Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Gosh, over 1000 posts on this thread now, I never thought that would happen!

I finished off my application today. My chosen referee agreed to vouch for me, so I uploaded my CV thinking that was the last of it - wrong. The next test involved proofreading a document and formatting it into their house style and then the application finished with an audio-typing test with a time limit of 90 minutes. I was a bit slower than I normally would have been, because I wanted to double check a couple of things against their style document, but I finished it with time to spare. Now I just have to cross my fingers and wait. When I was Googling them, I came across a member of their staff on a forum saying that they got around 20 applications a day, but only had about 200 transcriptionists on their books, so if I get any further I shall be very chuffed

In less happy news, only 9 orders to go today I'm not too worried that business has dropped off, because the same thing happened this week last year, but I'm bricking it about cash flow! I may have to put the supplier payment on a credit card temporarily in order to transfer enough cash to be able to pay the bills next month :(:(:(:( 10 to go tomorrow already though, and I've got three customers waiting for incoming stock which should arrive on Thursday if I'm lucky. Just another six weeks to get through before that big VAT refund should arrive. I recalculated it on Friday and they currently owe me £2900.

DebtFree2012

Good luck again and I hope you manage to get more orders in save you putting it on the CC - I've had to do that this month too but needs must x

mfmaybe

Cash flow is by far and away the toughest yet most important thing for a small business. I hope the orders roll in soon. Fingers crossed on the job front too, you sound very qualified at least.

cazmanian_minx

After eBay and PayPal fees, I banked a grand total of £9.10 from last weekend's eBay sales. The personal listings that are currently for sale haven't even had a single view, ANY of them, which makes me think that something's gone a bit wrong somewhere... I did start typing ISBNs into webuybooks.com this afternoon, but after doing a stack of about 40, most had been rejected and I was only up to about £12, so I figured I might as well stick them on Amazon, because the ones they were offering for, they were suggesting 90p for a book that's listed at £8.50 second hand on Amazon.

Haven't heard anything back from the transcription application, so it's not a no yet Also haven't heard anything from the courier company about the mystery box - another 3 weeks to go and I can find out what's in the inner cardboard boxes!

What else? I had to ring up our building insurers today as we appear to have sprung a small leak in the kitchen roof. Water dripping onto the cooker hood = not good Mr Minx went up and had a look. We're hoping it's the flashing where the kitchen roof joins the rest of the house (the kitchen is only one storey, the rest of the house is one and a half), which will be a reasonably cheap repair and probably under our excess, but there's a small chance it could be coming in from the chimney down the inside of the harling and that would be a four figure job. The insurance company has told me to get two estimates from local roofers and if we need to claim, to send them in to them together with some pictures of the problem and a claim form. Fingers crossed it's the cheaper problem of the two.

mfmaybe

Sounds like a tough day. I hope it's the flashing, but to give you a tiny reassurance, we had a leak in the new year related to the pointing around our chimney and it was less than £200 to fix. Of course all problems are different but we were terrified about this one, and it turned out not to be so bad.

That's a bit weird about your ebay sales. Hopefully just a timing thing, do they have long to run? I have a few things listed just now, and of course the one horse item has by far the most interest - 22 views and 7 watchers. I find other things such as regular clothes so much harder to shift

Fingers crossed tomorrow is better all round.

cazmanian_minx

Good things:
1) I've won two days of horse sitting from a lady up the road who's just set up a new equine services business
2) It may be wishful thinking, but sales seem to be picking up a tiny bit as half term comes to an end
3) The transcription company still hasn't said no

Not so good things:
1) Merlin dropped a gate on himself this morning - the ONE time I put a headcollar on him and turn my back for a moment and he managed to get hooked onto the field shelter gate while rubbing his head on it and lifted it clean off its hinges. Fortunately no harm done (though I imagine he's probably got a few sore muscles), but on my top 10 of sights I never want to see, my horse with a galvanised steel gate hanging off his face is right up there :eek:
2) Sales might be picking up, but people are being remarkably tardy about actually paying for things...
3) I spent the afternoon ironing and catching up on The Following rather than listing books.

All in all, things could be worse Not sure how I'm going to use the horse sitting days. I can take them separately or together, weekday or weekend (though there are some weekends she's already booked up) and they have to be used within three months, though if I want to add them to a future booking, I can do that as long as I make the booking within three months. We were wondering what to do about a holiday this year - much as we'd love to go to Mauritius again, it's not really financially viable, so we were thinking about either a few days at dog-friendly hotels in Scotland or cashing in some Avios and having a few days in Europe somewhere. Alternatively, we could use them for a weekend chilling out in Inverness - we always seem to be rushing to get home whenever we're there, it would be nice to be tourists in it for once.

brizzledfw

Fingers crossed for the job and hope that the orders pick up too

JustAboutThere

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Ispent the afternoon ironing and catching up on The Following rather than listing books.

Is it worth watching? I've taped all of the 2nd series so far, but I haven't gotten around to watching them. I think every time I've considered it I've thought 'nah, not in the mood for something so dark'. One day.

Hope Merlin is OK.

cazmanian_minx

JustAboutThere wrote: »

Is it worth watching? I've taped all of the 2nd series so far, but I haven't gotten around to watching them. I think every time I've considered it I've thought 'nah, not in the mood for something so dark'. One day.

Hope Merlin is OK.

Yes, it is. You have to suspend your disbelief quite hard, some of it's pretty implausible, but once you get over that hurdle it's enjoyable and not as gory as the first season so far. I'm looking forward to True Detective starting tomorrow night, that looks as if it might be good, and The Valleys is back next week too

The big yellow donkey is absolutely fine, thank you. He pushed me into a gate this morning (he was scratching his nose on my shoulder, leaned a bit too hard and sent me flying), which may be some sort of horsey revenge :rotfl:

Anyway, it's Friday, so have some scores on the doors.

Business
Overdraft: -£-8488.24 / -£8629.55 -£141.31

Business total: -£8488.24 / -£8629.55 -£141.31

Personal
Egg card: -£5035.00 / -£5035.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2295.00 / -£2260.00 +£35.00
Nationwide card: -£2455.00 / -£2455.00 no change

Personal total: -£9785.00 / -£9750.00 +£35.00

Grand total: -£18,273.24 / -£18,379.55 -£106.31

A bit of a back-slide this week, but it's been such a dire week for sales I banked less than £900 this week. On the plus side, history tells me that things should pick up next week and I'm £700 up on last February's takings month to date. No wonder I was struggling this time last year! Cashflow-wise, if I put the supplier payment on a credit card, then I've nearly got all the bills for the month covered. YNAB is telling me I need another £150.21 for the VAT and £143.08 for my advertising bill (I got offered a quarter page at a really, really low rate - back to just being in the directory from now on!) and anything after that can go towards my drawings as the next bill isn't until a supplier payment falls due on 8th March - and that can go on the card as well if I really, really have to.

I have a bid on one of my personal eBay sales, which is useful. I'll try and get some books on Amazon today, though Mr Minx is at home so we'll probably do the Tesco shop this afternoon instead of tomorrow. Bless him, he thought he'd be fine to do a full week of mornings this week after going back Thursday and Friday last week, but he got home yesterday so shattered that he went to bed and slept all afternoon. Hence he's taken his boss's advice and is having a day off. I think his plan of being back at work full time hours after 2 weeks is going to have to change

cazmanian_minx

Sales have picked up! I got a £200 order on the website from a regular yesterday morning, ended up packing and sending 19 orders this morning and already have another 17 to go on Monday, though sadly none of them are for £200+

What that means in practical terms is that if I put the supplier payment on the credit card then the VAT's paid, the Royal Mail is paid, the advertising bill is paid and I have £117 towards paying me.

Today's been a pottering kind of day. The morning was mostly taken up with work, then this afternoon I cleaned the house and then went out to photograph my neighbour's new lamb, born this morning and very, very cute - jet black apart from a little white patch on top of her head. Finished the day by taking the dog to the beach where she happily chased every single gull and now I'm just waiting for the oven chips to cook to go with Mr Minx's home-made onion gravy and sausages