Caz counts it down

Knit_Witch

Well done on the weight and the money situation is gradually getting sorted!

cazmanian_minx

Oh dear, it's been a bit of a spend-y day.

We came out of Tesco with just four bags of shopping, yet somehow the bill came to £117 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: I know what the extra went on - I had a swimming costume from the summer clothing sale (£6), Mr Minx needed some new boxers after the osteopath / physio accidentally tore his on Thursday (:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:) (£9) and had run out of most of his toiletries and razor blades simultaneously (about £30). Take those out and it's round about our normal spend.

But I didn't need to spend £12 on a maxi-dress in the New Look sale. It's the first one that I've ever tried on that suited me though and it'll be lovely to wear in the evening on holiday

I'm having the rest of the day relaxing on the sofa (and maybe looking at some bead magazines), but tomorrow I shall be virtuous and do some more sorting out in the stock room.

ScattySkewbald

I feel your pain Caz! I too fell victim to the Tesco sale rail yesterday. Was only popping in for a couple of items and left nearly £50 lighter. How inconsiderate of them.......

cazmanian_minx

I've been so good today

I spent most of the morning in the tack and feed shed. It tends to get used as a dumping ground for stuff, particularly if Mr Minx has been working in the bottom field and is too knackered to carry whatever tools he's been using all the way back up to the house. I had a thorough sort out, brought two barrow-loads of tools and rubbish back up to the house, worked out which bits of tack I could sell off, cleaned them and photographed them.

On Friday night I'd started a 'Horsey Stuff For Sale' group on Facebook which covered Caithness and Sutherland, because there wasn't one for further north than Ross-shire that I could find. 24 hours later it had 60 members :T but no adverts posted, so I stuck the photos I'd just taken on it over lunch time and I *may* have sold Finn's old saddle :D:D:D:D Please cross your fingers that it fits the girl's pony as that money would be so useful right now. If everything goes at the prices I'm asking, that'll be £275 - and I've got another saddle, girth and bridle in the annexe that can be sold, plus the rug that's on hold until after the holiday.

After lunch I went into the annexe, filed all the stock deliveries from the last month (I never get round to putting things away when they arrive, just pick stuff out of boxes as I need it!), cleared all the stock off the top of the chest freezer (it's nearly empty - Mr Minx has been defrosting one of the kitchen ones today and we should be able to transfer everything and turn this one off soon), stock counted my hematite beads, did a new eBay listing for them to experiment with free postage and wrote a post for my bead blog about leaving Amazon - http://thegreatbigbeadshop.co.uk/blog/goodbye-amazon/ if anyone fancies a read

So I think I've done my bit for the day and now it's time to feed the horses and then put my feet up in front of the fire.

hillside777

What a very productive day!

I hope you sell the saddle. That's a nice sum of money.
Off to read your bead blog.

DebtFree2012

Morning

Has the saddle gone? Fingers crossed for you!

Re Tesco - I hate going in there as the few times I do I spend a fortune!! It doesn't sound like you overspent unnecessarily though.

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

Has the saddle gone? Fingers crossed for you!

Thanks - I'm dropping it off at her work on Wednesday, she'll take it home on Thursday and let me know on Friday. She works two villages away and we have mutual friends, so I'm not worried she's going to do a runner with it

It's been another good weekend for sales. I banked £710 this morning, there's another £53 due in from credit card sales, £63 from my last Amazon payment and £87 from a regular customer who's having problems with her PayPal account at the moment (I shipped her order anyway, as she's desperate for the goods and I know she won't let me down over the money). With all that taken into account, I need less than £1000 to cover all the bills until we're back from holiday and I have until 2nd September to bank it, so I might even be able to pay myself something at the beginning of next month :j:j:j:j Even better, one of my UK suppliers has got its shipment a fortnight earlier than it was expecting and I should get a load of stock in at the end of this week which has been out of stock for a while, so fingers crossed there'll be some nice chunky orders from that (one lady was after 25 pairs of earrings).

Mr Minx is off to Sellafield for a few days tomorrow, so plenty of time to get rummaging in the stock room

cazmanian_minx

Gosh it's been a busy day. I waved Mr Minx off this morning, packed all my orders, snarfed down a quick lunch, drove to the tack shop in Wick to collect Finn's Protexin order - the delivery had turned up, but one box was missing from it. Guess which one?? :mad: They'd tried to get in touch with me to save me the wasted journey, but I was already most of the way there and didn't have my phone with me anyway.

So I made the most of the trip east by buying a new riding hat. Mine was about 15 years old (you're supposed to replace them every 3 to 5 years) and last time I wore it the soft band around the inside disintegrated in a spectacular fashion :rotfl: I haven't chucked it out, I'll keep it for wearing when the equine dentist is here (Finn nearly knocked me out with the speculum last time!). It was quite a bit of money (they've gone up a bit since I last bought one :eek:) but Mum and my brother are both sending me money towards it for my birthday.

On the way back I stopped at Tesco, determined to have a ****** the diet moment and get some ice cream and cookies (this part of the post sponsored by the letters P, M and T....). As I was picking up a basket, a woman - I was going to say walked, but waddled would be more accurate, past me. I honestly have no idea how she was mobile. It was a timely reminder that I'm supposed to be eating healthily to get into my beach clothes and I came out with some grapes, a punnet of strawberries (reduced to £1.08), Ministry of Sound 2013 triple album (down to £6), a bottle of water and the Daily Telegraph (for the crossword) :rotfl:

Anyway, I'm in my pyjamas on the sofa, watching the Great British Bake Off. If I can't actually eat cake, I can at least watch other people eat cake

cazmanian_minx

I'm down to less than £600 needed to cover all the business bills until I get back from holiday :j

Now, I don't know what to do about orders. I'm down to under 1000 charm bracelets, which is about 6 weeks' sales in the busy period coming up. It'll take 5 weeks for them to be manufactured and another 2 for delivery, so ideally I'd like to get them on order before I go away, but they need to be paid for up front. Minimum order for that manufacturer is US$1000, with a top up of necklace chains and extenders, my order would be US$1072 which is about £720 plus bank transfer fees.

I am seriously considering living off my NatWest overdraft in September to get this order on its way before I go away and then ordering the resin flatbacks when I re-open when I'm back, as I'm nearly out of quite a lot of those as well. I think I'll make more profit by not going out of stock on what are some of my top selling items than it'll cost me to have the overdraft pumped up for 8 weeks or so, but I'm well aware that it's a risky option.

dawnybabes

I'd live in the overdraft - you dont want to be running out of popular fast selling things your competitors mightbav in in the rush to Christmas.