Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Hello catshark, hello HI Thank you for stopping by

The last credit card bill for the month has been generated and added £13.63 in interest to the bill - £95.12 up in smoke this month in total :mad: It was the balance transfer Barclaycard, the one I ended up putting that supplier payment on, and although it was paid off in the same statement period it was put on, my bill is warning me of an estimated interest charge of £51.xx next month, so it looks like I'm going to get charged for it I'm not surprised, I thought they probably would, but it just seems a bit strange seeing as they didn't charge me any interest in the last month of having the 20.9% balance on there. In the last 12 months I've spent £1,167.10 on interest - to put it in perspective, I've only spent £1390 on looking after two horses in the same time :eek::eek::eek: (OK, the pony only arrived in June, but still....)

I'm not doing terribly well with getting rid of my personal overdraft. OK, there's about £1200 less of it than when I started this diary, but that's mostly going to disappear when I pay my tax bill. So I've made some changes to YNAB and split the account into NatWest Current and NatWest Overdraft. The money Mr Minx pays me at the start of the month for his half of the bills and his share of the shopping now goes into NatWest Current and all the month's spends come out of it. The £250 I transfer from First Direct goes into NatWest Overdraft, as will anything left in NatWest Current at the end of the month. If I have an overspend, I'll have to transfer money from Overdraft to Current to cover it. It'll help me keep an eye on whether I'm overspending and using up the money that's supposed to be paying off the overdraft.

As of today, NatWest Overdraft stands at -£2686.69 and NatWest Current at £277.32, so the tax bill is going to have to come out of Overdraft and I need to spend less than £277 on 2 weeks of shopping, 30 bales of hay and refuelling the car (the haircut and the dentist can wait a bit longer!).

catshark88

How are you doing re hay prices up there? I have heard of such differing prices across the country.

I have just sold my last horse, just don't have time to ride now I have DS1&2. I must admit that it is quite a relief. He was at livery and that is never cheap.

cazmanian_minx

£3 for a square bale, excellent quality - we're really lucky I have to say, being able to have them at home is the only thing that makes them affordable...but then, if I was on livery, I wouldn't have needed to buy Finn to keep Merlin company! Are you still doing the equestrian event photography?

bratz81

caz, I've just read your diary from start to finish and am amazed at how well you've done, go you!! I'll be subscribing definitely.

I saw you mention a lifetime spreadsheet, I don't suppose you have a copy or a link to one? I tried a quick google with no joy and I'm not good enough with spreadsheet to attempt my own

cazmanian_minx

Thanks Bratz I do have a copy, but it's got my friend's and her husband's salary and pension details in it, so I don't think she'd be happy with me sharing it I'm afraid. I'll see if I can sort out a copy with some dummy numbers in it.

Today I would like to confess to being a class one numpty. As you may remember, a few posts back I sent off for my three credit reports. Experian and Call Credit duly plopped through the letter box and I've been sitting here drumming my fingers, waiting for Equifax. Since it was over a week, I found the email they'd sent acknowledging my order to find out how to chase it....and read the paragraph that said 'Here is the link to your credit report, please log in using the username and password you created during the application process' :o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o

I'm still none the wiser why I'm being rejected for 0% cards though. It's either because they can see that I've been jumping from promotional offer to promotional offer (Experian and Call Credit now show whether your card has a promotional rate on it or not) or it's because I've got too much debt on the two Barclaycards. None of the reports shows up my NatWest or RBS overdrafts, though my Intelligent Finance and First Direct current accounts both appear on all three. Experian and Call Credit both show my three applications for 0% transfers, but Equifax shows no recent applications for credit at all - so if I can work out which lenders only credit score on Equifax then I might be in with a shout with one of them.

Anyway, according to my diary it's Friday (where HAS this week gone??), so it must be time for some scores on the doors

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£-3851.49 / -£2840.39 +£1011.10

Business total: -£-3851.49 / -£2840.39 +£1011.10

Personal
Overdraft: -£2455.00 / -£2409.37 +£45.63
Egg card: -£3190.00 / -£3190.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2850.00 / -£2800.00 +£50.00

Personal total: -£8495.00 / -£8399.37 +£95.63

Grand total: -£12,346.49 / -£11,239.76 +£1106.73



It won't last, I wrote a large cheque to a supplier on the 9th which hasn't been paid in yet and I need to take £90 out later to pay for the hay I'm collecting tomorrow, but that's tantalisingly close to 60% paid off.

cazmanian_minx

Ooof, what a day. Got up at 6.30, let the dog out, cuddled her on the sofa until it got light enough to see outside, mucked out the horses, gave them their hay, cleared up in the tack shed, retrieved the dog who'd taken herself on a walk down to the bottom field, with the help of Mr Minx hitched up next door's horse trailer, drove 35 miles to Quoybrae, handed over £90 in exchange for 31 bales of hay (it should have been 30, but he gave us 'a little one extra, for luck' bless him ), loaded them into the horse trailer, drove 35 miles home, unloaded 31 bales onto a quad and small trailer, drove them down three fields to the field shelter sheds (picking up the remaining 8 in the woodwork shed on the way!), unloaded 39 bales of hay into the storage sheds, swept out the horse trailer, returned it and the quad bike to our neighbours, had some lunch, jumped back into the car, drove 26 miles to Thurso, did the weekly shopping (we did debate doing it on the way back from Quoybrae, but didn't think taking a Nissan Navarra with a trailer weighing over a ton on the back of it into a small Tesco car park was the best idea... :rotfl:), spent half an hour with mother in law, drove 26 miles home, climbed back into outdoor gear, took the dog with me to stretch her legs while I mucked out the horses, fed them, filled all the water buckets, put hay down and then collapsed on the sofa!

On the plus side, it means we don't have to go anywhere or do anything tomorrow, so if I want to lie on the sofa and read all day, I can

Still waiting for my Textbroker account to be reviewed. All the outstanding articles have been accepted by the clients and I've sent them a polite message, so it's just a case of sit and wait now.

catshark88

Sounds like you achieved loads! Husbands seem to like doing things with hay, makes them feel smug! Mine wasn't so keen on moving rubber mats for cleaning under, though...

Stopped doing the photos when preg with ds2 and not well. Weekends are too precious now as DH works and commutes long hours. Was fun though.

Are you still doing lots of photography?

hillside777

Sounds like you need to take it easy tomorrow.
What a busy person you have been.

gallygirl

catshark88 wrote: »

Are you still doing lots of photography?

And what about the story writing?

cazmanian_minx

catshark88 wrote: »

Sounds like you achieved loads! Husbands seem to like doing things with hay, makes them feel smug! Mine wasn't so keen on moving rubber mats for cleaning under, though...

Funnily enough, that's a job I have to do solo too :rotfl:

Stopped doing the photos when preg with ds2 and not well. Weekends are too precious now as DH works and commutes long hours. Was fun though.

Are you still doing lots of photography?

Not really Because it doesn't make me any money, I feel guilty about spending time on it that I could be using more profitably. Most of my photography is done while I'm walking the dog now! I should really try and take some more stuff to upload to stock websites, I've made a few sales via Fotolia, but am nowhere near the level needed to cash out. There's a bit of recent stuff on my Flickr account if you're interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22544094@N00/

And what about the story writing?

Nope, none of that either I'm afraid! That's partly why I'm so keen to get on with the Textbroker stuff, I'm hoping that writing an article a day will get me back in the habit and will spark up the fiction again.

As predicted yesterday, I've done pretty much naff all today, though my arms are killing me from lugging 50 litres of water down two fields - we've not had rain for so long that my sealed water butt is empty, the horses have drunk the open one and the hosepipe is frozen solid.

I shouldn't have bought the Telegraph yesterday. I've been reading the travel section this afternoon and that's never good for the budget. The latest addition to the travelling wishlist is a very posh package holiday - you take the Eurostar through the Chunnel to join the Orient Express, travel overnight to Venice, have a few nights in a 5* hotel on the Grand Canal and then board a tall ship for 10 days cruising around the coast to Athens. Prices *start* at £3999 per person :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: It's not the most exotic destination, granted, but there are plenty of those on the wishlist already and serious luxury travel is something I'd like to try at least once in my life