Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Lots of happy things to report today

- The book I listed on Amazon 5 days ago has sold
- Someone posted on one of the Facebook horsey-related items for sale groups I read looking for cob sized travel boots and has bought the unused ones that came with Finn for £20
- Someone else posted on a local forum I read wanting 6'6" horse rugs, so I've messaged her to offer her Merlin's old but clean and repaired heavyweight turnout for £25. She hasn't replied yet, but with that and the boots and the book it's given me an incentive to get on with the decluttering
- Today's bankings totalled £355, meaning in 2 days I've banked £23 more than the whole of last week

Sales aren't so good today, but the past 48 hours have wiped me out of quite a lot of stock, so there'll be an order going in to my UK supplier tomorrow. I won't have to pay for it until after I'm back, so it doesn't affect the total amount required to get me through.

It's our second wedding anniversary today. Rather than have a meal out tonight, Mr Minx is rustling up two steaks in the kitchen and has brought home fresh strawberries and cream. We're going to stay in for my birthday next week as well and use the money saved to have a special candle-lit dinner on the beach while we're on holiday

Knit_Witch

It all sounds good Minx (especially the candle light dinner idea!) :j

dawnybabes

Happy 2nd wedding anniversary.

We got married in Mauritus - 20 years ths year ....

cazmanian_minx

The rug lady is interested, so I've sent her some photos of it - fingers crossed.

Not so good on the banking front today, only £95, BUT that's because the two biggest sales of the day (around £180 combined) paid by credit card and that won't hit the account until tomorrow. I also paid the Etsy bill out of the PayPal account before doing the transfer, so the true figure for the day is more like £295.

My lovely farrier came today and again refused to charge me full price for the boys' trims. We did them in the field rather than taking them down to the field shelter so that Finn was shut in to have his done - last time we tried this, about a year ago, it didn't go well. Finn had only just arrived and was very unsure about having his feet handled; you could only pick up a hind foot if he had it propped resting and he wouldn't lift his fronts at all, so even though he knew Robbie from his previous home, he Riverdanced all around us and was generally a pain in the backside. Today you wouldn't believe it was the same pony He picked up all four calmly and we nearly had a perfect trim until I wrecked it by being so pleased with him that I kissed him on the nose just as Robbie picked up the last foot. Normally Finn is fine with this, but today he decided to take offense and we had a couple of minutes of waltzing pony until he settled down again and let Robbie finish.

I was good today. Big Fish Games sent me an email to say that all non Collector's Edition games were US$4.99 (£3.85) each for 24 hours. I had a list of about 20 that I've played the trial version of and wanted to buy and I had the £20 from selling the travel boots in my PayPal account still..... I bought one (the latest Redemption Cemetary) and then transferred the rest of the money from PayPal to my bank account before I could change my mind I requested an Amazon disbursement on my personal account as well, so that's about £45 into the personal overdraft.

Talking of Amazon, my business Amazon store is no more. I did manage to get rid of quite a bit of it, but was still left with 566 units in stock which will cost £113.20 to have trashed. I've downgraded my account from Pro Seller to Individual, so no more £25+VAT charges a month and there's about £67 in the Amazon account - I'm hoping they'll do the sensible thing and use that towards the £113.20, but I'm not optimistic. I'm looking forward to the phone call I'll likely get from the Amazon sellers team asking me why I've shut down the account

DebtFree2012

What is your business in Caz?
I have lots to go through and should start listing on ebay - need to find the motivation to do that!

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

What is your business in Caz?
I have lots to go through and should start listing on ebay - need to find the motivation to do that!

I sell beads and jewellery making findings Clicking on my name at the top left of this post and choosing 'Visit cazmanian_minx's homepage!' will take you to my website if you fancy a nosey

Free listing day today for private sellers if you list 10 day auctions!

cazmanian_minx

Rug sold We just have to arrange when and where to meet to swap rug for money. She's busy on Saturday, which is the one day of the week I'm guaranteed to be heading east, but I've asked her if she or anyone in her family and friends works at Dounreay, then I can send it in with Mr Minx and the deal can be done in the car park.

I've actually had a very positive day today. £150 banked on top of the £193 in credit card receipts from yesterday and although I'm well behind my target of £120k inward cash flow for the year (a smidge under 40% behind, to be precise!), I've been knocking up a spreadsheet that compares sales on a day by day basis to last year and I'm only £900 down on where I was this time last year - which, given that this time last year I was getting £1000-£1500 a fortnight from Amazon, is pretty good.

I've also been concerned about my charm bracelet stocks, which are diminishing rapidly, as normally I place an order for about £2k at a time with that supplier and I just can't commit to that much of a spend with them at the moment. So I checked the price of the charm bracelets, calculated the profit on 2400 of them, measured the boxes the last lot turned up in, calculated the weight, stuck the weight and size into my courier's quote system, deducted that off the profit and worked out that I can place an order for 200 dozen, which is less than £500, get them couriered to me and still make around £600 in profit. I'll have to add in a few extra bits (I need some extender chains as well) because the supplier's minimum order is US$1000, but it means I can place a small order when we're back from holiday (or, hopefully, before we go if I've got the cash) and get the stock in October, when I'll probably just about have run out.

ScattySkewbald

Wow Caz looks like I've got one reading to do! Think a couple of hours put by over the weekend with a glass of wine is in order!

Nice one with the rug- I've never thought about using the Facebook pages. I guess it's win win - no fees for you, no expensive postage costs for the buyer. Must bear that in mind.

Hope you have a fab weekend!

cazmanian_minx

If you read it from the beginning you're a brave human being - you may need the wine to fortify yourself!!

Anyway, it's Friday, so it's time for some scores on the doors.

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£-9669.61 / -£8609.15 +£1060.46

Business total: -£-9669.61 / -£8609.15 +£1060.46

Personal
Overdraft: -£87.10 / -£304.18 -£217.08
Egg card: -£3215.00 / -£3215.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2535.00 / -£2495.00 +£40.00
Nationwide card: -£2630.00 / -£2630.00 no change

Personal total: -£8467.10 / -£8644.18 -£177.08

Grand total: -£18,136.71 / -£17,253.33 +£883.38

So a good week for the business and a not so great week for the personal, though I'm chuffed to get the Barclaycard under £2500. And at least the total is back into the 17s! The increase in the personal overdraft was spent as follows:

Tesco: £66.91
Mauritius guide book: £4.34
Jura's stay at kennels while we were away the other weekend (they cashed the cheque): £40.00
Airport parking for next month's holiday: £47.90
Cash withdrawal: £15.00 (was supposed to be £5, but the farrier refused to take his full rate, so the extra tenner in my purse has been re-labelled cash withdrawals and taken out of that budget instead)
Farrier: £30.00
Diesel: £65.70

Offset by:
Mr Minx's share of the shopping: £22.50 (adjusted for my half of the travel insurance, which he paid for)
PayPal money: £15.27
Leftovers from bills account: £15.00

Holidays are expensive things.... OK, it doesn't help that we're flying to nearly the other side of the world, but I'm thanking my lucky stars we didn't go for a cheap-y in Egypt right now.

cazmanian_minx

Ooops, nearly forgot to add in the other Friday score on the door - the pre-holiday weight loss update

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)

9st 13.5lbs / 9st 10lbs / -3.5lbs :j

Which is a great result, not least because I weighed in at 10st 2lbs on Sunday morning after an ill-advised vegetable biriyani on the Friday night!