Caz counts it down

hillside777

Keep going. You're doing great. :j

Sorry I haven't posted recently but I do read every day and always await the weekly 'scores on the doors'.

niknok_2

Hi Caz

I just found your diary and must say i've only read page 1 and i'm hooked!

Off to read page 2 now

x

cazmanian_minx

A flying visit this morning as I'm off to Inverness to see the dentist - my aligner tray attachments are coming off (I hope - I'm happy with how they look anyway) and we're now into the retention stage It'll still take another 2 years plus to STOP them moving now they're in the right place, but at least it won't hurt!

The electrickery bill arrived yesterday Scottish Hydro sends a meter reader around every six months and then generate the bill the week after, so it's always accurate. This time last year we were £250 in credit. Yesterday we were only £95 in credit and they're putting prices up on 15th October, so I foresee a direct debit increase after the next bill in March (we seem to have got away with it this time). I'm sure everyone reading this is thinking 'Why don't you switch?' - it's not quite as simple as that, unfortunately. Firstly, our heating is night storage and panel heaters - there's no mains gas here and oil is hideously expensive. Scottish Hydro's Total Heating Total Control is the only tariff that gives a cheap rate for night storage (every Economy 7 tariff I've looked at specifically excludes night storage and panel heaters). Added to that, the house and annexe have been wired up in such a peculiar way that we have two supply numbers going into one meter and no other company will touch it unless we get the whole thing taken out and put onto one supply number. So we're pretty much stuck!

I also have a new and improved incentive for getting out of debt. Mr Minx, despite only being 45, has a dodgy hip that has started to erode after he accidentally did the splits on the kitchen floor a few years ago and knocked the joint slightly out of position. Over the past 2 years it's got worse and worse, but the doctor told him that they wouldn't be able to do anything until it was completely unbearable or he couldn't walk, which would be at least 10 years, and sent him away with a cocktail of strong drugs, most of which have stopped helping. Since Mr Minx is getting increasingly frustrated at the amount of things he wants to do and now can't and since we suspect 'we can't do anything' means NHS Highland can't do anything, not that something can't be done, we have an appointment to see the GP again tomorrow (I'm going too so Mr Minx can't do the bloke thing of pretending it's actually OK - typical man, thinks he's dying if he's got a small sniffle, sticks his head in the sand and shuts up if it's actually serious) to ask if they'd be happy to refer him if we saved up to have it done privately. That way we could guarantee we got a surgeon who specialises in doing it in younger people and looking at the costs, it's less than half of what he spent on his last car, so not totally out of reach.

cazmanian_minx

I'm so not awake this morning - just made my daily PAD of £1 and then remembered that I topped the car up with cheap diesel while I was down in Inverness yesterday, so there should have been some rounding pennies on it. It won't get sorted tomorrow because the final Tesco bill will have generated and then there'll be more rounding pennies needed after Saturday's shop, so I might as well sort it out then.

The supplier cheque and Royal Mail bill have both gone out of the business account now, so I did a bit of calculator bashing and paid off the interest plus another £1000 on the 'orrible-rate-Barclaycard :j:j:j:j That's over half of it gone now and it's starting to look like a manageable debt as opposed to an OMGSCARY one I've paid off £2500 from it this month plus the interest, I'm really hoping I can dispatch another £500 before the end of September.

katieandlee

You're doing brilliantly Won't be long before the card is gone forever!

cazmanian_minx

Yes, it's finally Friday, and what does that mean? Scores on the doors!

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£2202.68 / -£2974.26 -£771.58
Barclaycard: -£6000.00 / £5000.00 +£1000.00

Business total: -£8202.68 / -£7974.26 +£228.42

Personal
Overdraft: -£2601.00 / -£2665.07 -£64.07
Tesco card: -£0.00 / £0.00 CLOSED!! :D:D:D:D
Egg card: -£3333.33 / -£3333.33 no change
Dental loan: -£500.00 / -£500.00 no change
Barclaycard: £2860.62 / £2869.11 -£8.49

Personal total: -£9294.95 / -£9367.51 -£72.56

Grand total: -£17,497.63 / -£17,341.77 +£155.86

Yes, the Tesco card statement generated overnight with £12.26 of interest, so that's been paid this morning and once it clears I can cut it up and send it back to them That means I can calculate this month's interest charges...this may not be pretty....

Personal:
Tesco £12.26
Barclaycard: £8.49
NatWest: £41.52
Egg/B'card: £42.89
Post Office: £9.61
Subtotal: £114.77
Balance transfer fees: £39.15
Total:£153.92

Business:
RBS: £38.07 (for 3 months)
Barclaycard: £123.83
Total: £161.90

Grand total: £315.82 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

No more BTs for a bit though, so I'm hoping next month's will be smaller!! Let's see if I can do a Mystic Caz and work it out. The 6.9% balance transfer isn't being paid off at all, because all the payments go to the 20.9% balance, so that should be about £16.50 in interest. I make the Egg/B'card about £46.95 but I paid less than that this month, so we'll put that down as £42.50. The overdraft is the tricky one, but again, it's not going to be more than this month's, so I'll guesstimate £40.00 - total predicted personal debt interest for October is £99, which is the first time it's been under £100 for a LONG time :j:j:j:j

cazmanian_minx

Evening all, sorry for the late update today.

Not much to report here. We spent a quite scary £132 in Tesco, but Mr Minx needed some new work trousers and shirts and so he's paying back £72.50 of it. It would be more, but I found a new bra reduced to £5 in the sale and also bought a trapper-style hat with a faux fur lining on his account at Allans of Gillock for £8, which netted off against his clothing spend - apparently I don't look too stupid in the hat, but when the wind chill is down to -15C and I'm trying to shovel up manure on the side of a cliff, I don't think I'm going to be worrying too much about my appearance

Also spent £21 at the tack shop, which was Finn's rug repair - £6 for the repair and £15 for cleaning and reproofing the rug. Hopefully he won't need it much, he's growing a coat like a Wookie!

May not get a chance to check in tomorrow, as it's Family Day at Mr Minx's work, so I'm off for a full day being shown around the UK's first nuclear power station. We're not allowed inside the sphere, but they're letting us into the control room (it's not in use any more, Mr Minx is helping take it to pieces - his father built it, so it's quite fitting really) and also into the Civil Nuclear Constabulary firing range where you're allowed to take a shot at a target. Unfortunately we're not allowed to take cameras (or even a mobile phone), but this is it:

cazmanian_minx

An even later check-in today, but I'm here! Only a £1 PAD today because I still haven't figured out what my rounding figure should be - bad Minx. I'll do it tomorrow, I promise.

I've been playing poker this evening. The site I usually play on had a four-way Multiplicity freeroll, which is four separate tournaments all running at the same time. If you placed in 2 of them you doubled your total winnings, 3 of them you tripled, all 4 and you quadrupled. Sadly I only placed in one, coming 28th out of 757 and winning a grand total of €0.42! Never mind, back to the last five Freeroll Fight games next week. I'm not going to make the top 32 unless I win every single one (unlikely!) and even then I think I'd only just scrape it, but it's been so, so good for my poker - I've won more this month than I've ever done before and I'm really looking forward to next month's Freeroll Fight (if they do one) when I'll be able to play all the games.

The open day was really interesting - sadly the firing range computer decided to pack up this morning, so I didn't get to fire at anything Probably safest

cazmanian_minx

Can I have a big WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO this morning please? I logged into my PayPal account this morning to find £700 in it, so I've paid another £1000 off the 'orrible-rate-Barclaycard :j:j:j:j:j:j

Now hoping I can squeeze in another £500 before the end of the month to make it £4000 plus interest paid off in September

cazmanian_minx

Can someone explain this one to me please? Why, when I've been targeting as much of my overpayments as possible to the NatWest overdraft and the interest rate hasn't changed, have I been charged 63p MORE interest for 21st August to 20th September than I was for 21st July to 20th August? Same number of days, the rate on the account hasn't changed and the balance has been steadily coming down.

I suppose it must be something to do with how fast the balance rose again after Mr Minx paid his bill money in at the beginning of the month, but it's annoying all the same! Especially since it means that Mystic Caz is already £2.15 out on her interest paid prediction for next month

My Hong Kong order is nearly ready to ship, but I've messed up slightly - it only weighs 75kg, so it's probably going to work out cheaper to bring it back with FedEx or UPS than to sea freight it. I've checked with a parcel aggregator and I can get it on TNT economy for £360-ish, but my freight agent says if the supplier has a courier account they'll probably get better rates than he can, so I think I'm on my own with this one!