Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Another 27 orders went out today and I decluttered five items of clothing which should have been ditched a long time ago (threadbare and holey!) but have been favourites. Some more clearance stock has gone up and it's started selling, so it looks like I'm judging the pricing about right.

I was looking to see if there was an app for selling stuff on Amazon today, so I could just zap in all my books etc. with my phone, but sadly there isn't - there's an Amazon app, but it seems you can only buy on it. Shame.

A short update tonight, because I'm watching the Great British Bake Off final. I'm really hoping Kimberley or Frances wins, but given that Ruby has already been given a book deal and her own TV show (according to a friend of mine), it looks like it might be a foregone conclusion.

brizzledfw

Great stuff Caz..particularly pleased that the stuff that's been lurking is being posted and is selling..must be a good feeling! I think I feel the same when the Bay of E is underway. At the moment have some items permanently on it..just keeps stuff moving and so far no regrets and will have exceeded my goal of making £250 by some way.

Must do some more packing as a few more purchasers have paid!

cazmanian_minx

Evening all - I'm still sitting at my desk working, so I thought I'd have a quick MSE break I'm nearly through repricing all the gemstone beads, I've done my 5 lots for the challenge and then just kept going! Only red agate, banded agate, garnet and howlite left to do, but I'm going a bit cross-eyed with the figures, so I think I'd better leave those last four until the morning otherwise I might get a pricing calculation disastrously wrong :eek: I can't *believe* the difference in sales since I started doing this, I was selling maybe one string a week at the old prices, now it's 4 or 5 a day and increasing all the time :j

Takings not so good today, I only banked £100 but I also spent £24.79 out of the PayPal account on 500 A000 MailLite bags (found a new supplier - the old one charged me £32.50 for the same thing), so I'm counting it as £124.79 for turnover purposes Tomorrow's not looking that much better, I've got 20 orders to go at the moment, which is great, but apart from one big charm bracelet order, the rest are mostly under £5. Fingers crossed for a few big sales overnight.

cazmanian_minx

28 orders out of the door, all the gemstone beads repriced, three more clearance items listed, stock sorted out for more (just needs photographing), suppliers all paid up for this month and today's stock delivery booked on.

Go me

Mr Minx is home tonight - he was considering staying over in Inverness for his hospital appointment tomorrow, but decided he missed me and the dog too much Nice to have him back early, and not just because it's the first hot meal I've had that wasn't an omelette since Sunday

cazmanian_minx

Friday again - where has October gone??

Business
Overdraft: -£-7051.17 / -£6273.78 +£777.39

Business total: -£-7051.17 / -£6273.78 +£777.39

Personal
Overdraft: -£1018.77 / -£1086.29 -£67.52
Egg card: -£3085.00 / -£3085.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2410.00 / -£2410.00 no change
Nationwide card: -£2570.00 / -£2570.00 no change

Personal total: -£9083.77 / -£9151.29 -£67.52

Grand total: -£16,134.94 / -£15,425.07 +£709.87

On paper it's looking good, but the sad fact is that every penny of the unused overdraft is allocated to something and I need to take another £550 by 31st October if I'm going to pay myself in November. It should be easy enough (£425 banked this morning), but October and November are the two months where I really need to make inroads into the overdraft to carry me through January when no-one is spending anything.

I had my annual summary from NatWest, which wasn't very happy reading.

Total amount paid in charges and interest: £313.37
Your average debit balance over the past 12 months was £1550.73
Your average credit balance over the past 12 months was £26.50.

:o:o:o:o:o:o

On the bright side, the personal overdraft is not going to take its traditional twice-yearly big hit at the end of January because (shock horror!) I've actually been sticking to putting 5% of my turnover away each week and now have £932.28 saved up towards my tax bill (this money is reflected in the scores on the doors by offsetting it against the business overdraft as it's still held within the business accounts - I just don't show the figures separately). According to my budget schedule I'm ahead of target - I should have been at £913 by the end of next month - so there's a little in there towards the VAT rounding payment as well. Actually, I think I may get a VAT refund next April as I'm way ahead on payments to that as well because I've been building up my stock. This month's payment will take me to £3240 in credit with HMRC and when I checked a couple of weeks ago on Sage, my VAT liability is only around £1800 for the year so far.

I'm not going to bank on having a four-figure refund in 6 months' time; to be honest I'd rather make loads of sales and have it eaten up in money due, but if it happens it'll be a nice bonus.

cazmanian_minx

It's been a good weekend. The Tesco bill wasn't too horrible yesterday and I had a nice lazy afternoon doing not very much as I suspected today would be busy - I needed to get as many orders packed up as possible because the equine dentist is coming tomorrow morning.

I was right 50 orders packed this afternoon, £986 currently in PayPal, so it looks like I'm on course to do my first £1000 weekend for a while It did mean I didn't get anything listed on my personal account on the free listing weekend though

Most of the rest of the day has been spent trying to persuade Mr Minx that he doesn't want to buy a horse. One of the ones that lives next door to us had been sold, but the sale has fallen through, she's back up for sale at £100 less and Mr Minx is making puppy-dog eyes at me and saying 'We could have her, couldn't we?' Well, apart from her being a) too big for me already aged not quite 3, b) a bit too nervy for me and c) a horse that needs a lot of feeding through winter. Our ground would cope with another good-doer pony but not a large part-bred warmblood. I've put my foot down and will have a quiet word with her owner tomorrow and ask her not to accept any offers from him!

In other news I got a text from the-Barclaycard-Formerly-Known-As-Egg to say they were putting my credit limit up to £7000. I suspect I'm about to be bombarded with balance transfer offers. It does leave me access to a ridiculous amount of money. My credit limits now look like this:

NatWest o/d £4050
RBS o/d £10000
Barclaycard £10000
Barclaycard/Egg £7000
Nationwide card £2700

Total £33,750. You can buy a house for that in some part of the country!

cazmanian_minx

I'm knackered. 68 orders sent out, £1070 banked and what was supposed to be half an hour with the EDT (Equine Dental Technician) turned into two and a half hours as we ended up having to do the six my neighbour was having done in my field shelter as she didn't have anywhere enclosed to work - so I shut my two in the bottom field with a small fresh strip of grass to keep them occupied, we brought her six into my top two fields and then she held them for the dentist while I ran up and down taking out the ones that had been done and bringing down the ones that hadn't.

I'm hoping the dog isn't about to be expensive. She came with me to take the postbags as normal, jumped out of the car when we got home as normal, but by the time we got back to the house she was limping and when we got in she sat on the kitchen floor and held up her front right paw with the most pathetic expression on her face you could possibly imagine! She's let me have a good feel of her paw and leg without wincing, I left her asleep on her bed while I went and did the horses and she's almost sound on it again now so fingers crossed that she'll be fine in the morning. I think she probably bruised her foot or her pad when she got out of the car, but whatever she did it wasn't enough to make her yelp and she's normally very oversensitive about anything even mildly uncomfortable. She's definitely a bit quiet tonight though

JustAboutThere

Fingers (paws?) crossed that doggy is OK in the morning.

Remember - just 'cos you've got loads of credit, doesn't mean you actually have to avail yourself of it. That is the way to the 'dark side' and not the way to save and buy your favourite horse breed once the debt is gone and the business continues to do so well.


You're doing fabulously!

cazmanian_minx

Oh don't worry, it's not going to be used, not unless there's an emergency astronomical horsey vet bill

Today has firmly fallen into the category of One Of Those Days. I woke up with the twanging feeling of cystitis and the only painkillers in the house were Mr Minx's super-strength prescription only codeine ones, which there was no way I was taking, as even ordinary codeine ones leave me incapable of doing anything other than sitting and giggling for about an hour after I take them. Glugged down some bicarbonate of soda in barley water instead and went to do the horses, accompanied by a bouncing dog who was completely sound on her leg and feeling much better.

Or so I thought. Once we were back and she'd had her breakfast and settled down on her bed for the morning, I noticed she was licking the paw rather a lot and when she got up she was lame on it again Luckily the vet had a space for 3.20, so we tootled in. Jura and vets really don't get on - she's needle-phobic and always tries to bite the vet before a needle can get anywhere near her. She was amazingly relaxed in the waiting room, just lay down quietly at my feet and even snoozed a bit, but since she'd given me a warning mouth when I was having a look at her paw, I thought I'd better suggest they muzzled her before she was examined.

That's when the trouble started. She hurled herself off the examination table, leaving a trail of poo, and tried to hide in the corner. Fortunately they have a vet nurse who is extremely good with nervous dogs and she was around, so she came in, got the muzzle on and held her tight while the vet had a look. She's done something to one of her toes, they don't think it's broken but she's twisted it or sprained it or bruised it or jarred it in some way. She had a painkiller jab while we were there (which she didn't even squeak at - I think she was too far over the edge into terror by that point to notice ) and I've got to rest her for a week, just five minutes in the garden twice a day, plus painkillers every evening - that should be enough for it to heal.

I got home to find that Finn's ulcer stuff had finally arrived, but because I was at the vet and not in to sign for it, it was firmly locked up in the postman's van, so it's going to be tomorrow before we can restart his treatment. And then to top things off, I lugged a bag of Speedibeet down to the field shelters, left it outside the feed shed for a second while I moved the wheelbarrow and turned round to find Merlin had torn a hole in it and was about to help himself :eek::eek: For non-horsey people, sugar beet has to be soaked before feeding and if a horse eats it dry it swells to five times its volume in their stomachs and can cause colic, a serious gut problem which can lead to their intestines rupturing, killing them. Merlin has, apparently, in a previous home, broken into a feed room and eaten half a bin of dry Speedibeet with no ill effects, but I'd rather not repeat the experiment!! I sprinted over and chased him off just in time thankfully - he might have got a flake or two but not enough to do any damage.

Tomorrow is definitely going to be better.

JustAboutThere

Oh bl•••y hell - what a day! I think you deserve a sit down in a darkened room with a glass of something.

Hope things improve tomorrow.