Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Flying in with some scores on doors - as promised last week, they're horrendous!!

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£-6332.99 / -£9124.35 -£2791.36

Business total: -£-6332.99 / -£9124.35 -£2791.36

Personal
Overdraft: -£35.93 / -£0.00 +£35.93
Egg card: -£3280.00 / -£3280.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2535.00 / -£2535.00 no change
Nationwide card: -£2658.15 / -£2658.15 no change

Personal total: -£8509.08 / -£8473.15 +£35.93

Grand total: -£14,842.07 / -£17,597.50 -£2755.43

Thank you tax bill (£1054.09), drawings (£2000), VAT man (£810), Royal Mail (£731.63) and suppliers (£564.94)! That's £4106.57 out of the business account (the drawings paid the tax bill, so that's not included) - so maybe £2791.36 down isn't *that* bad a result....

dawnybabes

Minion Charms - you need them - honest and if dh is reading I promise not to buy any ....

brizzledfw

Aaw Caz...I feel your pain..as its Friday I popped in to see your results!! Don't worry hon..they are necessary..there ain't a bill there that's due to a reckless spend..so pat yourself on the back.

Have a great weekend x

scottishspendaholic

Hey Caz,

I've been entranced by your diary over the past couple of days! What a read!

Firstly, you are doing brilliantly with the business, £100k turnover, that's amazing! I think your lifestyle sounds wonderful. I'd love to do something like you do, but feel so overwhelmed & thick when thinking about freight shipping & business eBay selling etc. Last Christmas I made up wee stocking fillers - organza bags with kids wooden beads (love these!) & elastic; & sold them at our local Christmas market, they sold really well! But I am sure I didn't make much profit as I paid too much for the beads. Anyway, if you ever need an apprentice trainee, just let me know!!

Secondly, I wanted to tell you that I lived in Thurso - went to Pennyland PS, my brother was born there - in the early 80s. My Dad worked for the RAF at Dounreay doing something to do with communication,it's a distant memory but I was sure I'd been in the sphere thing, am I wrong? It's just with what you said about it being a nuclear plant...? Ironically I live very very close to the Bead Shop Scotland now, who I'm sure are either a big customer or big competitor of yours?

Two questions before I go! What happened about the Australia job & is your DH's hip any better?

You're doing brilliantly debt bunting, although I'm sure it doesn't feel like it. Given your business turnover & required cash flow, I it possible to not live on credit for stock ordering etc (I'm curious) or is that the reality?

Lots of love and thanks for sharing so much of your story with us.

Xxx

castlelough

Hi Caz!
I'm subscribing! Haven't read your diary yet but now it is bookmarked for me to catch up on!
Delighted to find another person with a horse and a debtfree mission! If I had a penny for everyone who has suggested that I sell mine I would be a wealthy girl! I also live in a very rural area, though not quite as rural as you!
Castle xxx

cazmanian_minx

Wow, what a weekend! Fantastic to have all the family together in one place (apart from my mother in law, which was a good thing as she'd have found the party far too noisy and the children too loud and boisterous!) I don't think we got to bed before 1am any night, which has knackered my sleep pattern as I'm used to being in bed at 9 and up at 6! The dog was absolutely fine in kennels (though Mr Minx got something in his eye as she bounced happily towards the kennel block with the kennel owner...), so we've booked our holiday and four weeks today I'll be draped over a sun lounger in Mauritius having my sunglasses cleaned by the pool attendent (Actually, I'll probably still be somewhere between Dubai and Mauritius airports, but never let facts get in the way of a good mental image )

Of course, the downside of going away on holiday is that I now have to work like a demon for the next 28 days so that I have enough in the bank to tide me over - and it's going to be tight I haven't worked out the exact figures yet, but this month's eBay invoice is £150 more than last month's and I've had my bill through from the accountants which is also up on last year. Since I made more money last year than the year before I've got to find extra to put away for January's tax bill - the list is endless.

Once I get caught up with the orders from the weekend, I'll sit down and work out exactly how much cash I need to see me through. I don't think I'm going to like the answer....

cazmanian_minx

scottishspendaholic wrote: »

Hey Caz,

I've been entranced by your diary over the past couple of days! What a read!

Firstly, you are doing brilliantly with the business, £100k turnover, that's amazing! I think your lifestyle sounds wonderful. I'd love to do something like you do, but feel so overwhelmed & thick when thinking about freight shipping & business eBay selling etc. Last Christmas I made up wee stocking fillers - organza bags with kids wooden beads (love these!) & elastic; & sold them at our local Christmas market, they sold really well! But I am sure I didn't make much profit as I paid too much for the beads. Anyway, if you ever need an apprentice trainee, just let me know!!

That's a genius idea! Have a look at AliExpress for small(ish) quantities of cheap beads They have lots of wooden ones in animal shapes which I've been eyeing up for a while...

Secondly, I wanted to tell you that I lived in Thurso - went to Pennyland PS, my brother was born there - in the early 80s. My Dad worked for the RAF at Dounreay doing something to do with communication,it's a distant memory but I was sure I'd been in the sphere thing, am I wrong? It's just with what you said about it being a nuclear plant...? Ironically I live very very close to the Bead Shop Scotland now, who I'm sure are either a big customer or big competitor of yours?

Mr Minx went to Pennyland You may well know his family - he'd have been at Thurso High in the 80s but his parents have always been reasonably high profile in Thurso. If you know of a family connected to Dounreay who lived on the Pennyland estate with a common Welsh surname, that's them

It sounds like your Dad might have worked at Vulcan - the MoD has a site adjacent to Dounreay where they do nuclear stuff for the forces. I doubt you'd have been inside the sphere itself, it's highly restricted even now because of the contamination, but you can go inside the old control room - perhaps it was that?

Two questions before I go! What happened about the Australia job & is your DH's hip any better?

We never heard anything more about the Australia job, which is probably a good thing because, as my brother said, 'It would break your mother's heart if you went'. There is a possibility now of Canada, depending on whether or not Mr Minx's employer wins the contract they're bidding on at the moment, but it would only be a short term thing rather than us having to move. His hip is getting a lot better under the osteo/physio's care and we're waiting to get a letter through with an appointment for him to go and have a scan so that they can book him in to get it manipulated back into the right place. Can't remember whether I've mentioned this before, but they want him down in Raigmore hospital in Inverness with an operating theatre available when they do it because it involves a big muscle-relaxant injection right into his hip and occasionally they miss with the needle and hit an artery :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: Assuming they get it right though, it should sort him out completely, though he'll have 48 hours of really horrible pain afterwards followed by a couple of months of aching as the muscles get used to being back in the right place after 7 years.

You're doing brilliantly debt bunting, although I'm sure it doesn't feel like it. Given your business turnover & required cash flow, I it possible to not live on credit for stock ordering etc (I'm curious) or is that the reality?

Lots of love and thanks for sharing so much of your story with us.

Xxx

The problem with the stock ordering is that a) Chinese suppliers and manufacturers require the cash up front in most cases and b) even if I were able to get 30 days, it's usually 60 days for manufacture and delivery. Even in the UK, it's quite rare to get credit with bead suppliers. One of mine does 30 days for me on a credit limit of £3000, but it took 2 years of trading with them before I was offered it.

Thank you for reading

cazmanian_minx

castlelough wrote: »

Hi Caz!
I'm subscribing! Haven't read your diary yet but now it is bookmarked for me to catch up on!
Delighted to find another person with a horse and a debtfree mission! If I had a penny for everyone who has suggested that I sell mine I would be a wealthy girl! I also live in a very rural area, though not quite as rural as you!
Castle xxx

Yay, another horse person :T:T:T My standard reply to that suggestion is that the two of them cost me less per year to look after than my brother has to spend in 2 months on his daughter and no-one's suggesting he sell her

That said, we got home yesterday to see Finn rolling in the field and when I went over to say hello to him, he'd managed to roll on a stone and had taken a big patch of hair and a little bit of skin off his back - and I got firmly told to Foxtrot Oscar with both hind legs when I put some gel on it, so it was obviously really sore. It's healed nicely overnight, but it's puffy and a bit bruised, so no saddle on for Mr Finn for the next week or so I think.

Hope you enjoy the previous umpteen pages of waffle, you're very brave to consider reading the lot

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Once I get caught up with the orders from the weekend, I'll sit down and work out exactly how much cash I need to see me through. I don't think I'm going to like the answer....

I've done this this afternoon and while I don't like the answer, it is at least an achievable answer This is what I reckon I'll need to get me through to September 15th:

eBay fees (August and September): £897.69
Web shop hosting (August and September): £47.98
Suppliers: £1729.53
BT: £30.00
Streamline: £10.00
Aceville (advert in this month's Make & Sell Jewellery): £36.00
SagePay: £30.00
Etsy: £16.00
Terapeak: £16.50
Amazon (destruction fee for left over stock): £122.00
VAT: £810.00
Drawings: £1300.00
Business bank account charge: £5.00
Annual charge for Freepost address: £103.20
Royal Mail: £850.00

Total: £6003.90

I have £892.89 already plus another £115 on its way from a credit card transaction and about £30 in PayPal, leaving just under 4 weeks to take £4966.01. It does mean I won't be able to place a new flatbacks order until I've got this cash nailed down, which is a shame, but I really, really don't want to breach my overdraft limit. I think tomorrow I shall be raiding my returns boxes and getting as much listed on auction as I possibly can - the quicker I can bank this, the better.

brizzledfw

Keep going Caz xx