Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Flying in before bed to report on the day's activities. £270 banked (yay!), 27 orders posted (yay!), felt so stressed by lunch time that I shouted at the washing machine for beeping at me (boo!), decided to take the afternoon off (yay!), settled onto the sofa with today's Closer magazine and a pot of Yeo Valley natural yoghurt with some Baxters strawberry jam stirred in (yay!), got bored and decided to go and have a paperwork clearout in the annexe (yay!).

A quick note about my paperwork system here. All non business stuff gets put in a magazine holder thingy on the floor under the window and when it gets full ('full' in this context means that it's sprouting bits of paper from the top like carrot greens) I empty it out and file or recycle as appropriate. The earliest bit of paper I found was 2010, so it's been a while....!! I also went through the files and ditched 3 years of bank statements. Much as it's nice to look back to 2004 (ahhhh, those lovely days of debt-free-ness....), I don't need them and they're all entered in Microsoft Money anyway

Then I went through a couple of big storage tubs that arrived with Finn in June last year. I've thrown away some ancient brushes, various lotions and potions that have probably gone off and a really ripped rug, found a show bridle that I'd forgotten was in there which can be sold and a green headcollar that looks a bit big for him but should fit Merlin. With a bit of luck, the bridle together with the spare girth, the seat saver and Merlin's old synthetic saddle might get me £150-ish off the overdraft.

DebtFree2012

Your paperwork system sounds like mine!!!

Great news on potential sales.

cazmanian_minx

I'm knackered. We've had a severe weather warning here today with gale force winds and rain and it's so tiring being out in it.

Anyway, it meant it was a good day to bed down in the annexe with the heating on and get more tiny fiddly flatbacks photographed. The 3mm ones needed tweezers to coax them all into place, but all the rounds are done, just the hearts and the stars to go.

I've paid this month's installment of the old Egg card. No interest again - I think I've figured out why though, some of the non-balance-transfer balance must have been balance transfer fees from the previous balance transfer and therefore wasn't attracting interest either. This will be the first card to reach the end of its interest free period, but not until next August, so if I continue to throw £65 a month at it, the balance will be down to under £2500 by the time I have to try and transfer it again.

cazmanian_minx

Happy thing for today: my savings account, which gets the pennies from me rounding down my bills account, has reached £50. It's only a tiny emergency fund, but I think it now qualifies as one

Other happy things for today include selling a quarter of the Minions flatbacks in just over a week(!), a friend of mine posting on Facebook to say she had a friend looking for a cheap 6'6" stable rug in any condition, so she's having Merlin's slightly mouse-damaged one for £5 and Mr Minx having his first appointment with the orthopedic surgeon about his hip. We were expecting him to recommend a hydrocortisone(?) injection and more painkillers, because Mr Minx is only 46 and that's very, very young to have the joint replaced, but after reviewing the x-rays and examining him, the surgeon said he'd be happy to do the operation as it would make such a difference to Mr Minx's quality of life He's going to put a ceramic joint in and with a bit of luck it'll be 20 years or more before he needs it replacing again. Even better news, the waiting list up here is only about 12 weeks, so it should be done in January.

Inverness tomorrow for my dentist and hygienist appointments. Now that I'm done with the Invisalign, I think I'm going to de-register from this practice and start going to the one Mr Minx uses up here. It's cheaper and it's only 45 minutes away instead of 3 hours. I've timed the appointments bang on for my car though - 165 miles left in the tank and it's 110 to Sneckie, so I'll be able to fill up almost a whole tank at the cheap Esso on the way home I must remember to take my £20-worth of M&S vouchers as well - not sure whether to spend them on food, a new pair of jeans or some shoes. I really miss the M&S loafers I had that Smokey ate about 4 years ago; I had to buy some replacement shoes quickly from a local shop and I've never really liked them much. Mind you, looking at the M&S website, £20 isn't going cover half the cost, so that's that one out! Jeans or food it is

JustAboutThere

I haven't been on the forums in ages for various reasons.

One thought I had about the third horse, was when you've figured out what's wrong with Finn and finances are on the up, at least the other horse was one they'd bred. Maybe set yourself a figure you need to achieve and get back in touch with the owners and see if they're still breeding and do they have a new one for you?


That way you deal with the now but could still have your favourite breed in the future.


Take care.

cazmanian_minx

That's a good thought I have to say though, I think I'll probably save an awful lot more and buy my dream horse next time, which would be a purebred PRE (Andalusian). There's a stud in Perthshire and by buying one bred in this country you avoid a lot of the problems that the ones imported from Spain can have. It's going to be a minimum of £3k for a youngster though and that's because prices are currently depressed.

cazmanian_minx

I didn't think I'd have time to do this today, but I've been organised this morning, so here are some very quick scores on the doors before I get in the car:

Business
Overdraft: -£-8306.87 / -£8256.52 +£50.35

Business total: -£-8306.87 / -£8256.52 +£50.35

Personal
Overdraft: -£732.06 / -£822.96 -£90.90
Egg card: -£3150.00 / -£3085.00 +£65.00
Barclaycard: -£2455.00 / -£2455.00 no change
Nationwide card: -£2570.00 / -£2570.00 no change

Personal total: -£8907.06 / -£8932.96 -£25.90

Grand total: -£17,213.93 / -£17,189.48 +£24.45

I think that's called *inching* in the right direction :rotfl: I'm trying to plan ahead for the rest of the month. Still to come out of the personal account I have:
- Three Saturday shopping trips, c.£150 for my half, though Mr Minx is away for nearly a week at the end of the month which will make that one considerably cheaper
- Equine dentist, £100
- Cash, £10 (usually this would be £20 for the month, but I haven't taken any out yet this month and if I'm getting another £5 tomorrow then a tenner will do me)
- Fuel, c.£70
- Bag of Speedibeet, £12.50

Call it about £350 in total, which will put the NatWest overdraft up to around £1173. That's £160 less than it maxed out at last month, so if I can sell some horsey bits and pieces as well, then I'm definitely moving in the right direction.

On the business front I have:
- UK supplier, £2064.48
- Bills and subscriptions, c. £82.50
- VAT, £810.00
- Import duty and VAT for charm bracelets, c. £200 (probably an over-estimate, but best to be on the safe side with these)
- Drawings for 1st November, £1300

That's £4456.98 to find before the end of the month, plus I'm going to need more Minions in about 3 weeks' time as well. I've banked £2500 in 10 days, it's the busy time of year, so I *should* be OK.

brizzledfw

Keep plugging away Caz!!

cazmanian_minx

I don't like today's post. One letter telling me that my electricity bill is going up (I forgot that Scottish Hydro is owned by SSE and because we've got an odd set up with the storage heaters on a separate circuit, we can't switch) and the other was my import bill from TNT. Their customs clearance department put it through as finished jewellery items instead of components, so I have to pay them £431 instead of about £200 :mad:

On the plus side, the pyjama bottoms I've been eyeing up in Tesco for the past couple of months were on the sale rack at £4 today, so I splashed out and bought them, along with another checked pair. It means that I can finally ditch my three pairs of Primarni ones, which cost about £3 each and have held on for 6 years but are now worn almost threadbare and have quite a lot of holes in :rotfl: I also bought this week's Country Life because it had an international property supplement with it which had an article on how to choose between Mauritius and the Seychelles for your Indian Ocean holiday home - that's the kind of decision I'd like to have troubling me one day

I have a MOUNTAIN of stuff to do tomorrow. I've got a pile of ironing to tackle, otherwise Mr Minx is going into work naked next week, I need to finish booking on the stock that arrived on Thursday evening, I'd better start packing some orders before Monday because I already have 25 to go and some of them are big ones, and I'd really like to get some stuff listed on my private account as it's a free listing weekend. I did hand over Merlin's old stable rug in exchange for that fiver today, so that's a bit more space in the shed anyway.

cazmanian_minx

I did pretty well with my list today I started with my usual Sunday morning tidy up down at the field shelters, when all the feed skips and beet buckets get a proper scrub out rather than just a swish round with some water, weigh-taped the horses (no more new grass patches for them for a while :eek:), picked up all the manure, did all the ironing (it took an hour and a half, so that was the latest episode of Geordie Shore and three quarters of the first episode of the new season of True Blood - OMG, Alcide's BOTTOM ...shame there's no lust-crazed dribbling smiley :rotfl:), had some soup for lunch, booked on the rest of the stock delivery, put together a really, really complicated multi-variation eBay listing for some flatbacks, did last week's accounts, photographed Finn's show bridle and stuck it on the local horsey selling group I started (it sold in under 10 minutes - that's £20 heading my way ), walked the dog again, fed the horses, went round the fields with the barrow and shovel again and put two items on eBay.

I should really list some books, but I'm knackered and there's a hot shower and some sheep pyjama bottoms with my name on I think