Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Just checked my online banking and my May proofreading invoice has been paid :T:T My July YNAB starting buffer now reads £1377.29, so any more money that comes in this month can be allocated to cards

I have been good and let the agency know I'm available, but judging by what I've been allocated over the past couple of days, they're having a quiet week, so in all likelihood I won't get anything. At least I can feel virtuous about having volunteered!

cazmanian_minx

I picked up a couple of proofreading files yesterday and another six today I've also started to put profiles on freelancing sites. It's a bit dispiriting when you check through the jobs on offer and find people offering to transcribe for US$10 per audio hour or even less (that's about £5.88 for three to four hours of work), but I have pitched for a job on one of the sites (a small legal firm in the USA looking for a virtual assistant to spend 30 minutes a day collating their expenses into per-client invoices) and while I don't think for a moment I'll get it, at least it's a start and I can prove to the Inland Revenue that I'm actively seeking other work if they get a bit twitchy about all my proofreading and transcription being for one company.

It's mostly quiet on the beads front, but I had a nice surprise today - a customer in Lithuania, whose order went missing last month and I'd refunded, sent me an email to say it had arrived finally and so he was re-sending me the money through PayPal. Sure enough, a notification came through for the right amount. Only £9.00, but it restores your faith in human nature, doesn't it?

My lovely farrier stopped by at lunchtime. I'd sent him a text on Tuesday to ask if he was around this week, as Finn's abscess exit hole had grown down his foot and about a quarter of his sole was flapping loose :eek: Of course, the inevitable happened, it broke off by itself last night, so I let him know that we were probably okay if he was pushed for time, but he sent a text back to say that he'd like to check it out anyway since he was out my way. He tidied up the remaining loose bits, had a bit of a gossip and refused to take any money. He's getting married in August and we've been invited to the reception - I think my horses are going to be getting them a very nice wedding present I'm slightly stuck as to what though, they don't have a wedding list, he says they've got everything they need for the house and there's nowhere they particularly want vouchers for. I may have to try and find out if/where they're going on honeymoon and just give him a card with some spending money in the local currency inside it!!

Bruise-watch: it now looks rather like a peacock feather :rotfl: It's not too bad in the mornings, but after a day of clothing rubbing against it, it's very sore and starting to weep a bit.

cazmanian_minx

Friday scores on doors

Business
Overdraft: -£-9420.00 / -£9290.00 +£130.00

Business total: -£9420.00 / -£9290.00 +£130.00

Personal
Egg card: -£4630.00 / -£4630.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2150.00 / -£2110.00 +£40.00
Nationwide card: -£2355.00 / -£2355.00 no change

Personal total: -£9135.00 / -£9095.00 +£40.00

Grand total: -£18,555.00 / -£18,385.00 +£170.00

Still heading in the right direction I decided to have a quick look at today's figures against the first week I started counting the business figure as the YNAB debt figure rather than the actual one, which was almost exactly 2 months ago.

Business overdraft: -£9949.86 / -£9290.00 +659.86
Egg card: -£4830 / -£4630 +200.00
Barclaycard: -£2225 / -£2110 +115.00
Nationwide: -£2405 / -£2355 +50.00

Total: -£19,409.86 / -£18,385.00 +£1024.86

So the strategy seems to be working anyway

Knit_Witch

Excellent news Caz!

cazmanian_minx

*has proofread 12 files this afternoon and evening*
*is knackered*
*but is £48 better off*

wonabeedebtfree

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Friday scores on doors

Business
Overdraft: -£-9420.00 / -£9290.00 +£130.00

Business total: -£9420.00 / -£9290.00 +£130.00

Personal
Egg card: -£4630.00 / -£4630.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2150.00 / -£2110.00 +£40.00
Nationwide card: -£2355.00 / -£2355.00 no change

Personal total: -£9135.00 / -£9095.00 +£40.00

Grand total: -£18,555.00 / -£18,385.00 +£170.00

Still heading in the right direction I decided to have a quick look at today's figures against the first week I started counting the business figure as the YNAB debt figure rather than the actual one, which was almost exactly 2 months ago.

Business overdraft: -£9949.86 / -£9290.00 +659.86
Egg card: -£4830 / -£4630 +200.00
Barclaycard: -£2225 / -£2110 +115.00
Nationwide: -£2405 / -£2355 +50.00

Total: -£19,409.86 / -£18,385.00 +£1024.86

So the strategy seems to be working anyway

Delighted to see it is going the right way for you.
I have to point out that you are nearly 2 years into this I have been looking forward to your posts and cheering you on:T:T.

Have you compared your figures to 2 years ago when you started this? I have had a quick look( I know here is still a week in the difference but I had to mention it)
Business and personal debts have gone down by £3.8k:beer: Some people are not even tredding water.
Dont forget you are still living and earning money.The shop running along as it is but you have diversified into other revenue streams. (Thats sounds good!! Like that technical speak you hear every so often on the tv. ) Your doing so well.

cazmanian_minx

wonabeedebtfree wrote: »

Delighted to see it is going the right way for you.
I have to point out that you are nearly 2 years into this I have been looking forward to your posts and cheering you on:T:T.

Have you compared your figures to 2 years ago when you started this? I have had a quick look( I know here is still a week in the difference but I had to mention it)
Business and personal debts have gone down by £3.8k:beer: Some people are not even tredding water.
Dont forget you are still living and earning money.The shop running along as it is but you have diversified into other revenue streams. (Thats sounds good!! Like that technical speak you hear every so often on the tv. ) Your doing so well.

Thank you It's not quite disappearing at the speed I'd hoped it would, but then I suppose I did increase the business overdraft by £5k during that time!

The Halifax card arrived today, but apparently I still need to wait for an activation code to turn up before I can transfer balances. I've been having a think and actually, tackling the Nationwide card probably isn't the wisest course of action. I think I'm better off doing this:

Transfer £4630 from Egg to Halifax - takes debt from 16.9% to 0% for 2 years.
Transfer £1070 from Barclaycard to Halifax - takes debt from 6.9% life of balance to 0% for 2 years.
Pay off remaining £1040 on Barclaycard ASAP.

The £2355 on the Nationwide card continues at 0% until the end of October. Now, I have had a balance transfer off available on both the Barclaycard and the Barclaycard-that-was-an-Egg nearly every single month for the past couple of years. I'm pretty certain that I'll be able to BT from Nationwide to one of the empty Barclaycards at 0% come the autumn, which will mean everything is at 0%. I then hit the remaining Nationwide balance and finally the big balance on the Halifax - if any of it's left at the end of the 24 months (and I *really* hope it won't be), I'll have two empty Barclaycards and an empty Nationwide card to shuffle it to.

This month's proofreading and transcription total is now approaching £350 (it'll be over it after tomorrow's work is complete) - not bad, considering I did no work at all for them for the first week of this month.

wonabeedebtfree

At least the card arrived. You were worried that it would not go ahead.
The shuffling will definately help you clear the balances. Imagine if you did not keep looking for other deals when the others ran out? You would be in a different situation.

Dont forget you did buy new stock for the business and you always have to buy a big amount to reduce the costs.

Proof reading of £350 for 3 weeks work...averaging the rate per week(not really easy to do that but if we think positively) That would be £466 and you have not had to leave your house for that!!:beer:
Travel time and costs would reduce this big time if you worked in an office. Well done.

Weather is lovely in Dublin. 20 degrees and clear blue skys. I think I am going to sit out in it for a while. Talk soon.

cazmanian_minx

It's been a soggy Sunday afternoon, so I've been sitting with my feet up on the sofa doing my proofreading All done bar two files, one of them the transcriber couldn't finish due to poor audio quality, so it's been reassigned to someone else and I'll proof it if it's done by the end of my shift (having had a listen, I'll be surprised!) and the other one I've got the full file but I'm missing half the audio - it was two files into one document and only one of the files has turned up in my queue. I think that one's been left for the office to sort out tomorrow, so I may still get to do it.

At the moment I only have 20 orders to go tomorrow, so I haven't done any advance packing up this afternoon. This may come back to bite me on the bum tomorrow if it's a busy day on the proofreading front, but hopefully I can get everything juggled into order.

It was dry this morning, so I was able to clear up the field, do some weeding amongst the vegetables and have a second attempt at growing some dwarf French beans after the first lot completely failed to germinate. I've put them in the cold frame in pots this time instead of straight into the bed, so fingers crossed.

cazmanian_minx

My replacement Barclaycards turned up today. I'm not quite sure which Barclaycard they're supposed to be replacing - I thought it was the Mastercard, which is the original Barclaycard, but I've got an Amex and a Visa here and the Visa Barclaycard was the old Egg one.

Ooh, I know, I'll try logging in to the online banking with this card number - it's supposed to be already linked to my account.........

............

........right, they're replacing the original Barclaycard, that's the one with the 6.9% life of balance transfer on it. They're both cashback cards, 1% on the Amex and 0.5% on the Visa - NatWest's debit card reward scheme currently gives 1% cashback at Tesco, but that ends on 30th June, so once this is paid off post-credit-card-shuffle, I can use the Amex in Tesco to carry on getting my 1%. Jolly good

It's been a quiet day work-wise. 28 orders went out, two files have been proofread (but one was nearly 2 hours, so counts for double) and I've finally caught up with the bead shop accounts. My proofreading total for the month currently stands at £348, so with a bit of luck I might just tip over the £400 by the 30th. That said, I suspect July and August will be quiet months for that job as the school holidays kick in. July is generally very quiet for beads, but it usually picks up in August.

July's YNAB buffer is now at £1426.29. From now on, all transcription and proofreading money will be allocated to extra card repayments (after the VAT and 25% for tax have been put aside), but any other incoming money will continue to build the buffer to a full month's expenses and start filling up the once-a-year pots.

Right, so the only problem left for this month is what to get Mr Minx for his birthday?? It's a week today and I can't get any serious ideas out of him (so far he's said either a quad bike or a sports car!). He's bought pretty much everything he needs to go shooting - I was thinking about an extra pair of waterproof camouflage trousers or something, but that's not terribly exciting