Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

bonnington wrote: »

When you see you've decluttered the chocolate I assume you mean that you have eaten it. :rotfl:

Trust you are keeping well.
Currently looking online at somewhere towards you north of Helmsdale. DW is more convinced than me. I'm not convinced at all as it is quite rural. It is on the A9 which I anticipate being quiet that far north.

Enjoy the rest of the evening.

Yup Two boxes of Ferrero Rocher, two boxes of Lindor and a Christmas-stocking-sized box of 4 Guylian seashells down, one large selection box and a Green & Blacks miniatures box to go, though they're going in a cupboard somewhere.

There's plenty of traffic on the A9, but it's not B&B-type traffic - most of it is lorries coming to and from Scrabster or tourists going to catch the ferry to Orkney. Part of the problem is that if you believe the Visit Scotland website, there's pretty much nothing worth seeing north of Inverness unless you have to head north for the ferry, so most tourists don't bother.

The lease on The Old Inn at Carbost, Skye is available, if running a pub along with your B&B appeals? I stayed there a few years ago, it's a really lovely spot and seemed very popular with locals as well as visitors.

cazmanian_minx

2.5lbs decluttered since I last weighed myself on Thursday (I suspect my start point was a bit more than that after the chocofest on Thursday and Friday!), the headache is gone and I've got that lovely low-carb clear-headed feeling Hopefully by the end of the 5 days I'll have decluttered another 2.5lbs.

£250 into the bank from PayPal this morning, with at least another £100 to come from credit card sales and another £100 waiting to disburse from Amazon tomorrow morning. I really need to get some overseas stock ordered though I have a horrible feeling I might need to leave that supplier payment on the credit card to get it done.

cazmanian_minx

I realised just in time that eBay's free business listings this week doesn't apply to auctions! Oh well, at least I've got some photographed for when I next get round to putting some up. I'm working through the things I have multiples of instead and so far have done 15 new listings with a total sales value of £50.

The bad news is that I only had 5 orders to go today I hope things pick up a bit once my UK supplier stock delivery gets here - it should arrive this afternoon according to the courier's email. Oh well, more time for sorting stock and getting it listed I suppose

cazmanian_minx

15 today, which is a bit better :T I think I've worked out part of the problem - I'm stuck in the VAT trap. I'm only just over the registration threshold now and if I was back under it, I'd have about £12k a year more spare cash. I suppose I could deliberately take a couple of weeks' holiday and de-register, but I'd rather grow the business further and burst out of it the other end

In the spirit of onwards and upwards, I've paid that £1458 off the Barclaycard, so the only business debt is the overdraft again. I still have enough left to cover all bills up until the VAT is due on 31st, so between now and then I have to take £2365 to pay for the monthly VAT and my drawings on the 1st. The Royal Mail bill will be due early in February as well, which I think will be around £750, and I've got a supplier payment due on 6th February of £604. I'll make it. Somehow

The Barclaycard that used to be an Egg spat out a statement this morning, another £42.40 down the drain in interest :mad: I *wish* I could get that card onto a balance transfer, but I had another try last week and got rejected again No sign of my credit reports yet, hopefully they'll be here in the next day or two. Anyway, £77.40 paid off that card, which is the minimum plus a rounding bit.

Right, must go and get these orders packed up, as I'm due at the vet at 2pm for the dog to have her annual boosters. That's going to make me popular....!

hillside777

Talking about credit reports, have you registered with noddle.co.uk?
They provide free credit reports for life and part of one of the major credit agencies.
They only update their file once a month but at least you can keep an eye on your report for nothing.
From memory you register and can then see your report immediately.

cazmanian_minx

bonnington wrote: »

Talking about credit reports, have you registered with noddle.co.uk?
They provide free credit reports for life and part of one of the major credit agencies.
They only update their file once a month but at least you can keep an eye on your report for nothing.
From memory you register and can then see your report immediately.

I've tried in the past but always get a 'Sorry, we cannot verify your identity' message and there doesn't seem to be an option to send them proof of ID to get any further. Thank you though

cazmanian_minx

Only a day after I paid that card off and I'm already getting jittery about cashflow again. Tempting as it is to stick my head in the sand and play hidden object games until it all goes away, that's not actually going to help the situation, so after packing and posting today's 12 orders and cleaning the bathroom (can we say PROCRASTINATION anyone??), I'm back in the annexe to carry on tackling the box of clearance stock I bought a few months ago. I've actually sold enough from it now that it's paid for, so this is all free money in a sense.

I've got a camera to sell on eBay as well, my first digital DSLR. It's an old Canon model and I'm not expecting to get much for it, especially since there's a speck of dust on the sensor that needs removing (I'm not brave enough to get a cleaning kit to do it myself!), but I'm wondering whether it's worth hanging on until March when people are starting to think about holidays and have a bit more spare cash?

The dog has just about forgiven me for yesterday, though she remembered the big stinging antibiotic injection she had there a few weeks ago and before Guy had even touched her with the needle she tried to bite him and then leapt off the table screaming - she had to be muzzled and I had to hold her down But the moment she was back in the waiting room she was fine and I took her for a long walk on Melvich beach to cheer her up and today she's my best friend again

cazmanian_minx

Late breaking news: the postman brought my Experian report!

There doesn't seem to be anything awful on it, to be honest. I'm surprised that they still have me linked as an alias with my first married surname as it's been over six years since I changed it, but I guess it takes time to filter through the systems. There's a Carphone Warehouse account on it which says it was opened in July 2004 - that's from when they sold me a phone which they said was PAYG and turned out to be contract, I took it back and made a fuss and got my money back, but for some reason the account didn't get marked closed until January 2007, so it'll be on there for another few weeks.

The things that I think could be preventing other card issuers from wanting me are 1) my spread betting account shows on there, which I didn't think it would. OK, it shows as U for unused, but a spread bet account in conjunction with a few big credit card balances probably doesn't look too good. 2) When I reduced my credit limits on both Barclaycards, it only shows them as being reduced, not that I voluntarily reduced them, which also probably doesn't look too good. 3) The two active cards are both showing times in the past year where I've only paid the minimums - 7/12 months for the Barclaycard formerly known as Egg and 3/12 for the horrible rate Barclaycard.

Other than that, all accounts are showing as paid on time for their whole history, so why can't I get a balance transfer card???? I guess I'll have to wait and see what Equifax and Call Credit say.

cazmanian_minx

More good news, the Royal Mail bill is for £164.92 less and two days later than I'd estimated, which gives me a little bit of breathing space. I now need to take £107 a day to make all outgoing payments up to 6th February.

Anyway, it appears to be Friday, so have some scores on the doors

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£-2911.98 / -£3851.49 -£939.51
Barclaycard: £1458.82 / £0.00 +£1458.82

Business total: -£4370.80 / -£3851.49 +£519.31

Personal
Overdraft: -£2260.38 / -£2455.00 -£194.62
Egg card: -£3225.00 / -£3190.00 +£35.00
Barclaycard: -£2850.00 / -£2850.00 no change

Personal total: -£8335.38 / -£8495.00 -£159.62

Grand total: -£12,706.18 / -£12,346.49 +£359.69

A couple of friends have introduced me to the concept of the lifetime spreadsheet, where you try to project your income and expenditure through to retirement and beyond to give yourself a good chance of making changes in time to get where you want to be. I'm going to have a go at knocking one up for us, because we need to get the windows and roof replaced on this house at some point and I'd rather not do it with borrowed money if at all possible.

Kaz2904

*Delurks* Lifetime spreadsheet? Sounds interesting. I've tried to project a sort of well we'll need such and such amount monthly but we're 30 years off so it's hard .
Would love to hear more.
And would love to say, yay on your debt smashing!
*Relurks*