Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

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

£330 banked this morning :j:j That's the good news. The bad news is that the Royal Mail invoice has turned up this evening. Last month's was £720 and since it's a quiet time of year I was expecting this one to be much the same, maybe £800-ish. Wrong. £1053.73 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: At least they won't be taking payment until April 2nd, but that means payments at the end of the month are going to look something like this:

31st March - £810 for the VAT man
1st April - £1300 for me
2nd April - £1053.73 for Royal Mail
3rd April - about £700 to my main UK supplier

So nearly £4000 out in four days :eek::eek::eek::eek: and the VAT refund won't be through until the following week I need to get selling, fast.

cazmanian_minx

Flying in with some scores on the doors - eBay didn't take the payment this morning, so the business account is looking slightly healthier than it otherwise would be!

Business
Overdraft: -£-7944.26 / -£8821.84 -£877.58

Business total: -£7944.26 / -£8821.84 -£877.58

Personal
Egg card: -£5035.00 / -£5035.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2260.00 / -£2260.00 no change
Nationwide card: -£2430.00 / -£2430.00 no change

Personal total: -£9725.00 / -£9725.00 no change

Grand total: -£17,669.26 / -£18,546.84 -£877.58

Since last week I've paid out over £2000 in supplier payments and drawings, so it could be worse. The business still owes me £300 for March. Bankings this morning weren't great, but all the little bills for the month are now covered and I've got just under £500 to find for the next supplier payment on the 21st, which should be covered easily. Then it's £300 for me and after that, heads down to try and sort out those big, big bills at the end of the month.

Right, must dash as I'm on shift for some transcription work at 10am and though I haven't had a file assigned yet, they can give me work any time up until 11am (if nothing comes in by then I can assume I'm not needed today). So I must go and hurl some beads in jiffy bags

Pippi's thread combined with a really interesting book I'm reading at the moment are giving me some thoughts about a change of direction. More later....

cazmanian_minx

Ooof, what a day. A file came in for me around half past ten and it was a split one, which meant I did half and another typist did the other half, 56 minutes each (actually 54 in the end, because there was a bit at the beginning I didn't have to type) at the higher rate of 50p a minute because there were 9 people talking. The file was so massive it took nearly half an hour to download and the interviewees were quite a lively bunch, so I kept having to rewind to try and untangle their sentences.

Long story short, it went back with 90 seconds to spare before the deadline :eek::eek: I'm crossing my fingers I haven't made too many mistakes because I was really hammering away towards the end and I didn't have time to proofread the whole thing properly, I just gave it a skim

It did, of course, give me the problem of how to account for it in my minutes total, as that's been worked out on the lower rate. I've multiplied minutes by higher rate and then divided the total by lower rate to give me how many minutes it equates to at the lower rate, which seems to me to be the most accurate way of doing it. Yes, I get waaaaaaay too complicated about these things :rotfl:

Anyway, where was I before work got in the way? Talking about the conversation I was part of on Pippi's blog about careers and how that was tying in with a book I'm reading at the moment. The book is The Curve: From !!!!!!!!!!s into Superfans by Nicholas Lovell. It's very rare for me to spend money on a Kindle book, let alone more than a quid, but I read the free taster - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ways-Money-World-Penguin-Specials-ebook/dp/B00FGUM8EU/ref=la_B0089V3N10_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394222205&sr=1-1 - and was so impressed that I downloaded the whole thing straight away. It looks at the new model of doing business that's slowly coming in, giving something away for free and making your money off the 'superfans' who are prepared to pay for extras - think of the game Candy Crush Saga as an example.

So the model can easily be applied to the digital media arena (I'm just on the chapter that starts looking at physical stuff with the advent of 3D printing) - musicians, app creators, games writers etc. - and, obviously, photography and I was wondering if this was a way I could start making a little bit of money from my pictures. Set up a website, a free blog will do to start with, allow my pictures to be downloaded for free as desktop or phone wallpapers or sent as e-cards or even printed at a small size, but if someone wants to use a picture commercially or have a large canvas for their wall, then it's available to buy. If that works, I could then use something like Kickstarter to see if I could raise enough to get a small run of calendars printed or I could do a free taster Kindle book of black and white pictures with a print-on-demand larger physical book available to buy.

Something to mull over anyway. First step: become a better photographer :rotfl:

Pippilongstocking

I'm glad my ramblings and other more clever folks thoughts are making your mind wander to opportunities.

Sounds like a busy day!

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

The book is The Curve: From !!!!!!!!!!s into Superfans by Nicholas Lovell.

Now why on earth does the forum censor that word??? Free Load Ers!

brizzledfw

Mad...filters on high alert!

Good to see you brim full of ideas Caz but sorry about your aches and pains...my new 'mate' who massaged me last week is up for treating me more regularly..so I plan to have a massage next month as a treat and try and keep it up. I get hip pain..mainly from lugging bags about...and I feel such an old crone when it happens. Hate it.

Hope you have a great weekend and the sun shines

cazmanian_minx

brizzledfw wrote: »

Mad...filters on high alert!

Good to see you brim full of ideas Caz but sorry about your aches and pains...my new 'mate' who massaged me last week is up for treating me more regularly..so I plan to have a massage next month as a treat and try and keep it up. I get hip pain..mainly from lugging bags about...and I feel such an old crone when it happens. Hate it.

Hope you have a great weekend and the sun shines

Cor, I wish I had a mate like that! Enjoy As for the weather, well, it got a little bit windy this morning...



That grid of planks with the stones in front of it is actually the bottom of our wood store, which blew over with nearly a ton of chopped firewood in it :eek: It's testament to Mr Minx's construction skills that it's still in one piece after hitting the deck! (Mr Minx included for scale - bear in mind he's only about 5'6", the wood store isn't that massive )

It's been a quiet day. Mr Minx woke up with man flu, courtesy of a work colleague, so we went into town, stocked up on all sorts of junk comfort food that we don't normally buy and have spent the afternoon in front of the woodburner watching rugby and eating rubbish.

The Egg-Barclaycard statement was generated today and I've made the payment, so that card is now back under the £5k mark :j:j:j:j I need to decide how I'm going to handle it when the 0% periods start running out. The first one ends in June, so I assume (dangerous!) that that's the balance payments have been applied to. If that's the case, then there's currently £1930 of it left and by June that will be £1615, or less if I've managed to make overpayments. That'll go to 16.9%, so I guess the sensible thing to do would be to transfer as much of it as possible to the Nationwide card at 9.9% and wait for another balance transfer offer on the Egg/B'card, which they seem to send me pretty much every month. By June, the N'wide card will be at £2355 with a credit limit of £3600, so I'll be able to shift about £1000 of it (I think I can only BT up to 90% of the credit limit).

After that, the rest of the Egg/B'card 0% ends in October and the N'wide 0% runs out in November. IF the Egg/B'card keeps giving me offers then there's enough of a credit limit on there to nearly get the total of both cards onto it (I might be able to do all of it by then, I haven't worked out what the balances of each card will be that far out), but I might have to do a bit of shuffling back and forth via the N'wide card.

There is another option though. This big VAT refund that's going to hit the business account in a few weeks' time. It'll be around £3000. I could take it as drawings and use it to pay off a chunk of personal debt when the 0% period ends. It's very tempting. The thing is though, that I need to put some money aside for the tax bill due at the end of July and I want a cash cushion in the account for any bills falling due in the first week of June when I'm away with my Mum and won't have any income. So I'm not going to make any decisions until I'm back from holiday and know what the cash situation is, but I shall keep it in the back of my mind as a possibility.

cazmanian_minx

Another quiet day. I volunteered for some extra transcription work and got another 56 minutes of a focus group (higher rate ) to do, so I sat and knocked that out in chunks while Mr Minx ignored his man-flu and his hip operation and hauled the wood store upright with a land anchor.

I've had a hay reckoning up today. In an ideal world, I don't want to pick up my last 30 bales until Saturday 5th April, for budgeting reasons. That's 27 days and a bale is currently lasting a day to a day and a half, so I *should* make it, as I think I've got 25 in the shed (they're packed in ceiling to floor, so I can't count them without taking them all out).

Sales really haven't been great this weekend - I guess that's down to it being the first nice weather weekend of the year. I'm crossing my fingers that there's a Sunday night surge

Pippilongstocking

I'm glad the woodstore is back to its normal abode.

Yay to extra work - and for hay reckoning up

I know hay's important (I work with a buddy with hoss's) -

Fingers crossed here for a surge too, but mind, not enough to tip that wood pile over again.

cazmanian_minx

No surge And I've had to open an unpaid item case on a £72 order

Still, it's been a gorgeous day, I've seen goldfinches in our garden for the first time, there are lots of extremely cute little lambs running about next door (including one white one with black knees who's the most adorable little thing ever - I will try and get a photo!) and I had a good brainstorm this afternoon about a short eBook I want to write and think I'm about ready to get typing.

I have to say, it may be a mid-life crisis, but I'm getting bored of throwing beads into jiffy bags every day for very little money. I think it may be time to start formulating my exit plan.