Caz counts it down

Wordsmith

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

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?

I do this adding up, too, whenever I feel like breaking out and going wild! Soon stops me. (Sometimes soon stops me.) The good thing about it, though, is that you can see it going down month by month(ish).

You are keeping remarkably focused. And you seem to have plans for expanding the business, so everything seems to be moving in the right direction.

cazmanian_minx

Happy Friday everyone - we have sunshine here, which is fantastic, but terrible for getting any sleep because everyone was cutting hay until nearly midnight last night.

Scores on the doors for this week:

(last week/this week/ + or - amount)
Business
Overdraft: -£2173.42 / -£758.13 +£1415.29
Barclaycard: -£8750.00 / £8750.00 no change

Business total: -£10,923.42 / -£9,508.13 +£1415.29

Personal
Overdraft: -£3274.00 / -£3184.86 +£89.14
Tesco card: -£1865.00 / -£1965.00 -£100.00
Egg card: -£3470.00 / -£3470.00 no change
Dental loan: -£1000.00 / -£1000.00 no change
Post Office card: -£790.00 / -£790.00 no change

Personal total: -£10,399.00 / -£10,409.86 -£10.86

Grand total: -£21,322.42 / -£19,917.99 +£1,404.43 :j:j:j:j:j:j

Not a bad reduction for the week, though it primarily came from my fortnightly Amazon payout on the business account (£830). Another NSD yesterday for 17/31and HMRC's refund arrived in my bank account this morning - they'd added £3 of interest to it, so I got £87.14 in total. With the second Egg payment of the month due to come out of my account on 31st July, my PADs are going to be over £700 for July, which is something I never dreamed would happen when I signed up to do it!

It's not going to look nearly as healthy next week after I've paid myself, but Mr Minx's share of the bills will go straight off the personal overdraft so that'll offset some of the £1500 coming out of the business account.

cazmanian_minx

And I've just been really good and logged on to both Barclaycard accounts (horrible-rate-business card and the old Egg card) and reduced my credit limits. The horrible rate one has gone from £12,000 to £10,000 (eventually I want to put this down to £5,000) and the old Egg card has gone from £4,500 to £4,000. I'm surprised at how good doing that felt!

Wordsmith

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

And I've just been really good and logged on to both Barclaycard accounts (horrible-rate-business card and the old Egg card) and reduced my credit limits.

Good woman yourself! All these steps make you feel good and ready for the next milstone.

cazmanian_minx

Bit of a result on this week's shopping:

Sub-total: £59.61
Multi-buy savings: -£3.78
Coupon: -£7.00
Coupon: -£5.00
Coupon: -£0.62
Coupon: -£0.57

Total: £42.64

If you have a Tesco £7 off when you spend over £50 and a £5 off when you spend over £40, you can use them both in the same transaction if you've spent £50 or more - you don't have to have spent £90. Off to run it through the Tesco Price Promise to see if I can get another coupon!

cazmanian_minx

Tesco Price Promise gave me all of 8p on yesterday's shopping - that really is 'every little helps'!

I really shouldn't have stayed up last night watching the opening ceremony, but wasn't it FAB? Apart from Paul McCartney, who was a bit embarrassing. I think the Queen has just shot into the top 10 all-time Bond girls and Simon Rattle and Rowan Atkinson may have toppled Morcambe and Wise with Andre Previn for best comedy sketch involving a symphony orchestra. And the look on Kenneth Branagh's face when he looked up to see the rings coming together - not shown in any of the papers today, which is a shame, but he was just so completely caught up in the wonder of it all, it was lovely.

We had some squally showers about 6am this morning and when I finally got out to shovel up the field an hour and a half later, I found a soggy, shivering pony He's a Welsh D, he should be able to cope with a bit of rain - my finer-coated Hungarian wasn't bothered in the slightest - so I'm not sure if he's coming down with something or whether it's just that he's spent the past few years having a full clip 3 times each winter and so hasn't got much of a base layer left. I scraped him off and popped a medium turnout rug on him and by lunchtime he'd warmed up enough for it to come back off again - pony and rug are both drying out in the breeze and I'll rug him again tonight as we're due more rain. I think I'm going to need to get one of those wicking under-rugs for him so that if it happens again I can dry him out faster. Poor boy - looks like he won't be going naked with Merlin all winter then, though I will be letting him grow his winter coat in full.

cazmanian_minx

NSD yesterday for 18/31.

I'm sitting here feeling a bit woozy after Merlin accidentally kicked my head when I was picking his feet out this morning Fortunately he's not shod, so all I have is a small bruise on my temple, but Mr Minx is under strict instructions to take me to A&E if I start talking more gibberish than usual I can still remember all my online banking passwords, so no damage done I think - I've got to back to the doctor tomorrow morning because my tonsils are still up and the UTI is still hanging around, so I can get it checked over if I still have a headache.

Since it's nearly month end and a month since I started this diary, I thought I'd do a quick round up of how I've done on the personal debt front. I've taken into account tomorrow's scheduled PAD of £1 to the overdraft and Tuesday's Egg payment.

Debt 30th June 31st July

Overdraft £3620.69 £3182.00 -£437.69
Tesco card £1608.91 £2006.00 +£397.09
Egg card £3521.76 £3402.93 -£118.83
Teeth loan £1250.00 £1000.00 -£250.00
Post Office card £800.00 £790.00 -£10.00

Total paid off personal debts: £420.43

It would have been over £700 if I hadn't had the oil bill, so I'm hopeful that I can beat it next month. Add on £249 paid off the business card for £669.43 cleared in total plus the £236.42 in interest and that's £905.85 :eek::eek::eek: HOW much richer am I going to feel when this lot is gone???????

cazmanian_minx

I had a rush of blood to the head and PADded £30 to the overdraft this morning - that leaves me just enough in the current account for the Egg payment tomorrow and the TV licence on the 1st (just in case the scheduled transfer from the business account doesn't clear first thing).

I've won a Weatherbeeta Polar Fleece cooler rug on eBay for Finn - £5 plus postage and it looks barely used, these are around £35 new so I'm chuffed to bits. I decided to do a rug review yesterday to see what needs to be sent for cleaning or repair before winter and was pleasantly surprised - nothing! However, that's because I'm going to be chucking out the lightweight turnout that came with Finn - they're about £40 new and I estimate that repairing it would cost around £35 (it needs new leg straps, it's been chewed to bits over the chest and and there's a rip most of the length of one side, not down the seam and over where the surcingles do up, so it's not useable) and I reckon I can pick one up on eBay for £20-ish.

Went down to the surgery this morning and came away with more antibiotics, hopefully these will do the trick because I'm fed up of feeling under the weather!

cazmanian_minx

Some good news - Mr Minx has been given a pay rise, his SECOND of the year and in addition to his performance-related bonus! It's going to be back-dated to April 1st as well :j:j:j:j:j

He's now on £11k more than he was when he started with that company 4 years ago, simply because he's done such a good job there - SO proud of him

cazmanian_minx

Last day of the month and I can't believe how big the PAD total is! If I'd included the horrible-rate-Barclaycard transfer it would have been over £1000.

I'm not sure August will be so successful; no nice HMRC refund for starters but I've got four things listed on eBay and three of them already have more than one bid which isn't bad considering they don't end until Sunday. I've not been brilliant about the personal eBaying this month, that's something I must do better with. House and finances will both look better for getting rid of excess stuff!

Anyway, I have three loads of laundry to get washed and dried before the rain hits (we're due build-an-Ark downpours in the next 24 hours), 282 bags of beads to send to Amazon's warehouse and orders to send out, so I'd better get cracking.