividend pie! We are one week in, crypto is down, dividends are up, and the S&P 500 is chilling. The one-month podium – who’s winning? One full month, four weekly buys. Exactly £1,560 of my own cash was put into the market. One month of tracking Bitcoin vs. the S&P 500 vs. dividend stocks is officially in the books, and the results are absolute proof of why you need to understand volatility. Let’s look at the podium, after investing £520 into each portfolio. Third place: S&P 500 (£522.10) Status: Up by £2.10 What happened: While US corporate earnings are actually looking incredibly strong right now, escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have sent oil prices up, causing a minor pull-back in big tech stocks. The S&P 500 is doing what it does best: absorbing the shockwaves and keeping us steady. Second place: Crypto (£524.15). Status: Up by £4.15 What happened: Bitcoin has been taking a beating over the last few weeks due to fading hopes for US interest rate cuts and massive institutional exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows. It’s a classic example of crypto volatility – even with automated weekly buys, you have to have the stomach to watch your balance drop below what you actually put in. That patience has paid off. After weeks of losses this portfolio has finally seen a little sliver of green. First place: Dividend stocks (£558.30) Status: Up by £38.30 What happened: When the broader markets get nervous about inflation and geopolitics, big institutional money flees speculative tech and rotates straight into defensive, cash-generating companies – exactly what is inside our ‘Almost Daily Dividends’ pie. The one-month takeaway is clear: Boring is winning. While crypto plays hot and cold and the S&P 500 chills, defensive dividend payers are taking the crown. But this is a marathon, not a sprint. Can the dividend pie hold this lead when the tech market bounces back? Why am I doing this? Growing up, investments wasn’t something that my family or friends really spoke of and when it was, it was largely with apocalyptic warnings of losing all your money, your house and the shirt on your back. It wasn’t until I started working in financial services that I really realised that investing wasn’t something reserved for only the ultra rich and those with a somewhat devil may care attitude, but a real way to build wealth. Unlike most investors my journey started in cryptocurrency in 2020 instead of traditional stocks & shares. I took an interest when I first started working in the financial services space and realised that crypto was a large part of my colleagues’ investing strategies. I had always been an avid saver and this was the first time that I realised that I could take my savings to the next level. And I certainly needed to take my savings to the next level after moving countries and getting divorced. I needed a plan, and saving £100 a month was not going to cut it. My now fiancé was actually the one to teach me about crypto and helped me start my journey. Not only did I end up with a solid investing foundation but a solid foundation for my future as well. So far the journey has been going well. We have managed to make enough money investing to fund our loft conversion. Although, due to the latest changes on Capital Gains Tax it worked out better to take out a second mortgage than actually draw down the funds. At least we know that we have a cushion there should we ever need it. Comment now