Caz counts it down

DebtFree2012

Hi Caz, gorgeous pics. I love reading your diary of you in your own little world up there in Scotland. Bliss. xx

cazmanian_minx

Bankings this morning weren't fabulous, but a little bit up on last year, so I'll take that. Cash flow is a *little* bit tight, but as long as I take £650 by the end of the week I'll be OK, and I've got £200 in PayPal / on its way from the credit card processor already.

To try and plan the cashflow a bit better, I've made myself an order schedule, so I now have a list of which companies I want to order from in what month and roughly how much I intend to spend with them (excluding my top UK supplier who I order from every 10 days or so). This month is my two other UK suppliers, it'll be £90 at one (there's only one item I get from them) and about £600 at the other.

I got a letter from Nationwide today, saying they'd reviewed my account and would like to offer me a credit limit increase It's not a huge raise, but I'm going to accept it as it'll bring down my percentage of available credit utilised. And it shows that I'm still vaguely creditworthy, which is a good sign for when the 0%s start to expire later on this year.

DebtFree2012

THat's great news on the credit increase (as long as you don't fill it lol).

Sounding organised with the schedule, my kind of girl

Pippilongstocking

Goodluck with that back ....."

cazmanian_minx

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Goodluck with that back ....."

Thank you The good news is that my sacroiliac joint hadn't moved out of place again, so I avoided the really, really painful crunch. I have, however, got rather lopsided, have virtually no movement in my lower back and am starting to get a twist through my pelvis, so she's stretched, massaged and crunched me back into shape, given me some exercises to do, said I can carry on with my bodyweight circuits and told me to replace my office chair with one that swivels and muck out left-handed on alternate days as it seems to be twisting while getting up from the chair and mucking out that's caused the lopsidedness. I have another appointment in two weeks' time for a check up, but it shouldn't need ongoing treatment after that, which is a relief - I know £35 a session for a qualified osteopath and physio (who used to beat up the All Blacks for a living!) is ridiculously cheap, but it wasn't in the budget!

Other than that, bankings were reasonable, I sorted out the car insurance (no-one came up cheaper than my renewal, amazingly! Well done, Privilege ) and had a nice chat with a friend in London - we catch up about once a year and I really need to have a serious brain-picking session with him at some point. He's 11 years older than I am, has been self-employed for as long as I've known him (coming up 22 years) and from when I first knew him to when he was about the age I am now, he was permanently in financial trouble. Fast forward 10 years and he's just bought himself a Mercedes SL AMG Black and is making more money than he quite knows what to do with. I'm so, so pleased it's all come together for him, he's a lovely bloke, he works incredibly hard and he deserves every bit of success that's come his way, but I really want to sit him down and find out what changed!

catshark88

Sorry to hear about your back. Alternating mucking out sides sounds a good idea. It is quite a repetitive action, so I can see how it could exacerbate something already out of kilter.

I totally agree about people needing to do research before getting a dog. One of the mothers at school is about to get a lab puppy from another mother and had never heard of health testing, displasia etc.

mfmaybe

I don't think I could even begin to muck out with the other hands. I struggle to groom using alternate arms!

DebtFree2012

I have tried mucking out on the left but it takes me an age - it makes sense tho!

cazmanian_minx

I tried it left-handed this morning, it takes me a bit longer but I can do it. My buttock muscles are killing me today - one other thing she told me is that I've got into the habit of putting all my weight onto my left leg and resting the right. I have been consciously making an effort to stand on both feet today and my bum isn't speaking to me any more :rotfl:

I need one of two things to happen over the next couple of days. Either eBay has to be accurate about the statement on my invoice that says 'Payment will be taken from your account between 8th and 10th of March' and not try to take it on Friday, or I need to bank at least £275 over the next 48 hours. Preferably both

My first transcription invoice has been sent to me for approval (they have to add the VAT manually on their system) and it's correct, so I have £28.62 on its way to me. £4.77 of that needs putting aside for the VAT man and then another £7.15 for tax and class 4 national insurance, leaving a grand total of £16.70 for me. It's not going to make me rich, this, but it's interesting work and not too difficult. I was on shift this morning and had another 22 minute file, so that's another £9.90 (or £6.93 after tax and NI), though the invoices are done monthly. I'm nearly at a whole quarter of a percent towards the minutes target

We have nearly finished paying my mother back the money she so kindly lent us towards buying the croft. Another £500 went today and we only have three more payments to make before that starts being applied to the mortgage again. Since Intelligent Finance no longer allow withdrawal of overpayments, we're going to stick that £500 into the offset account rather than paying it off the capital until we have a nice big emergency fund. Once we have £10-15,000 in there, we'll start paying off extra capital again.

mfmaybe

Sounds like a good plan on the overpayments strategy, and well done on nearly getting your Mum paid back. She sounds lovely :A

I do love the minutes vs debt idea! Makes me chuckle.