Cazmanian_minx's new MF diary

cazmanian_minx

Happy Friday! Still haven't decided what to do about the postage dilemma, I need to wait and see whether the over-the-counter prices get the same change to 0-750g band before I make a decision I think. However, I did give the website a BIG facelift this week. It involved a lot of swearing, cake, hair-pulling-out and at one point a restore of the whole thing from the previous night's back-up(!), but it's 95% done and it's looking much more modern. The customer response so far has been positive

I'm trying to have another cheap month. Last month's storming success in getting the shopping bill down to £155 (from January's £410 :eek::eek::eek:) has helped a lot, but the vacuum cleaner needs replacing (I've taken it apart and cleaned all the filters - the hose attachment doesn't work at all now and the main vacuum has trouble picking up even loose dog hair, let alone the stuff embedded in the carpet) and it's car insurance month, so the less I can spend on everything else, the better.

GDB2222

the vacuum cleaner is probably okay except that the motor is clogged full of dog hairs. This means unscrewing the case and delving inside to get rid of all that stuff that is clogging it up. The alternative, as you say, is to throw it away and buy a new one.

cazmanian_minx

Ta GDB, will give that a try - I can't make it much worse than it currently is!

Weronika

I cleaned up filters and so on too, but haven't thought about engine! good tip, thanks!

The hose broke though in 2 places and the silver tape doesn't help anymore. I think I will need new hoover after all

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Ta GDB, will give that a try - I can't make it much worse than it currently is!

Well, my engineer husband had a look, determined it needed torqued allen keys to open (which he had), carefully took out the screws in the casing - and would the thing come off? Would it heck. So since he didn't think he could get into it without either the correct Hoover tool or breaking it and I've always loathed the damn thing (it's so HEAVY), we decided to let it rest in peace and bought a Miele Cat & Dog. I don't think the living room carpet has been this hair-free since the day we moved here!!

cazmanian_minx

Happy Friday (she says, in the voice of one determined to be cheerful at all costs!)

To be fair, it's not been THAT bad a week; there was a bit of happy dancing on Monday when the the mortgage payment took us to 15% of the mortgage gone :beer: and a bit of happy toe-tapping as another £65 disappeared off the Egg card.

On the flip side, I've taken a deep breath and lent the business £1600 from my current account overdraft facility to get some charm bracelets ordered - I've got a queue of people waiting for them and they should be here in 7-8 weeks. On top of that, I don't think I'm going to be able to pay myself for a couple of weeks, as I've got a couple of big supplier bills coming up, so the overdraft is really going to take a hammering

After I posted a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and had a good hard think about things. To be brutally honest, I'd been resting on my laurels a bit. The website looked out-dated, I hadn't really changed or expanded the range of goods I was selling for a couple of years and I hadn't got to grips with things like business social networking. One long weekend of hair pulling, swearing at bits of code, going cross-eyed over Photoshop and, at one point, a full re-installation of the website from the previous night's back-up (whoops!), I now have a much more modern site. The shop's Facebook page and Twitter account are being used more, I've started a blog to help with SEO and am using Google Adwords again to kick-start some traffic. Whether it'll pay off remains to be seen, but the early signs are definitely encouraging.

Anyway, I must stop blethering on to you lot and go and arrange a courier. This is a sign of how it pays to shop around - I have 24 boxes waiting to go to Amazon, 15 of which are around the 22kg mark. Taking them to the post office and sending them ParcelForce would have come to £572.76 + VAT, so I shopped around the main 'cheap parcel delivery' websites and got it down to £368.75 + VAT. The service it would go on uses one of our local couriers as the final delivery leg, so I checked their website and it said that they could deliver all over the country, not just Highlands and Islands. I emailed them for a quote at 5pm yesterday and had a reply sitting in my inbox this morning - £124.10 + VAT. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner

cazmanian_minx

Happy Friday

£350 off the debt mountain this week, only 8 more payments to go on the teeth loan and it's going to make SUCH a difference to have that gone. The stock boxes have reached Amazon and been unpacked and booked in, all my outstanding bills are either paid or are covered for when the direct debits are due and I only need to take another £870 to be able to pay myself back the £1600 I lent the business last week

In other news, I may have bought a pony (or, to be more accurate, my very lovely husband may have bought me a pony) - I went to try her yesterday and she is *exactly* what I've been looking for. So the offer is in, conditional on her passing a vetting, and I'll find out sometime next week whether I'm lucky enough to be her new home or not, as the seller has 2 other offers on the table and someone else seeing her today, but won't be accepting any further offers after Sunday. Fingers crossed!

rainbowcattail

Ooooh good luck! Hope you get her

I must say just been reading your diary and your view is beautiful!

cazmanian_minx

Happy Friday everyone

Nothing much to report - we didn't buy the pony, we were outbid. Strangely enough, she has ended up in a herd with a mare she lived with before she went to the people who were selling her and by all accounts has settled in beautifully there, so she's obviously in the right place

Another £50 has gone from the Tesco card - that's now reached the end of its interest free period and the Egg card (or Barclaycard, as I suppose I should call it now) finishes next week, so I suppose I should see if I'm credit-worthy enough to do the 0% shuffle again. At least I'll get my £1600 back on Monday when the latest Amazon payment clears.

Anyway, we're off to Inverness tonight to see Black Stone Cherry play at the Ironworks (Mr Minx's Christmas present!) and thanks to Laterooms and Quidco we're staying at the Glenmoriston Town House for £80 instead of their full rate of £210 :eek: Have a good weekend

cazmanian_minx

Rats, tried to balance transfer Egg and Post Office onto a Halifax 0% and got turned down - that's the first time ever I shall just have to stick with it and see if I can shuffle instead. There's quite a bit of head room on the Post Office card.