Caz counts it down

JustAboutThere

Finally delurking. I've been following your progress and I think you've been doing extremely well and good luck for the future.

I meant to say when you posted the photos the other week, could you (well, the stable) be any closer to the water???

I've also been watching The Following. Liked the first three episodes, but was a little underwelmed by the fourth (last night). Hopefully it will improve again - even though its escapism at its most gory!

Best of luck.

cazmanian_minx

Thanks, JustAboutThere We might well have been closer to the water if we'd bought this when we were looking 6 years ago:


DSC01895 Sheila, Ian, Chris approach ruins at Port Vasgo, nr Talmine, Tongue Bay by derymay, on Flickr

This picture was taken from the front bit of fencing you can see in the shot above:

Port Vasgo view by Caro Jones, on Flickr

They wanted £75k for it though, which we thought was a bit steep given its condition Someone did buy it, but nothing's been done with it and it's slowly getting more and more ruinous, which is a shame.

I have taken a big *gulp* and ordered £485-worth of stock from one of my UK suppliers - all things that normally sell well and I'm out of stock on, so I'm hoping that I'll make that back by the end of the month, otherwise I may be in trouble. Of course, with this particular supplier, I may not get the delivery before the end of the month, in which case it's brown trousers time with the direct debits :eek::eek::eek:

cazmanian_minx

It's Friday, so that can only mean one thing...

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£-4573.76 / -£3846.03 +£727.73

Business total: -£-4573.76 / -£3846.03 +£727.73

Personal
Overdraft: -£3093.35 / -£3139.95 -£46.60
Egg card: -£3150.00 / -£3150.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2800.00 / -£2800.00 no change

Personal total: -£9043.35 / -£9089.95 -£46.60

Grand total: -£13,617.11 / -£12,935.98 +£681.13

Heading back in the right direction, though I'm cheating a bit by not including yesterday's stock spend in the business figures because it hasn't cleared out of the bank account yet

The month's budget is going to take a bit of a hit as the destination for the annual holiday I have with my Mum and cousin has been decided - Cornwall. The original plan was France, but we're all feeling slightly broke and the exchange rate is terrible, so it was a toss-up between them coming to stay with me or me and Mum going to stay with my cousin in Truro and since they've had to fly every year for the past 3 years we've done this, I'm heading south. Now, I can fly from Inverness to Newquay, but it's via Gatwick and costs about £200 - I think I can do it cheaper if I go Inverness Bristol on the EasyJet and then get the train, but the Saturday flight lands too late to get a train the same day and the Friday flight doesn't get in until 9.30pm. Off to calculate some costs....

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Now, I can fly from Inverness to Newquay, but it's via Gatwick and costs about £200 - I think I can do it cheaper if I go Inverness Bristol on the EasyJet and then get the train, but the Saturday flight lands too late to get a train the same day and the Friday flight doesn't get in until 9.30pm. Off to calculate some costs....

I feel like a student again Inverness to Bristol Friday night, landing just before 10pm. Four hours later, the overnight National Express from London to Penzance calls at Bristol Airport, so I shall be hopping on it and getting my head down until 7.40am when it arrives in Truro! The way back is a bit more civilised: 7.09am train from Truro to Bristol, bus from the station to the airport, flight at 1.55pm and back in Inverness for 3.30pm. Total cost: £119.38 as opposed to £203

cazmanian_minx

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

EFFING BARCLAYCARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I've got that out of my system....

Barclaycard's terms and conditions clearly state that if a card is not paid off in full each month, payments will be applied to the higher interest rate balance first. So when I put those supplier payments on the card at 20.9% and then paid them off as soon as I could, I was expecting the payments to be applied to that part of the balance.

Wrong. The payments have been applied to the balance transfer at 6.9% :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: I can kind of see why the computer has done it - because the new spending hadn't gone over a statement date, it hadn't had any interest charged on it and 6.9% is greater than 0%. I've sent them a secure message to see if they can sort it out for me (no point in trying their call centre, I've never got any sense out of them), but I have a horrible feeling I've just transferred nearly £2k of debt from 6.9% to 20.9% :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

cazmanian_minx

Right, I've finished sulking at my own stupidity and am listing a few things on my personal eBay account, including the dress I ended up with after appearing on Trinny and Susannah!



(And yes, I have put that picture in the listing! I've lost a stone and dropped a dress size since then though, and my hair is normally curly, so I don't think there's any danger of being recognised!)

I'm just waiting for my old camera battery to charge up so I can check it's working and then that's going on as well. It's only a 300D, but I still have the original box and am throwing in an 80-200mm lens, holster carrying case and battery grip so I'm hoping that if I start it at 99p I might get £50-ish for it.

cazmanian_minx

The camera has 9 watchers already And £450 was waiting in the business PayPal account this morning, along with a £55 credit card transaction into my bank account.

I was so angry about the credit card yesterday (I've had a reply back from customer services to say they've referred my enquiry to the relevant department, so at least it's not an immediate 'No, there's nothing we can do for you') that I forgot to write about the conversation Mr Minx and I had about money on Saturday. He has offered to pay more into the bills pot once his last two car loan payments have gone out and said that as long as I gave him ample warning, he could pay all our living expenses if need be. We then had a friendly argument about why he shouldn't - I said I'd feel terrible about not contributing at all, he said he was used to it because he had to pay for everything most of the time with his first two wives, neither of whom worked regularly, I said that's exactly the reason why he shouldn't have to this time round...but the offer is there and that takes a little bit of the pressure off. It's true that he earns nearly three times what I do, but we split the living costs 50:50 - the problem is that I'm extremely bad at accepting financial help, so I end up with no spare cash and start feeling resentful, which isn't fair on him.

JustAboutThere

How annoying re: Barclaycard. Fingers crossed they can sort something a fix that doesn't have you tearing your hair out.

A small suggestion to throw into the mix re: household budgeting - feel free to tell me to butt out.

Its great that you want to contribute 50:50 to the household bills, but if Mr. Minx does earn more and is happy to pay more pro rata, then perhaps graciously accept on a sliding scale basis. What I mean, is whilst your loan repayments are high you pay X amount, as the loans/overdraft go down, you can agree to increase your payment(s).

Your husband has already seen how much time and effort you're prepared to put into your business, so he knows you're not trying to live off his money. And there's nothing wrong with having your own independence, but if your trying to pay your own share is adding to the pressure to make sales and (re)payments, of course you're going to feel it and its bound to have a knock-on effect.

I understand its not easy to accept help - this is coming from someone who thinks of asking for help as being the same as admitting I've failed.

As for not buying the other property six years ago. Think of it this way: at least you don't have to be worried every time there's a really high tide!

cazmanian_minx

Proper update later, but I just wanted to fly past and say WELL DONE BARCLAYCARD!

"Thanks for your message.

I am pleased to inform that your account has been rectified and the payment has been allocated correctly. The interest which has been charged on the account has also been refunded.

I trust this information is of assistance.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me again."

:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

cazmanian_minx

Right, where was I? I had a good hard look at the business figures yesterday afternoon and while they've not been great so far this year, the net profit percentage is still healthy - all I need to do is get the turnover up at the same margin. So I'm going to take a massive paycut for a couple of months and I'll accept Mr Minx's kind offer when his car loan is paid. It means that my personal overdraft will go up, but I'm hoping I can limit the damage with a bit of personal eBaying.

We've had a rare sunny day up here today, I think it's the first time Jura's been on the beach in the sun!


Jura hits the beach by Caro Jones, on Flickr

Finn tucked into his morning hay:



and Merlin decided he didn't want his photo taken, he just wanted to snooze in peace:



Off to Inverness on the train tomorrow, so plenty of time to sit and read and think about my business