Caz counts it down

TallGirl

Missed the doggy pictures she is lovely, will be nice for you to have company during the day again wont it.

Hope you have a nice trip down South and dont get too stuck in traffic. Well done on the debt reductions.

cazmanian_minx

I am KNACKERED!

1100 miles since my last post, but we have our dog and she is an absolute sweetheart. Her obedience needs a little work, particularly her non-existent recall, but for a working cocker she's incredibly well behaved indoors - if she wants to go out to the garden she goes and sits by the back door and waits to be let out, she doesn't beg for food when we're cooking or eating, she's happy to be with me in the annexe during the day but doesn't show any interest in the boxes of stock and she travels beautifully. We're both completely enchanted by her, not least because she's so tiny - the top of her head barely reaches my knee.

I haven't dared add up what we've spent over the weekend, but her lovely, lovely foster family, when they found out we were intending to buy a crate on the way home because we wanted to see what sized one she was used to, insisted on giving us the one she was used to sleeping in. Apparently so many of the rescue dogs come with crates or beds that they have a stack of them in their spare room, but we're so grateful as a good quality collapsible one like the one we now have is about £50-worth.

Today's been pretty nuts, not just settling the dog in, but I had 61 orders to go, the equine dental technician visiting and two hours of dog walking plus two lots of mucking out to fit into about 7 and a half hours of daylight. I haven't had a chance to log into that Barclaycard account and check the interest yet, but will do that tomorrow. Two bits of good financial news though - 1) thanks to £1300 waiting in the PayPal account, all the business bills are covered for the month, I just need the £1500 for me and then I can pay off some more Barclaycard and 2) I had an unexpected royalty payment for a short story. Only £13.35, but that's today's PAD sorted

I'm going to skip scores on the doors for last Friday (sorry Bonnington ) but promise to do them this coming Friday

cazmanian_minx

That's two days in a row I haven't had time for lunch! Today's timetable has gone something like this:

6.30am alarm goes off. Haul carcass out of bed, let dog out, make porridge
7.15am wave husband off to work, get dressed
7.45am feed, groom and muck out horses
8.45am back up to house, collect dog, walk down to beach
10.00am get back from beach, towel down dog, start work for the day interspersed with doing a couple of laundry loads
1pm go for a run, taking dog with me. Pace severely hampered by having to untangle ourselves when she went one side of a streetlight and I went the other
1.30pm take dog to meet Margaret and Chris on the way back up the road
2pm put dog, library books and sacks of post in the car, drive to post office 7 miles to the east
2.30pm head out west to see if I can find the library van so I don't have to wait in for it.
2.50pm fail to find library van, decide to give dog her walk on the beach I'm driving past and then wait in at home until the van arrives
3.45pm turn into my drive just as the library van pulls up at the top of it
4.10pm feed and muck out horses, freshen up water buckets
5pm back to work in the annexe
6pm collapse in front of the telly!

The good news is that I've actually managed to wear her out today, she's zonked out in her crate at the moment We've changed her name slightly from Dora to Jura, but she's got so much energy that I think she's going to get nicknamed Jura-cell :rotfl:

I did manage to find time to log into the Barclaycard account, but the figures are on the office computer, the card number is in the office and I'm on the laptop in the house! From memory it was about £40 for the outstanding £2k at 20.9% and £17 for the not quite £3k balance transfer. Total personal interest for the month is £100.22, slightly up on last month.

cazmanian_minx

Right, with all this walking I am either going to end up with a figure like Jessica Ennis or be dead by Christmas, I'm not sure which! I did get lunch today :T but only a packet of biscuits grabbed from the shop when I took the post

I now have the precise Barclaycard figures - £40.15 for the 20.9% and £16.46 for the 6.9%. They also sent one of those helpful annual summaries which shows I've paid £1786.94 in interest on that card this year :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: That's a week in Mauritius!!!!

£200 from PayPal into the business account today with another £200+ to come in the morning from yesterday's Streamline credit card transactions. Nearly, nearly there for the month...

cazmanian_minx

Another morning, another stagger round the beach, but she loves it so much! Just look at the little heartbreaker...


Jura by Caro Jones, on Flickr

(lots more pics on my Flickr account if anyone's interested - just click on the photo or my name underneath).

Streamline's running a bit slow with its processing at the moment, I've got the £31 from Monday's card transactions now, but not the £200 from Tuesday yet. Still, I've been able to transfer another £200 from PayPal this morning and total business debt is the lowest it's been for ages.

cazmanian_minx

It's the moment you've all (not) been waiting for!! They're back!! It's scores on the doors!!!!



(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£2887.14 / -£855.41 +£2031.73
Barclaycard: -£2000.00 / -£2040.15 -£40.15

Business total: -£4887.14 / -£2895.56 +£1991.58

Personal
Overdraft: -£2405.00 / -£2700.00 -£295.00
Egg card: -£3262.05 / -£3260.00 +£2.05
Dental loan: -£250.00 / £0.00 +£250.00 PAID OFF
Barclaycard: -£2883.90 / -£2900.36 -£16.46

Personal total: -£8800.95 / -£8860.36 -£59.41

Grand total: -£13,668.09 / -£11,755.92 +£1912.17

I have to keep reminding myself that I have £4,500 going out of the business account between now and 1st December, but I'm chuffed that despite spending £100 on the equine dentist and £150 on Jura the personal debts haven't gone up too much - I thought I'd be back over £9,000.

Another £411 banked this morning (that Streamline money finally came through). Just £300 more needed by 1st December to be able to pay everything (including me) in full. Anything on top of that can go to the Barclaycard, though I do need some stock from one of my UK suppliers quite urgently and it's the one who doesn't do accounts so has to be paid for up front. I'll see what the takings are like over the weekend.

gallygirl

Well done Caz, and I'm sure it's a great relief your teeth can't be repossessed (am guessing that's what your new smile is like ).

Jura is a beautiful dog and I hope she appreciates how lucky she is .

ETA - just looked at pics and I'm sure she does. There is one pic in particular showing her running across the beach which is really lovely

cazmanian_minx

Oh dear Gods, I don't want to think about how much I've spent in the last 24 hours Since I'm here I'd better confess.

Birthday present for brother - £50 (budgeted for)
Insurance for Jura - £75.60 (though as long as it's tracked I should get £70 cashback from Quidco)
Finn's field shelter mats - £129.60
Tesco - £200.60 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

The Tesco bill is down to them having a 3 day special offer on Famous Grouse - £14.00 for a 1 litre bottle instead of the usual £20.99. We thought we'd better only take 2 so there were some left for other people and then we got to the end of the drinks aisle and saw two stock trolleys piled to the top with cases of the stuff, so we had a box of 6 as well. On the plus side, that should keep Mr Minx in booze until next year and he's paid me back for them.

brizzledfw

Well hello there..have just read your entire diary whilst sitting next to my DDs watching SCD! Next to a wood burner blazing!! Loved it. Will subscribe and check in from time to time.

You're doing great. Don't ever doubt yourself..you are getting to your DFD really fast and you're quite an inspiration

Brizzle

cazmanian_minx

Hello Brizzle, thanks for dropping by - I was born and brought up there, it's a lovely city

I've just sneaked a peak at my business PayPal account and it has £444 in it, so that's me paid in full on 1st December and £144 towards the horrible rate business card If (and it's a big if!) next week's sales are as good as this week's have been, I should be able to knock £1000 off the card by the end of the week. I've got a stock delivery due on Monday, which will help.

Someone has told me that I can make brickettes for the woodburner out of horse manure - as I have a fair amount of the stuff, this would be extremely useful! We have one of the shredded paper squashing moulds and apparently if I take three quarters of a wheelbarrow of poo/shavings/bedding, fill to the top with water and stir to even out the mix a bit, I should be able to get 15 or so brickettes from it. Apparently two of them will keep a 5kw woodburner going all night and as long as they're dried properly (takes about two months) there's no smell. I bet the run-off would make great plant food as well....I sense a new business opportunity, because being a rural community one thing we're not short of up here is manure!! Where there's muck there's brass anyone....?