Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Actually, since I've got my budget screen open on YNAB, I might as well share.

Teeth loan: £250.00
Horses: £150.00 (rarely all gets used - this month I've spent £32, but need to save for winter hay)
National Insurance Class 2: £12.50 (or £10, depending on month)
Income tax savings: £175.68
Groceries: £150 (I budget £300, half of any spending paid back by Mr Minx)
Mortgage: £737.08 (interest only, but we're overpaying enough to make it a repayment, if you see what I mean)
Electricity: £103 (huge, but we're on night storage heaters and there's only one tariff on one supplier which copes with them)
Buildings insurance: £12
Council tax: £112 (includes water rates. We were re-assessed when we bought the house and went up a band because the previous owner had built a one-bedroom extension, so no savings to be made here sadly)
Dentist: £20 (Highland Dental Plan - the NHS waiting list stands at 4,500 people currently!)
Gifts: £30
Contact lenses: £7 (This covers 30-day extended wear bought online and an annual eye health check up)
Entertainment: £30
Holiday fund: £30 (saving up for a weekend in Edinburgh with friends in November, plus trains when I visit my mum at Christmas - flights already bought)
Sky: £60.25 (Mr Minx pays for this in the monthly amount he transfers to me for bills - he can't live without the full Sky Sports and Movies package! - but the account was put in my name to take advantage of a new Sky customer offer when he moved in with me)
TV licence: £12.12
Cash withdrawals: £20
Diesel: £80 (this may have to go up to £90 or £100 soon)
Car insurance: £20
Car repairs and maintenance: £40
Car tax: £11
Phone: £0 - in Mr Minx's name, so he pays for it

That little lot totals £2062.63 and my drawings plus Mr Minx's contribution to the bills account comes to £2070.00, so you can see that things have been squeaking a bit. As in, the debt repayments have been coming out of the pots that should have been building up for things like car maintenance etc. It will all get much, MUCH easier in 16 weeks' time when the last payment on the tooth fairy loan is made and I have an extra £250 a month breathing space. Until then, it's tighten belt and keep going with the no spend days

cazmanian_minx

There's now enough space in the overdraft to pay off that Post Office card and try to trigger a balance transfer. I'm still not entirely sure it's a sensible thing to do - it's paying off debt with slightly more expensive debt and it might not work. And if I didn't get the BT, I'd have to leave it open for a couple of months as an emergency card, because the overdraft would be pretty much maxed out. I'll think about it a bit more.

I'm also mildly concerned that despite my accountant cashing the cheque I attached to the signed copy of my tax return, it hasn't been uploaded to the revenue yet and I still appear to owe them £2,200. I've got a note in my diary to check it again on Wednesday and will give her a ring then if it hasn't been done.

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I'm also mildly concerned that despite my accountant cashing the cheque I attached to the signed copy of my tax return, it hasn't been uploaded to the revenue yet and I still appear to owe them £2,200. I've got a note in my diary to check it again on Wednesday and will give her a ring then if it hasn't been done.

Unreserved apologies to my lovely accountant, I logged in again just now to double check and it's showing as £86.93 owed to me so we're all up to date I've requested they transfer it to my bank account rather than keep it on account against January's payment and they're usually very quick with VAT refunds, so hopefully that'll plop into the overdraft sometime next week. They might even add a bit of interest to it if I'm lucky, since they got it back in January.

cazmanian_minx

NSD yesterday for 14/31. I've decided I'm not going to try the trick with the Post Office card. Nice as it would be to have one paid off completely, they might not offer the balance transfer and then I've just got £790 to pay off at a higher rate. I shall keep plodding and PADding and I'll get rid of it all eventually - I didn't get into this situation overnight and I'm not going to get out of it overnight either (unless I become one of the 100 Olympic Millionaires on Friday :rotfl:)

The nice weather down south has played havoc with my sales, but I'm still on track to not bounce the VAT payment - I need to take £50.84 a day between now and 10th August. Since Mr Minx is off all week, I need to look like I actually do some work, so quite a bit might get done over the next five days

cazmanian_minx

Another NSD yesterday for 15/31.

All the interest has been added to the various accounts for the month now, so I added it up - wish I hadn't! £236.42 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: How much better am I going to feel when I've got that to save or spend rather than basically tearing it up each month? Scarily, that's more than the horses cost me to keep on a per month basis if you average it over the year. I'm not sure if it'll go down next month, because the Egg/Barclaycard has thrown in a short statement date this time round so the interest is slightly less than normal, but from September onwards that figure should start to decrease.

cazmanian_minx

Oh Gods, it's definitely not going to be less next month, the NatWest bank statement turned up and next month's interest is nearly £55 instead of the £44 it was this month.

Have signed up to Textbroker and sent them my initial evaluation submission - fingers crossed I get a 4 star rating and can dive straight in. I've written for the Guardian in the past, if I'm good enough for them, I'd hope I'm good enough to do this.

cazmanian_minx

Textbroker assessed me this morning and gave me a 4-star rating - yay :j:j:j There are a few 4-star jobs on the console, but Mr Minx's eldest brother is coming out today, bringing their mum, his middle daughter and middle daughter's daughter, so I've got to pack up orders and then go and clean the bathroom.

Just six more days until pay day - it's always a bit bittersweet as the current account immediately looks fabulous and the business account looks terrible The budget for July is actually looking pretty healthy, I've not touched the money allocated for diesel or PAYG phone, only half the cash point budget has been withdrawn and I've only spent £14.72 of my £30.00 fun money. I only have two more birthday presents to buy this year as well (Mum next month and my brother in November) so the gifts pot is building up nicely for Christmas, and I've got £117 in the Horses pot toward the £450-ish I'll need to buy their 5 months of winter hay in September.

cazmanian_minx

An NSD yesterday for 16/31. I've actually woken up today feeling human again as opposed to the lurgied, lurching snot monster I've been for the past 10 days

Still no sign of the tax refund in my account, so I PADded another £1 off the NatWest overdraft. The business overdraft is actually nearly paid off, I'm less than £1000 overdrawn now, but it's all going to vanish again over the next 2 weeks. Sales have been abysmal for the last couple of days thanks to a combination of good weather, end of month and school holidays, but August has historically been quite good for me sales-wise, so hopefully it'll pick up in a week or two. It looks like we're in for some settled weather up here for a bit, which is fantastic because it means the hay will get made and I won't be paying a fortune to feed the horses over winter. I'm already hearing people are charging up to £7 for a small bale in the south of England :eek::eek: I should end up paying £2.50-£3 here.

Baldybear

Morning Just read all your diary, you are doing really well with your debt busting and business.

Just a few things, saw you spent a bit on canter mane and tail conditioner, if you use cheapo furniture polish it does the same job, fab at dentangling tails and lasts a lot longer!!

Wish my pony was as cheap to keep, darn living in Surrey, so expensive, worked out horsey costs me approx £235 a month, thats diy livery, stable and turnout, electricity, water, use of school, bedding, hay, hard food and farrier. Doesnt include vet or anything else. Eeek to the hay costs, but great its so cheap for you, I have horsey on haylage and pay £5.25 a bag which lasts about 4 days and thats all day everyday as not out 24/7! Would be so much richer without a horse, but the worse thing is, is would really like 2! Oh to win some money and have my own land would be sooo much cheaper!

cazmanian_minx

Baldybear wrote: »

Morning Just read all your diary, you are doing really well with your debt busting and business.

Just a few things, saw you spent a bit on canter mane and tail conditioner, if you use cheapo furniture polish it does the same job, fab at dentangling tails and lasts a lot longer!!

I *knew* the smell reminded me of something!!!! Thank you

Wish my pony was as cheap to keep, darn living in Surrey, so expensive, worked out horsey costs me approx £235 a month, thats diy livery, stable and turnout, electricity, water, use of school, bedding, hay, hard food and farrier. Doesnt include vet or anything else. Eeek to the hay costs, but great its so cheap for you, I have horsey on haylage and pay £5.25 a bag which lasts about 4 days and thats all day everyday as not out 24/7! Would be so much richer without a horse, but the worse thing is, is would really like 2! Oh to win some money and have my own land would be sooo much cheaper!

I feel for you, I used to have a horse on schooling livery at Oldencraig in Surrey which was :eek::eek::eek::eek: I partly ended up with two because when Merlin lost his company over the fence we worked out it was actually cheaper to have another one at home than to put Merlin on livery and that was before taking fuel costs into account (which would have been significant, since the nearest livery yard is a 30 mile round trip and the nearest acceptable yard a 50 mile round trip!)