Caz counts it down

brizzledfw

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

So the clock is ticking, I have 12 months to get the house done and revalued, the land it stands on decrofted, and a successful application for a commercial mortgage through before the 0%s start ending. Game on

If anyone can do it, you can...we watch with baited breath and can't wait to cheer you on!:T:T

DebtFree2012

Hugely exciting stuff!!!

cazmanian_minx

Goldcup wrote: »

Hi Caz, what company/ies do you work for transcribing and proof reading? I am looking into this now but need to speed up my typing!

They're called Take Note, I started a thread in Up Your Income a while ago: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5014358 and from that they made it onto the MSE list of ways to up your income, which they were pretty chuffed about! I still do the odd bit for them (you'll see them pop up as Large Agency or Big Agency in my scores on the doors), but not that much these days - the other people I work for are mostly individual businesses/sole traders rather than typing agencies. 'Small Agency' I sometimes work for is ED Typing Services - http://www.edtypingservices.com/#/join-our-team/4573202508 - looks like she's recruiting as well, but they require six months of experience.

brizzledfw wrote: »

If anyone can do it, you can...we watch with baited breath and can't wait to cheer you on!:T:T

Thank you! It all seems to have gone through, the Barclaycard is in credit I'm going to try and sort Halifax out next because if they credit check me when I ring and see that I've just maxed out £19,000 of Barclaycards, they might well say no!

I have bitten the bullet today, got my head down and done the accounts for the bead shop, the typing and the crofts/holiday let.

Bead shop - didn't write down the figure before I shut down the file, but something ridiculous like £879 profit for the year. I got a lot more in cash than that out of it, but that's because I was running down the stock, so the money was coming out of stock rather than being a generated profit.

Typing - net profit of £12,929.86. Quite chuffed with that, as it's about 50% up on last year.

Crofts/holiday let - net loss of £3,465.68.

All of which means I'm just a smidge under the personal allowance for 15/16 at about £10,343 and will hopefully get a refund of the payment on account I made in January. It does explain why the debt reduction stalled so drastically though, last year's income was £19,004, so it's been nearly halved.

Just for my own interest, here's how the typing income stacked up.

Journalist #1 - £606.32
Journalist #2 - £671.99
Journalist #3 - £225.75
Journalist #4 - £46.50
PhD friend - £100.50
Small Agency - £342.70
Elance (some of this will be Small Agency) - £338.54
Mr RPC - £4,697.05
Market research agency - £1,202.98
Large Agency - £3,648.23
Nice Elance Lady - £1,883.37

Total £13,763.93

JustAboutThere

Yes, the debt reduction may have stalled at the moment, but you're in the middle of some hefty bills due to the croft renovation. But its not as if you're going to be paying that sort of money all the time. Once its finished and you've got some income from the house(s), it will all even itself out.

Watched the Alba crofting programme yesterday - the majority of it is actually in English. Had the subtitles turned on for the Gaelic portion (very little of that). The only part without subtitles was one poem in Gaelic, but that didn't detract from the gist of the whole thing.

Overall, pretty interesting.

cazmanian_minx

Scores on the doors, because I enjoyed having last weekend off from typing so much that I'm doing it again!

A quiet week this week, NEL had no work for me, which is unusual, however, a couple of the journalists stepped in and plugged the gap a bit. Plus I spent a lot of time sorting out my accounts, so that's eaten into work time (can you tell I'm getting my excuses in early here??)

Mr RPC - £225.60
Journalist #4 - £46.50
Journalist #3 - £21.75

Total: £293.85

However - with 8 days of the month left, I'm already over my minimum monthly earnings target, so next week is a bonus

I think I am finally there with this basic farm payment. The lovely lady who's guiding me through the form went in to see the Department (SGRPID, but that's tricky to pronounce, so everyone just calls it the Department!) and they reckon that my common grazings share was over 100 hectares, meaning that to get my basic payment I'd need to have about 35 sheep. I thought about it and decided that (a) that was going to be about another £800+ or so on what I'd have spent to get up to 23 and (b) while I might have just about coped with 20 ewe hoggs plus three tame ewes as a new shepherd, I almost definitely wouldn't cope with 35, so we're back to the original plan of buying lambs over the summer.

What this means is that to claim any basic payment at all, I needed to lease my common grazings shares to someone else for a year. Mr Minx wasn't too sure about this, as he wants to cut peats up there, so the obvious solution presented itself - I have leased him my common grazings in exchange for him leasing me the in-bye land at home. We've drawn up a proper lease between us, so the Department is happy, and we've agreed that what we're each getting is of equal value, so no money changes hands and it doesn't affect Mr Minx's tax return. So, assuming it all goes through and is accepted, I should get a payment of about £1,000 a year (depending on the exchange rate) to help towards maintaining the land. Fingers crossed.

JustAboutThere

I love your common grazings solution.

Some would even call it common sense

Verbatim

What is in-bye land? Otherwise I think I just about followed that !

cazmanian_minx

Verbatim wrote: »

What is in-bye land? Otherwise I think I just about followed that !

I shall let the Scottish Government explain it for me...

In-bye land

• 'In-bye' is that part of the farm which is used mainly for arable and grassland production and which is not hill and rough grazings.
• 'In-bye' land has fields that are bounded by a fence, a dyke or a hedge.

• 'In-bye grassland' will be conserved for winter feed (e.g. as hay or silage) or grazed by livestock.
• 'In-bye grassland' will be either 'improved' or 'unimproved'. Both 'improved grassland' and 'unimproved grassland' are classified as 'in-bye'.

To classify as 'in-bye' clauses (1) and (2) must be satisfied and, where the land is managed for grassland production, clauses (3) and (4) must also be satisfied.
Please note:
The 'in-bye' definition applies to that part of the farm where the bulk of the land is used for arable or grassland production. Uncultivated field corners and field margins (such as water margins and hedgerows) within this area are included as 'in-bye'.
Although 'in-bye land' has traditionally meant the enclosed grass and arable fields close to the house and steading and below the 'hill or moorland dyke', it is quite possible to have an area of 'in-bye' land above the 'hill dyke' (e.g. a tupping or bull park) - an enclosed area of improved or unimproved grassland once reclaimed from the hill, moorland or heath.
If there is any doubt about the classification of the land in question, you should contact the local RPID office who will be able to advise on the correct classification and also which areas of the holdings are 'in-bye'.

Basically it's what you picture when someone says 'field' to you, as opposed to hill grazings, which just look like open moorland.

brizzledfw

Thats the first time I have seen the word tupping:rotfl: on these threads!! Love that you're the first, Caz

Verbatim

Ah, well thank you Caz. That's clear now! You don't get that on the Archers!