Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Back to normality today, or as normal as things get around here Lots done for Mr RPC, only one eBay order (embarrassing...), the hour's file typed up and sent back and one of tomorrow's hours has already arrived and, thankfully, is only 50 minutes. The second one won't turn up until 5pm, so plenty of time to get the first one typed and sent back before it arrives. NEL has been in touch as well and may have something for me next week. Busy, busy, busy!

cazmanian_minx

Oh, and I had a letter from Halifax (my one remaining balance transfer card), putting my limit up to £10,500 - I think it started at £6,000 in June 2014 and I've not started earning any more since then! So that's now £30,900 of available credit on earnings of about £18,000 a year. Nuts.

brizzledfw

Good work on the transcription and all that shelter sorting!!!

Agree re H£lifax...you feel that the algorithm they use to calculate risk must have gone awry somewhere. I am the same, but usually don't object to an increase in case disaster ever strikes

Have a good eve

EssexHebridean

Scary isn't it - the number of people out there who simply see that as "free money" too....

DebtFree2012

I used to see it as free money back in the day. That's why I am where I am now and doing what I am doing. The good thing is, it taught me a lot and I will never EVER go back there, nor have I since I started this journey.

I am so pleased the boys are ok - that is one scary cross wind for the shelter to take off like that!

cazmanian_minx

The typing mountain is slowly coming down. Currently outstanding:

1 set of meeting notes and 2 sets of meeting actions for Mr RPC
125 minutes for NEL (due Friday 22nd)

Coming in today:
60-ish minutes for Big Agency business team (due midday Sunday)
60-80 minutes for Small Agency (due 24 hours after receipt)

Also on today's to-do list is to ring Sky again. The monthly bill has gone back over £70. We can't get Virgin here, which reduces the negotiating position somewhat, but I've just been investigating BT's offer and they can now do Sky Sports 1 & 2 in HD for £27 a month, so a package including sports with them would be £47.50 a month and I can genuinely threaten to switch away if they can't do anything with the price.

cazmanian_minx

Didn't get round to ringing Sky, as we can't get Sky Sports on BT until we have a better broadband speed than 3MB, which isn't going to be any time soon.

Ridiculously busy - am doing 2-3 hours a day for Mr RPC, have 2 hours for NEL (one sent back already), 2 hours for Big Agency (one sent back already, one coming in on Friday evening) and an hour for Small Agency (should have come through this evening, but hasn't, so I shall chase up in the morning) plus the eBay stuff and looking after the animals.

Talking of which, I have the vet coming tomorrow Merlin, who had been a bit shuffly in front for a week or two, finally went hopping lame last Wednesday, which was initially very cheering because it meant, or so I thought, that my suspicion he had an abscess in his hoof was correct. It didn't burst on Wednesday night, so on Thursday I called the farrier to see if he could come out (wrong side of the wrong county) and then the vet, who said they could do Friday if I wanted. I was pretty certain it was going to have burst by then, so I said I'd call them back the next morning if they were needed and, sure enough, I came down on Friday morning to a much sounder horse, so didn't ring them. Friday night he was lame again, ditto Saturday morning, so rang the vet, talked through exactly what had been going on and got some painkillers for him. Improved over the weekend but not right and since I had the farrier booked for tomorrow anyway, I rang the vet back on Monday and arranged for them to come out at the same time as the farrier, so they could consult together on whether there was still an abscess floating around in there or whether it was being caused by the big scary horizontal crack in his foot, which hadn't previously caused him any problems but was starting to open up now it was growing down towards the toe. Went down to the field Monday evening, horse canters across it, sound as a pound....:mad: The vet's still coming anyway, both of the boys are overdue a tetanus jab, and Merlin's still not quite happy about that foot - I think it's going to need quite an aggressive trim and there's a limit to what farriers are legally allowed to do without a vet present, so we'll see if we can get him sorted out. Not looking forward to the bill though!

hiddenshadow

Oy, lameness can be so annoying! I hope the vet/farrier can come up with a good (and cheap) solution.

EssexHebridean

Oh poor Merlin - hope he gets sorted.

On Sky - when I ring them to haggle I'm always quite open about the fact that I don't want to leave, but that they are simply too expensive...then I kind of leave them to fill in the blanks. We're back below £40 a month again for the three services at the moment which I'm quite happy with. If you've been a customer long-term all sorts of deals seem to open up as well. It may well be that a similar approach would work - as after all they must accept that some people are happy to simply cancel the TV service in particular, with no replacement, even if they put two and two together that you can't GET a replacement.

cazmanian_minx

Is it Friday? Please tell me it's Friday!

The lame horse is now so much better that I had to retrieve him from next door's field this afternoon. It was indeed the big scary crack causing the problem. Because I see it every day, I hadn't really realised how much bigger and scarier it had got since the farrier's last visit 8 weeks ago until he saw it and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. Just to give you some idea...



The vet advised trimming back as much of the toe as possible and then rasping the rest back hard. Once that had been done, there wasn't much left to give the foot support, so he's been shod in a heart bar shoe and all the holes filled in, and now it looks like this:



The vet was here for 30 minutes (she gave them both a tetanus jab at the same time, as they were very overdue) and the farrier for an hour and a half - bless the man, he only charged me £40 for shoeing that foot and trimming the other seven. It should have been at least double that. Think there'll be a large box of homemade chocolate brownies waiting for him next visit They'll both be back in four weeks' time to check on it and for the boys to have a second tetanus jab (yes, we were that overdue ).

Just to add to the horsey brokeness, the local tack shop decided to have its annual 50% off turnout rugs sale today (you only get that price if you pay by bank transfer on the day) and Merlin only has one rug that fits him properly, so I have a mediumweight turnout to pick up tomorrow, £35.99 down from £71.99, plus an extra £20 for a sack of linseed because I'm about to run out. The sheep need a new Crystalyx tomorrow as well.

So that's the outgoings. What about the incomings? Well, it's been a busy week, and I'm happy to report the following income invoiced:

Large Agency: £65.00
Small Agency: £30.00
NEL: £63.00
Journalists: £39.33
Mr RPC: £115.80

Total: £320.33

Add in a little bit of eBay money (this week's sales only £143.22, before eBay & PayPal fees and postage) and I'm just about over the line for my £350 a week target.

Hm, is this the new scores on the doors, I wonder....?