Caz counts it down

Brightspark87

Happy birthday Caz seems like you have had a fab time and were given thoughtful meaningful gifts - always a bonus! I am so glad you enjoyed it x

cazmanian_minx

17 orders packed and posted, 2 and a bit hours done for Mr RPC, 13 minutes transcribed for a new client (Journalist #3) who then rang me to say that the person who she thought had let her down had now sent the transcript to her and please stop - so I said I wouldn't charge her, but please do think of me when she next has something and she's booked in for Wednesday night/Thursday Even better, I then had another new client (Journalist #4) ask if I could do something for her by this time tomorrow, which I couldn't guarantee, so she's found someone else for that and is sending me another file that doesn't need to be done until Friday.

My head is full of house project at the moment. Not so much what to do with it, we've pretty much got all that worked out, but thinking about ways to make additional income from it. This is the list so far:

1. Blog about it, both a written blog and a vlog on YouTube. I think people are still interested in property p**n and I can't imagine there are too many people idiotic enough to try and make money out of it when they live in the middle of nowhere which gives me a unique angle on it.
2. Take fab picture of the house and its view once finished, get made into postcards (not hugely expensive), leave a few in house free for visitors to send to friends (making sure, of course, the house's website address is on the back....).
3. Get canvases printed of my own photos of the area, hang in house, set up Redbubble account, leave business cards in house saying 'If you like any of the art, please visit https://www.whatever to buy'.

I'm sure there must be more - might wander over to the Millionaire Challenge thread and see if they can think of any.

emmaglet

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

1. Blog about it, both a written blog and a vlog on YouTube. I think people are still interested in property p**n and I can't imagine there are too many people idiotic enough to try and make money out of it when they live in the middle of nowhere which gives me a unique angle on it.

Hi Caz, I don't think I've ever commented on your diary before, despite reading it every week. There's definitely a little money to be made from blogging about it - obviously it depends on your stats but my Adsense earnings aren't great - maybe 4 payments of £60 a year and I'm one of the top 20 UK's personal finance bloggers!


The real money for me lies in sponsored posts - I imagine you can get some posts for interior design, solar panels and other home improvements. If you do want to go down this route then feel free to drop me a message on FB and I'll give you a list of places to sign up to for blogger opportunities


I'm so excited to see this next stage in your life so I can't imagine how you must be feeling.

cazmanian_minx

emmaglet wrote: »

Hi Caz, I don't think I've ever commented on your diary before, despite reading it every week. There's definitely a little money to be made from blogging about it - obviously it depends on your stats but my Adsense earnings aren't great - maybe 4 payments of £60 a year and I'm one of the top 20 UK's personal finance bloggers!

The real money for me lies in sponsored posts - I imagine you can get some posts for interior design, solar panels and other home improvements. If you do want to go down this route then feel free to drop me a message on FB and I'll give you a list of places to sign up to for blogger opportunities

I'm so excited to see this next stage in your life so I can't imagine how you must be feeling.

I was about to say 'Ooooh, I know a personal finance blogger too' and then looked at your profile picture and realised it was you :rotfl: (I might wake up at some point today...) Will ping you on FB now, that would be incredibly helpful, thank you so much

cazmanian_minx

The agency didn't have any work for me today, which is probably a good thing because Mr RPC did. I also got a third of the way through Journalist#4's file, stockcounted all the leather cord and got it all listed on eBay at a reduced price. I really have an incentive to get cracking with the shop stock now - the more cash I can raise, the less I'll have to use 0% money transfers to pay for work on the house!

I'm slightly worried about my PC. It's crashed with a Blue Screen of Death (years since I've seen one of those) two days in a row now and I wasn't even using it at the time. Googling the error message and code drew a total blank, so, suspecting imminent hardware failure of some description, I turned to my trusty band of Facebook friends, some of whom happen to be IT experts Various suggestions were put forward, but I think the person who suggested cleaning out the heat sink probably hit the nail on the head, as I opened up the case to find about five years'-worth of dust and dog hair wafting around inside I vacuumed it all out using the gentlest setting and not actually letting the brush touch any of the parts, put it all back together and, touch wood, it's run fine ever since. The printer's started making an annoying buzzing noise ever since I turned the power on and off though, so I've switched it off for now - it's something to do with the toner, because it stops when I take it out.

I'm knackered this evening - woke up at 4am for some reason and couldn't get back to sleep, so got up and got going early. I'll watch the end of Grand Designs and then hit the hay.

cazmanian_minx

Okay, someone please tell me why I agreed to take on a one-hour file coming in at 6.30pm today due for 6am tomorrow morning when I knew I had a one-hour file booked due in around 4pm that has to be back in 24 hours?? Especially when the one-hour at 4pm turned into 95 minutes??

Much frenzied typing later, the one due for 6am has gone back and I'm 42 minutes through the 95. Going to turn in for the night because it's on some quite complex stuff and I'm starting to lose the ability to type the word 'mean', let alone the name of the former Greek finance minister....!

I am also crossing my fingers and wishing very hard - there might just be some fantastic scores on the doors news on Friday

gallygirl

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I am also crossing my fingers and wishing very hard - there might just be some fantastic scores on the doors news on Friday

In anticipation.........

cazmanian_minx

You may have banana'd a little early, gallygirl, at the moment it looks like I'm going to be just £10 off I'm madly sending out 'buy from my eBay shop' vibes to the universe in general :rotfl:

The 95-minute file got finished and returned (hope she got it okay, I haven't heard anything back...) and fortunately the agency only sent me a 35-minute summary to do. All I have outstanding at the moment is the remaining 12 minutes of Journalist#4's file and I had such a headache by the time I'd finished Journalist#3's that I've left it for tomorrow morning. It's not due until close of play tomorrow, so I shall zip through it quickly before the file I've got coming in at 1pm.

I'm knackered today, but as so often happens when I have a late-working night, my brain shot into overdrive. By the time I went to bed, I'd come up with a name for my property blog and a load of ideas, most of which I've now forgotten! Looking at the hosting company I use for my transcribing website, it seems that if I upgrade my hosting to the next level (which means I'll pay a whole US$50 a year), I can have as many domain names as I want on the server space. So I've requested they upgrade the account and then will buy the domain names for the new blog as soon as it's done. The name I've come up with has both the .co.uk and the .com available, plus the exact name on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Someone is using it on Pinterest, though they don't seem to be a very active user, but I'm sure I can find something close enough.

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I've had another 'I wish I was rich' moment today. I was chatting to someone in the village when I went down to feed someone else's cats and chickens and apparently the family of the person who died earlier this year in the village are going to sell the house rather than one of them move in. The house itself is pretty run down (understatement!), but is at the far end of the village with amazing views over the point out to sea and comes with two crofts, the one that goes with the house, which is about 4 acres, and another one next door but one to me. It's lousy with ragwort and reeds, but it's about 8 acres.

Now, let's pretend for a moment that I'm debt free, have a sizeable deposit and could get a mortgage to buy it if/when it comes up for sale. The house down towards the point would be refurbished, the outbuildings and fields next to it sorted out and then put back on the market - in theory, that would pay off the mortgage, leaving the fields near us owned free and clear. Since it has the remains of not one but two old croft houses on it and any building on it would be in-fill, I doubt there'd be a problem getting planning permission to put a house on it (one was built on a much smaller croft adjacent to it a few years ago). We would then have a number of options: a) build our dream home on it and move in (being only two doors down, it has the same spectacular view, but double the acreage), b) build a functional house (or even two) on it and sell, c) build a beautiful house on it, let it as a holiday home and keep the fields for our own use.

Given the length of time anything takes to happen up here, it's not *impossible* that I could clear the debts and get some cash saved before it comes to market, but it's blooming unlikely I can dream

I wrote the above post on this diary at the end of July last year - 13 months later I'm in the process of doing it (I slightly over-estimated the acreage on the bigger field though, it's only 5, not 8). Just shows you should never write off anything as impossible

Anyway, I dropped a big hint about some possible good scores on doors news today. I was biting my nails a bit last night when I still had £10 to go and only £3.99 in eBay orders, but a few more came in overnight and I am proud to report this morning that:

THE BUSINESS DEBT IS ALL PAID OFF!!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D



Business
Barclaycard: £340.00 / -£0.00 +£340.00

Personal
Halifax card: -£4,650.00 / -£4,650.00 no change

Grand total: -£4,990.00 / -£4,650.00 +£340.00

And seeing as it's the end of August (where is this year going??), have some monthly ones as well.

Business
Barclaycard: -£1,030.00 / -£0.00 +£1,030.00

Personal
Halifax card: -£4,700.00 / -£4,650.00 +£50.00


Grand total: -£5,730.00 / £4,650.00 +£1,080.00

Before everyone goes too mad with the dancing bananas, there's a bit of a caveat. I have literally hurled every spare penny at that Barclaycard this month, but it's only allocated in YNAB, it's not been paid off the card (the card's at 0%) - the reason for this being that I have £232.64 due to Royal Mail on 9th September and probably a smidge over £200 to pay to eBay on 10th September - and the shop will be closing on the 9th because I'm going away. So I may just need to borrow back some of that money if I don't bank £430 between now and then (I have £9.82 towards the RM bill at the moment!).

So, what next? Well, buffer the business YNAB, which shouldn't take long because it only has about £500 a month in outgoings now, and then start moving the surpluses into my personal accounts. I need to get some money into the tax savings account and build up a proper buffer in the personal YNAB and then I can start hammering that Halifax card in the same way.

Chrysalis1976

Absolutely amazing Caz well done, and congratulations on your new house too I'm so glad everything is going well

C x