Caz counts it down

gallygirl

Great
Great
Ouch :eek:

Amazing how you can have something so painful to touch that you can't feel the rest of the time - how can that be? It's happened to me with my shoulders or neck a few times - bizarre .

Pippilongstocking

Yay and ouch.



Take care!

JustAboutThere

Woooohooo x two and well done, you!!!

DebtFree2012

What they ^^^^ said

What are you transcribing then? How exciting

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

What are you transcribing then? How exciting

No idea yet! And, because of the confidentiality agreement I've had to sign, I can't tell you when I do know! However, it'll be things like focus groups, market research groups and interviews. Oh, and the contract they sent me through had slightly higher rates than I thought I was going to be getting, so that's good news

Right, dilemma time. My original plan for this month was to make the supplier payment due on Thursday by credit card, to make certain I had enough to pay myself something on the 1st March. Yesterday's bumper bankings mean that if I keep to that plan I can, at the moment, pay myself £1123.11 out of the £1300 I normally take. I have a further £180 in PayPal at the moment (thank you regular overseas customer!), so that would take me up to the £1300.

However - I *could* pay the supplier by debit card and gamble that I take enough between now and 5th March to cover the direct debits due out on the 5th plus the necessary spends between now and then. If I pay the supplier by debit card I currently have £247.65 spare plus the £180 in PayPal for £427.65. The direct debits due out between now and the 5th total £921.20, plus there'll be one Tesco shop (my half about £60 if we're going to the big one in Wick, which we are), a tub of Acid Ease for Finn (about £60), a tank of fuel (about £70) and my osteopath appointment (about £35). That's £1146.20 needed in total, or £718.55 short, BUT that doesn't take into account the £650 Mr Minx puts into my NatWest account, some or all of which could be transferred to the bills account if required until I've earned the rest.

If the credit card was empty, I'd simply make the payment on it and then pay it back before any interest was due, but it's not - and as I know from previous experience with Barclaycard, if I make a payment in advance of the statement date towards a new spend, it'll apply it to the 6.9% life of balance transfer amount because the new spend is classed as 0% until the date of the statement. Of course, once the statement generates, it immediately slaps on an interest charge applied from the date of the transaction. Life is going to get a lot easier once one of these cards is empty!

Anyway, typing this out has been helpful and I'm leaning towards the debit card at the moment. If that's a stupid idea, please let me know before Thursday

cazmanian_minx

£235 banked this morning, I'm still leaning towards paying the supplier on my debit card, particularly since I had a look at YNAB this morning and realised that I already have £450 towards next month's bills with my currently available cash.

I did my first shift for the transcription company today At first I didn't think I was going to get any work today (they ask you to sign up for shifts two weeks in advance, so pretty much everyone else signed up to work the day shift today was ahead of me in the queue), but 40 minutes in my email pinged with a file notification and I was off Because it's the first proper job I've done for them I was a lot slower than normal, triple checking everything and then listening to the whole file through again, but it was a 23 minute file, so I can invoice for £10.35 + VAT.

I'm not sure how I'm going to play it with the transcription money. Do I keep taking £1300 out of the bead shop and throw all the transcription money (minus the amounts set aside for tax, VAT and NI) at the cards or do I take less out of the bead shop so my monthly drawings from all sources stay at £1300 and I can expand the stock range of the shop? I may compromise and put half the money to extra payments and half to my normal monthly drawings.

Mr Minx got his car insurance renewal through today. Not bad at £348, given they had to sort out a numpty driver t-boning him last year. I tried to get it down by using the MSE insurance guide, but because he drives a pick-up, every single price comparison site insists on shunting him over to van insurance and we don't have answers to 'Are you a sole trader, partnership or limited company?' and 'Is use social, carrying your own goods, carrying other peoples goods or haulage?' - he needs social, commuting and business use on it and the online forms just can't cope!

We also had a visit from a roofer today. He climbed up onto the kitchen roof and had a look. The good news is that he's certain it's just the flashing. The bad news is that because it's six metres of flashing, the lead alone is going to be nearly £500 and the whole job is going to come in somewhere around £1200. Looks like we're going to be making a claim then... Roofer number two is coming on Friday or Saturday, so we'll see what he says.

Last but not least, if anyone reading this is interested in archaeology, I can highly recommend the free eight week course on coursera.org called Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets. It started on Monday, so you can still sign up for it, it's run by a Professor at Brown University in the USA and she's one of the most entertaining and interesting lecturers I've ever come across. Very well worth a look if it's an area of interest.

DebtFree2012

Thanks for the archaeology info

Also can you send me a PM as to which insurance comp you went with pls - i too have a pick up and my insurance is due in March and I keep putting off finding a cheaper quote than to £600 they've offered me! Thanks xx

PS debit card for me

Apoorwoman

We had the same problems with pick-up insurance. We only use ours for domestic use (collecting hay/straw etc.). Suggest you try Bewise. We have been with them for a couple of years and they seem very good, even includes breakdown insurance.

Eager_Elephant

We have been using LV= for our truck which again we use for social, domestic etc (lugging hay about!!)

My husband was a member of Unison and this got him a discount with LV=.

I know that Union membership is £10pm so if you are in a job which they cover you could also get UNion membership to get cheaper insurance?!?

As always DYOR.

mfmaybe

Glad to see so many of us lug hay about! I have a Disco for that purpose which is less practical, but easier to insure . I'm actually thinking of getting a small trailer though.

Ms Minx, you've had a good week! Really great about the transcription job. Do you think there is scope to increase the turnover in the bead business; and is stock your limiting factor? Maybe split the difference - one job to stock, one to debt? It's a nice problem to have though!

Debit card for me too by the way

Hope the back is better soon, I've also done mine, it's such a pain when the animals still need looked after. I've realised how manual all my chores are and I need to find ways to simplify them, which unfortunately may mean investing in some equipment.