Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

I pay £2.19+VAT for first class - I have a business account and I'm VAT registered, so it doesn't work out too bad I charge customers the £2.70 it would cost over the counter and the difference pays for the packaging.

Car service today and I'm REALLY hoping it doesn't cost too much, but I'm fearing the worst. There's only £240 in the car maintenance pot - normally there'd be nearly £500 but I had to get the brakes done over the summer. I also had to top my phone up for the first time since 30th May! I was down to 66p and I may need it today. At least I'll have free internet on it to keep me occupied while I wait for the car, and that'll still be active when I go off for my girly weekend in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks' time.

cazmanian_minx

Well, whoever the gods of car maintenance are, they were smiling on me yesterday - the total bill, including parts and labour, for the 80k service came to £121.57 :D:D:D That's the joy of having a good small garage you can trust (their mechanic is even Toyota-trained as an added bonus!). So I still have £133 in the car maintenance pot and they said that they don't see any reason why it shouldn't pass its MOT in about 8 weeks' time.

They think the starting problem is probably one of the glow plugs - a replacement glow plug is £20, but Toyota ones either come out easily or are utter gits and they won't know which until they try. They think they can diagnose which one it is with them still in place, but they need the car to be completely cold and the weather to be cold to do it, so I've brought it home and if it starts playing up again then I'll take it in one afternoon, get Mr Minx to collect me and drive me home, they can look at it first thing in the morning and I'll see if I can persuade a neighbour to take me in to collect it (garage shuts before Mr Minx will have time to come back here, pick me up and drive me the 26 miles back to town).

NatWest will be taking £39.13 in interest next month, so it's :j:j:j:j for that one finally coming in under £40. I'm going into November in slightly better financial shape than I'd anticipated

cazmanian_minx

It's Friday, it's snowing :eek:, so it must be scores on the doors!

last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£3121.21 / -£2281.15 +£840.06
Barclaycard: -£3000.00 / -£3000.00 no change

Business total: -£6121.21 / -£5281.15 +£840.06

Personal
Overdraft: -£2515.00 / -£2685.00 -£170.00
Egg card: -£3295.00 / -£3295.00 no change
Dental loan: -£250.00 / -£250.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2883.90 / -£2883.90 no change

Personal total: -£8943.90 / -£9113.90 -£170.00

Grand total: -£15,065.11 / -£14,395.05 +£670.06

It's heading back in the right direction again, though not for long as it's pay day and VAT man next week and I still haven't had the bill for the VAT due on my chains, so I need to keep cash aside for that.

The only spending left on the personal front this month is the weekly shop on Saturday, so I shall go through the freezers later today (we have three!) and see what we can have on the leftovers front.

cazmanian_minx

Evening everyone, it's a late check in from me today. We kept the shopping spend down to £87 and £33 of that was Mr Minx stocking up on whisky while it was on offer.

I have a feeling Monday could be a busy day - Saturday is normally my quiet day for eBay, but I have £420-worth of orders waiting to ship already. Sunday's usually busier, so it's looking like a good weekend.

I finished the month's freeroll poker tournaments in 45th place out of 1067 - a small improvement on last month's 49th. I had 4005 points, the lowest player in the magic top 32 (who get to play for €1000 tomorrow) had 5200. I'm not quite knocking on the door yet, but I'm definitely driving up the right street

cazmanian_minx

You can tell people are starting to get paid for October, I have just shy of £700 in my PayPal account with Sunday evening still to come :eek::D:j:beer::T I think that could translate to another payment off the horrible-rate-Barclaycard on Monday

The Tesco Price Promise grudgingly spat out a 2p voucher for Saturday's shop. I think it would actually cost me more to print it out, so they can keep that one

cazmanian_minx

Morning all - £800 transferred from PayPal to the business account, £1000 transferred from the business account to the Barclaycard Just £2,000 left on that at 20.9% now, down from £11,750 at the beginning of March :j

I played a freeroll tournament last night, came 2nd out of 547 and won €20, so it's been a pretty good start to the week all told.

cazmanian_minx

Morning (just!) all - I'm running a bit late today because when I went down to muck out the horses I found I had a dry pony, so I had a bit of a rush of blood to the head, tacked him up and took him into next door's school for 20 minutes. Despite not having been ridden for nearly 8 weeks, he was a little star and behaved very well - I have to get him doing some work again, regardless of how my foot feels (actually it wasn't too bad) as he currently looks like a yeti that swallowed a beer barrel, so he needs to get some more exercise! He did 20 minutes of walk and trot without sweating, despite being unclipped, so he's fitter than he looks. Hopefully the forecast of dry from tomorrow afternoon for a couple of days is correct and I can get him out and about a bit.

Actually, he might nearly be an MSE exercise option - I've just looked up the monthly membership for my old gym in London and it's only £14 less than I budget for both horses (and I haven't spent a penny on them this month)!

cazmanian_minx

A quick fly by to let you know eBay's got a £5 off coupon code floating about. It only works for purchases made via the mobile app though. Make sure you have the latest version, enter COUPONAPP2 on the Review Order screen and it'll take £5 off the item price. It DOESN'T count towards the P&P, but if you can find something for £5 or less with free P&P, it's completely free.

Full instructions and Ts & Cs here - it's valid until 12th November: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vouchers/mobile/

*ticks off another stocking filler for Mr Minx *

cazmanian_minx

Further to my above, I've just noticed (and Tamebay has put a blog post up about it) that it's targeted accounts only, so it MAY not work for everyone. That said, I've had a couple of friends try it already who haven't received the email and they got their fiver off.

cazmanian_minx

How is it the end of October already?? It seems like yesterday that I started this diary! Anyway, month end scores on the doors for the personal debt:

Debt 30th September 31st October

Overdraft £2871.00 £2680.00 -£191.00
Egg card £3333.33 £3295.00 -£38.33
Teeth loan £500.00 £250.00 -£250.00
Barclaycard £2869.11 £2883.90 +£14.79

Total £9573.44 £9108.90 -£464.54

Much better than I was expecting, though it was helped out by not having to buy the mats for Finn's shelter this month. The PAD total for October is £624.01, nearly £100 down on September, but the debt reduction is nearly £100 up - go figure!

So, where's it gone this month?

Total income: £2251.25

Bank charges: £95.24
Bills: £536.96
Car service: £121.57
Diesel: £75.30
Lunch out: £20.25
Tesco: £349.47
Christmas presents: £3.70
Dental plan: £20.00
National Insurance: £10.60
Knitting needles and yarn: £15.69
Hotel Chocolat box (forgot to cancel it, done now): £18.95
Croft savings: £500.00
Cash: £20.00

Total £1787.73

Not bad - OK, I could have taken £50 off it by not having had the lunch out, the knitting stuff (though most of that's for presents) and the chocolates, but all in all, pretty good.

November, however.... I'm off for a weekend in Edinburgh with some friends and although the accommodation and transport is paid for, I've still got to budget for four meals out. We've got a fixed price deal for £25 a head for the Saturday night and the pub we're eating in on the Friday night has a pretty cheap menu, so as long as I don't go too crazy with lunch on Saturday and Sunday it shouldn't be too bad.