Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

£227 banked today and another £290 in PayPal and on its way from credit card transactions, so I think tomorrow I'll be placing that order. I've opened a foreign currency account with CaxtonFX, so I'll get a quote from them and RBS and see who comes out cheapest - CaxtonFX doesn't charge fees, it'll be interesting to see whether they make up the difference on the exchange rate or whether I really will save as much as they claim.

cazmanian_minx

Didn't get round to placing the order as I had 42 to send out. The October/November Royal Mail invoice has arrived as well - £1182.06 :eek::eek::eek: I've re-done the cashflow and I can still afford the order as long as sales are level on last year, so I'll try and get the money sent tomorrow.

Brother's birthday present ordered too, but I had an unexpected expense today - I forgot to shift the delivery date of my Hotel Chocolat tasting box back another year and one arrived today! It's on top of the kitchen cabinets and I'm trying to forget it's there because I'm off sugar at the moment. If I can get through next month's PMT without diving into it, then it can go to my mother in law's on Christmas day as an extra pressie.

cazmanian_minx

These Fridays are coming around awfully quickly aren't they?

Business
Overdraft: -£-5674.29 / -£4077.70 +£1596.59

Business total: -£5674.29 / -£4077.70 +£1596.59

Personal
Overdraft: -£583.36 / -£1146.07 -£562.71
Egg card: -£3020.00 / -£3020.00 no change
Barclaycard: -£2410.00 / -£2370.00 +£40.00
Nationwide card: -£2540.00 / -£2540.00 no change

Personal total: -£8553.36 / -£9076.07 -£522.71

Grand total: -£14,227.65 / -£13,153.77 £1073.88

Back into the 13s again and back over 50% paid off How much better would it have been though if I hadn't spent so much out of the personal account? (And how much worse if I hadn't done some eBaying and sold the saddle??)

It's all going to go back up next week anyway, because I'm just about to pay out about £2750 to various suppliers. The good news is that with this morning's transfer from the business account to the offset, I'm only £14 away from the amount needed for the tax bill at the end of January, giving me about 8 weeks of 5%s to start building up funds for the balancing VAT payment (which is still a refund at the moment) and the July tax bill.

DebtFree2012

Yes they blooming well are coming round too quickly - I don't know if I am coming or going.

Well done on ploughing through and fingers crossed the sales for xmas continue.

It amazes me how you know what you're doing with tax and exchange rates and VAT as it scares me silly.

How's the ponies? Do you get the big round bales of hay for them?

cazmanian_minx

VAT was a bit scary to start with, but now all I have to do is click once and Sage calculates the whole thing for me

The boys are fine, thank you for asking. They don't have the round bales, as I don't have an easy way to handle them or anywhere to store them - they won't fit through the hay shed door and I can't leave them out in the field for ad-lib eating as I'd have two hairy hippos! Finn's on a diet as it is, I think I'm going to have quite a lot of hay left over this year. As long as I can keep it dry it'll be fine for next autumn - Merlin's finding it a bit rich, so another year in storage will make it perfect for him.

cazmanian_minx

Since Mr Minx took yesterday off, we did the shopping yesterday afternoon and had a day at home today. I'm slowly catching up on the stuff that didn't get done last week - I calculated that I posted out 222 orders, which didn't leave a lot of time for anything else! I sent another 21 this morning, then had some lunch, did two loads of laundry, tidied my desk and spent the rest of the afternoon listing loose gemstone beads in an effort to empty enough space in my storage drawers to get all the resin flatbacks filed away, as it's really slowing me down having to hunt through about 75 different plastic bags to find the right one. I didn't quite finish before the light went for photographing things, but I only have 11 drawers left.

So tomorrow's list:
- final load of laundry
- finish listing loose beads
- label up drawers for resin flatbacks and file
- file away last week's deliveries
- label up drawers for all new cab settings and file
- relist unsold personal items on eBay
- list some more personal stuff on eBay
- hoover and dust the house
- do the business accounts
- update the stock spreadsheet
- place an order with main UK supplier

Just a few things then...

cazmanian_minx

tomorrow's list:
-[strike] final load of laundry[/strike]
- [strike]finish listing loose beads[/strike]
- label up drawers for resin flatbacks and file
- file away last week's deliveries
- label up drawers for all new cab settings and file
- [strike]relist unsold personal items on eBay[/strike]
- list some more personal stuff on eBay
- [strike]hoover and dust the house[/strike]
- [strike]do the business accounts[/strike]
- [strike]update the stock spreadsheet[/strike]
- [strike]place an order with main UK supplier[/strike]

Not too bad. Currently 53 orders to go tomorrow, so thank goodness I sent out 21 on Saturday or I'd be swamped! The accounts are showing I've made about £2k profit so far this month The supplier order was a mahoosive one, so mahoosive that I had to email my account manager and explain that I was aware I'd just breached my credit limit with them in fairly spectacular fashion and if they wanted a payment tomorrow just to give me a ring! Put it this way; to become one of their 'club' customers, which gives you their top rate of discount, you need to spend £2k or more a year with them. I just spent £1300 in one transaction. I'm not sure if I'm their largest account, but they've sent me a Christmas card and a large box of chocolates every December for a few years now

DebtFree2012

Haha love it. Anything for a box of chocs!

I'm a list person myself - something very satisfactory about getting it all down on paper then ticking them off. My lists seem to grow the more I tick off

You're one busy lady - will you get time to chill over xmas?

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

You're one busy lady - will you get time to chill over xmas?

Ha! I wish! One of Mr Minx's brothers and his partner are arriving the Saturday before Christmas for a week (they'll be at his mother's for a couple of nights but with us most of the time) and then Mr Minx has to be taken down to Inverness on Boxing Day afternoon to be admitted to hospital because he's having his hip replaced first thing the following morning! I think I'll probably get the Sunday after Christmas to myself, as I can't see the hospital discharging him on a Sunday, but after I've picked him up on the Monday I'll be on carer duty until he heals up enough to start putting his own socks on and doing the cooking again.

68 orders went out today in the end, if I can take another £1200 this week (definitely possible, judging by the last month) then I make my £9k banking target 21 to go tomorrow at the moment.

I've ordered Finn some more ulcer meds, another £110-ish. After four weeks on them he's so much happier with life. The last 'treatment' dose is tomorrow, with what I have left and the new batch I can keep him on the 'prevention' dose for nearly 5 months. After that I'll try weaning him off it onto just the probiotic he has. As long as I can keep his life fairly stress-free they shouldn't come back, something that's been helped, surprisingly, by the hay feeders Mr Minx built me at the weekend - Merlin likes his so much that he just stands at it and munches rather than picking all the best bits out of his hay then bullying Finn off his to get all the best bits out of Finn's hay and going back and forth between the two piles. So Finn can eat in peace as well and is crib-biting less as a result

cazmanian_minx

I feel like a machine that just hurls things into jiffy bags at the moment! Sales are still flying and long may it last - this was the last week things were really good last year, but I'm hoping to keep sales at the same level for at least next week as well, as that would really help the cash flow. Last year I had a really, really big order (over £1000) a couple of days before Christmas which saved my bacon cash-wise - I'd rather get it all banked earlier this year.

I am tantalisingly close to that £9k cash banked goal for the month....