Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

My lovely, lovely supplier has got it all sorted out and the boxes are now in TNT's possession I've promised him I'll order more next time so we can go back to doing it the usual way!

I realised this morning that Monday was my 100th consecutive Payment A Day - I really do think that's been the key to me clearing this debt much faster than I'd even dared hope, it's kept me very focused on the task. I was expecting to get rid of £600 to £1000 a month, but I've paid off £6,600.99 since starting this diary on 29th June :j (probably a bit more than that now, that's calculated to last Friday's numbers!)

I spoke to my Mum last night and told her about meeting the last owner of this house and him wanting the money two months earlier than we'd expected. She immediately asked if we wanted to borrow it and I started to explain that we were going to try and get a loan but if for any reason we were turned down, then yes please, but she cut me off mid-explanation, said that there was no way she'd let us pay interest on it when she could help and asked if we wanted to borrow the whole lot from her. I said that we'd have some of it saved up, but if we could borrow £7,000 that would be amazing and she burst out laughing! When she'd recovered, she explained that she had exactly £7,000 in an ING account which she was closing next week because she wanted to get the money out before Barclays took it over (she's got a thing about Barclays, long story) and she hadn't thought about what she was going to do with it! So she's sending me a cheque in the next couple of weeks so she doesn't have to move it anywhere and we're paying her back at £500 a month from April next year (we need that £500 for the moment to make up the rest of the money and she's fine with that).

Like I said, I didn't really want to take her money, but she's so pleased to be able to help us out that I'm feeling less bad about it than I did. Hooray for lovely mums :T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

Hiddenidenity

How lovely off your mum

Bet its a huge weight of your mind now you know its sorted x

cazmanian_minx

Running late today as we're expecting nearly 3.5 inches of rain over the next 48 hours and I wanted to get everything ship shape in the fields before they're reduced to a swamp. Of course, it would be tomorrow that I'm going to Inverness for the dentist, wouldn't it...? I'm going to leave an hour earlier than normal and take it very slowly, because it's supposed to be utterly torrential.

Other than that, not a lot going on here today. I'm really not in the mood for working, so I think I'm going to compromise by getting the orders done and then vegging on the sofa and bagging up beads

cazmanian_minx

Especially for Bonnington, because I should really be packing orders ready to zoom off to Inverness at 10 - scores on the doors!


last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£2553.12 / -£1863.96 +£689.16
Barclaycard: -£3500.00 / -£3500.00 no change

Business total: -£6053.12 / -£5363.96 +£689.16

Personal
Overdraft: -£2315.00 / -£2400.00 -£85.00
Egg card: -£3330.00 / -£3295.00 +£35.00
Dental loan: -£500.00 / -£500.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2869.11 / -£2869.11 no change

Personal total: -£9014.11 / -£9064.11 -£50.00

Grand total: -£15,067.23 / -£14,428.07 +£639.16

I've got another week of smooth sailing, but the week after that I'll have a supplier payment of £1861, the Royal Mail bill of £687 and the VAT payment of £960, so it's all going to head rapidly downhill again!

cazmanian_minx

Not much going on today. The weekly shop was only £51 (partly because Mr Minx is away Sunday and Monday nights, mostly because they didn't have his usual whisky in stock!!)

I had a very soggy day in Inverness yesterday. I was going to cheer myself up by getting a lipstick my friend is raving about with my Boots points (a No.7 one called Siren - it's an old-fashioned-movie-star-style red which apparently suits almost every skin tone), but found out it was £9.00 (seriously?? For a lipstick??? :eek:) and decided to leave it. I was also going to have seriously calorific lunch in McDonalds, but forgot it was half term and one look at the hordes of soggy kids inside was enough to send me running to the Marks and Sparks food hall instead, where I bought myself a picnic lunch and then went and found a seat at the railway station to sit and eat it in the dry. Very glamorous - not :rotfl: I did manage to get almost a full tank of diesel (I had 27 miles left in it according to the computer!) at Inverness prices though - 138.9p at the Kessock Bridge Esso (and it might have been even cheaper if I'd driven out to the Tesco Extra) compared to the 149.9p we're paying up here.

Next week is going to be less of a money saving week than I'd hoped though - as I was driving down the strath yesterday, miles from anywhere, there was a little 'bing' noise and 'Oil Maintenance Required' started flashing on the dashboard. Now, Toyotas throw up two oil warnings - one means 'don't drive another yard or you risk knackering your engine' and the other means 'do an oil and oil filter change when you get the chance'. So I pulled over into a passing place and got the handbook out to find out which one it was. Fortunately it was the second and I was able to carry on. Since I'm only 600 miles away from the 80,000 mile service, at which the oil and filter will get changed anyway, I might as well book it in next week - I was hoping to shunt it into next month, but I'd rather not drive round with a warning light on for any longer than I have to. I'm taking it to the local garage in Thurso this time, which has a Toyota-trained mechanic, rather than the place I bought it from in Inverness.

hillside777

It's great to see the scores on the doors.
I did read them during yesterday morning but didn't get around to posting until this evening.

Sorry to hear about the car although it is good it is nothing major.
I hope you don't mind but I have used your ideas of weekly figures.

Keep up the good work!

cazmanian_minx

bonnington wrote: »

I hope you don't mind but I have used your ideas of weekly figures.

I don't mind at all, the more the merrier

It's the 14th today, so that's tooth fairy loan payment day. Only one more payment left on that now, so in 31 days it'll be paid off :j:j:j:j:j

cazmanian_minx

Morning all. I came into the office all ready to ring the garage and realised that I can't book the service until I know which day my stock is arriving (as I'll be stuck in Thurso all day while it's being done). According to TNT's track and trace, it's in the UK somewhere, but hasn't moved since Saturday - which probably means it's reached the Highlands and has been passed over to one of the local courier firms for delivery and won't be trackable any more.

I'm having one of those days where I'm utterly fed up of having no 'frivolous' money - I know it's my own fault I'm in this situation, and I know I'm getting out of it pretty quickly, but I'm still in a totally rebellious mood about it all today. Step away from the online shopping, woman... To be fair, I don't spend a lot on myself these days (if you don't count the horses ) - in the last 6 months it's been £30 on a haircut, £24 on computer games, £125 on two lots of theatre tickets and £1.40 a week on Closer magazine - that's it. Even the horses have only cost me £710 for the last 6 months and that included £118 on rubber mats for when we extended Merlin's field shelter.

Oh, and I want to start an airline connecting Wick John o'Groats with places like Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol and London (they already fly to Edinburgh and Aberdeen), but Mr Minx says I'm not allowed to even start thinking about it too seriously until I'm turning over £1m a year with the beads

cazmanian_minx

Well, I spent yesterday wrecking the scores on the doors for Friday

The car refused to start when I went to take the post, first time ever, so I took that as a sign and booked the service for a week on Wednesday, by which time my Hong Kong delivery should have arrived - it's tracking again and it left Inverness at 6.30 this morning, so it should be here today or tomorrow. The car did start eventually, I think I may have had it switched on without starting it for a little too long while I caught up my mileage notebook.

I had a bit of an oops with a customer - she ordered six cabochons I didn't have She's been very nice about it and is happy to wait a few days for them, so I had to place an order with that supplier (which, to be fair, I needed to do anyway) and they had a lot of items which have been long term out of stock available again - total bill £790. I also needed to place an order with my other UK supplier and I knew it was going to be a fairly big one, so I rang them up before placing it and paid off my account - total £1861.

So that's the business accounts looking fairly unhealthy at the moment, but all this stock should be arriving between now and Friday and it's going to sell pretty fast. I only need to take £1600 between now and 31st October to pay all the remaining bills and my drawings though

The Barclaycard statement has generated this morning and interest on the 'orrible rate bit is down to £57.66 from £123.83 last month :T:T:T:T I'd really like to pay another £1000 off it this month, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. However, it does mean that I can now see how accurate Mystic Caz was with her prediction of £99 for personal debt interest in October....

Personal
Egg card: £38.30
NatWest O/D: £42.15
Barclaycard transfer: £14.79

Total: £95.24 :j:j:j:j
(last month was £114.77 plus balance transfer fees of £39.15, so that's a big improvement )

Add on the business interest of £57.66 and that's a total of £152.90 in interest for October, less than half the £315.82 of September :T:T:T:T

cazmanian_minx

TNT turned up yesterday and the chains are fab :D:D:D:D They're already up for sale, today's job is getting the rest of the order listed.

Merlin was going bonkers in the field this morning - I was slightly concerned he was colicking because the way he was bucking made me think he was uncomfortable in the stomach area (he'll quite often have a hooley up and down, but he rarely bucks more than once with it). He settled down though and I caught him, groomed him and generally made a fuss of him and he seems fine - probably just the effects of the first frosty grass of the season.

The car was very dodgy about starting again yesterday It's definitely something to do with the temperature, because it starts first go when I get into it to drive home after dropping the post off. I've checked the oil levels and it's fine. A bit of Googling suggests the glow plugs or the ERG filter as possible suspects - but the garage it's going to on Wednesday has a Toyota-trained mechanic, so I'm sure he'll be able to sort it out for me (assuming I can get it there in the first place - I have AA HomeStart, but they take a while to get here if we need them :rotfl:)