Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

£20 paid to the B'card that was an Egg today I've pledged to pay off £200 on top of the normal payments over the next six weeks (this is a challenge on another forum I belong to, actually fitness related but they encourage you to have a non-fitness related goal as well), so that's 10% of it done.

I am finally starting to catch up with the business accounts, which haven't been done since December 16th I've downloaded all the sales and entered the refunds and invoices, just the cash flows and statement reconciliations to do in the morning. I've also placed my first stock order in nearly a month, chased up my charm bracelet order and sent a polite nudge to a supplier I've been trying to get an account with for over a year - I got an email back from them within 2 hours, which is an encouraging sign

Cashflow is still very tight, but I ran a VAT calculation earlier and at the moment HMRC is going to owe me £1500 on 31st March. I doubt it'll be that much by the time we get there (though I've got about £500 of VAT to pay on the incoming charm bracelet order) but it'll still be a nice lump of cash into the stock-buying fund. I'll probably put it straight into the offset savings, as I'd like to get that to a float of £3k to cover tax, balancing VAT and my annual Tradebox subscription. It's currently sitting just over £1800 but I'll be taking £13-something-something out at the end of the month for this half's tax bill.

DebtFree2012

Hi Caz

Wow you're going strong. Hope Mr Minx is recovering well and you're not going to have to worry about him for too long. Love the people giving you money situation!!! Long may it last!

Work sounds busy as much admin as sales by the sound of it? I hope you get through it all stress free.

What's you aim to clear for this year then? Do you have one?

catshark88

Popping in to say hello after a break from MSE (just being hectic).

I've got some catching up to do on your diary but am v impressed how hard you are working, in both stock and sick rooms!

Don't forget to look after you too.

CS88

cazmanian_minx

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

What's you aim to clear for this year then? Do you have one?

Good question! To be honest, it completely depends on how things go business-wise. If I can boost turnover to £8k a month at current margins and give myself a payrise, then I *could* clear all the personal debt in a year, which would be amazing.

Realistically, however.... I would be satisfied with the credit card totals coming under £7k and delighted with them going under £5k - so £3300 to £5300 is my aim.

It was the dog's injections today and they came in at £44 instead of the £40 I'd budgeted. I was convinced it was £38 last time, but I went back and checked my bank statement and saw I'd paid £48, which would have been jabs plus worming tablets. The good news is that the receptionist's suggestion of letting the vet and one of the nurses do it without me being there was a great one - she was calm enough that they did it without a muzzle and no-one got bitten :T:T

In other animal-related news, I've been having a few fitting issues with Finn's saddle. He's changed shape a bit and although it's a leather tree and won't hurt him, it just doesn't look right at the moment, so I took some pictures and asked some friends for advice. They've gently pointed out that I'm using a GP numnah under a dressage saddle which probably isn't helping... The saddle is designed to be used with the Nuumed HiWither saddlecloths, the cheapest of which is £32.50. I've dug out all four numnahs and saddlecloths I own (two Nuumed numnahs, one HyWyther padded saddlecloth which is too thick and one Roma padded saddlecloth which is MUCH too thick), washed them and will stick them all on eBay once they've dried - hopefully the four of them will make enough to buy me a second hand Nuumed dressage saddlecloth. I've got three on watch on eBay, if I can get one for under a tenner I'll be very chuffed.

cazmanian_minx

I'm cross with myself today. I'd made a note to transfer some more money to the bills account today because the Sky direct debit usually goes out on the 10th. Not this month, it went yesterday, putting the bills account overdrawn :mad::mad::mad: I *think* First Direct gives everyone a £250 interest free buffer zone, so hopefully I won't get charged anything, but I'm annoyed that I wasn't on top of it.

Anyway, I've done some shuffling. I took £200 out of the business current account and £450 out of the business savings account (that still leaves enough in there to pay the tax bill), so I'm completely paid for January but the business current account owes the business savings account £450. Clear as mud? :rotfl:

The old Egg card spat out a statement as well, so I paid £110 to that.

I'm wondering how I'm going to get through this month business-wise actually. My charm bracelet order is ready to ship and getting that will help a LOT - my freight agent advised me that because of everyone trying to ship stuff out before the annual shutdown for Chinese New Year, sea freight rates were right up and it wouldn't be that much more expensive to air freight the order. So I've got to find £650+VAT on £2400+duty for that in the next 10 days, plus £240.88 to a supplier tomorrow (that's covered!), plus £1293 for Royal Mail on the 22nd, plus £810 for the VAT man on the 30th, plus about £150 for the other small monthly bills, plus £1300 to pay me on the 1st Feb. A smidge over £5000 in total in the next 22 days. I'm currently banking under £100 a day and am going to miss it by a mile unless I really pull my finger out.

What has helped is a UK supplier order turning up today. I booked it on this evening and have already had £150-worth of sales off it. I need to dive into my box of bits tomorrow and get some more clearance stuff up for sale pronto.

DebtFree2012

I know that feeling of being annoyed with yourself when you think you're on top and you're not. I did that in Dec and resulted in a late payment on a CC which is so not me now

I hope you managed to meet your needs in January - if anyone can you can x

cazmanian_minx

Running a bit late with the scores on the doors as I wanted to make sure everything was packed and ready to go so I could zoom to the post office after the farrier had been. He was due 20 minutes ago, so I've been doing the finances while I wait

Business
Overdraft: -£-5948.54 / -£8378.96 -£2430.42

Business total: -£5948.54 / -£8378.96 -£2430.42

Personal
Egg card: -£5450.00 / -£5320.00 +£130.00
Barclaycard: -£2330.00 / -£2330.00 no change
Nationwide card: -£2480.00 / -£2480.00 no change

Personal total: -£10260.00 / -£10130.00 +£130.00

Grand total: -£16,208.54 / -£18,508.96 -£2300.42

Not looking good, is it?? But those cards will be back below £10k in no time and I did manage to bank £1000 this week from the business, which was up on last year.

cazmanian_minx

Cross your fingers - yesterday afternoon I got an enquiry from a potential new customer in Europe for a big order. I've given her the best quote I can for what she wants, now waiting to see if she accepts. It's nearly £900-worth, so it would be a HUGE help this month

.

LAM2011

Hey Caz

Have subscribed so I don't 'lose' you. Hope this year is a good one for you both personally and for your business.

Good luck with the ebay sales and buying new saddlecloth. I have quite a few dressage ones but not the nu-med.

cazmanian_minx

Didn't get the one finishing this afternoon, but two more on my watch list for this evening, so fingers crossed.

The European lady accepted my quote :j:j:j:j I've put the stock on order (the supplier's out of stock of two items, but fortunately I have enough here to cover it) and hopefully I'll be able to invoice her for it on Wednesday.

I've been good this afternoon and made basil and tomato soup out of the bag of tomatoes in the fridge. They had a best before date of 26th December on them but none of them had gone mushy. I've spent the afternoon chopping, stirring, simmering, blending and straining and have three containers of soup cooling prior to being frozen. I should probably do something with the leftover carrots as well, but I think the boys might get those in their evening feeds for the next few days

I have to say, I know that Mr Minx and I shouldn't have splurged on our Christmas presents to each other, but they've both got so much use that it's been well worth it. He's downloaded the Sky Go app and if he's too sore to sit and needs to be lying flat he can still watch everything we can get on the Sky box on his tablet in bed. And I LOVE my PS3. I played Beyond: Two Souls from start to finish while Mr Minx was in hospital and am now about 12 hours into Final Fantasy XIII. I play for about half an hour to an hour every night after Mr Minx goes to bed and it's about the one time in the day when I don't think about work, it's a real escape.

Paid another £20 off the target card today, it's now down to £5300.