Dreaming of that cottage by the sea

Julie67

Hi Cottie,

I will have a look at Amazon, I always thought the fees were expensive but the intro offer sounds good.
I have a few watchers on eBay at the moment so fingers crossed they will sell. Dh and I are currently investigating buying some stuff at auction to sell on eBay. It would mean an initial investment but a more professional business hopefully.
Anyway better get a wriggle on have a good day. j

cottage_by_the_sea

July summary:

Positives: All personal bills paid, car insurance bought, all house bills paid with account staying in the black, 1st of month (August) bills paid.

Negative: My Current Account is still very much in the red. I did get it down to -£300 but didn’t quite manage to clear it before I had to push money over to pay 1st August bills. After a flurry of early bills, I’m now down to -£600 again, which is depressing.

Looking at August, I don’t have any large annual bills, so I just need to get my head down and work as hard as possible to knock the current account back into shape. The figure for the bills account is large but that’s to get it back to the point it should be at, if I’d been paying in the full amount every month. If I hit this figure, September will be a very light month as I’ll be ahead of myself. I wanted to get through August by paying a bit extra so hubby doesn’t need to pay in this month. He paid in a lump sum a couple of months ago which was early so I didn’t want to ask him to put any more in until I was straight.

I’ve played around with my spreadsheet and my projected end of month figure is -£1000 which means the boat is sinking month by month. I’ve got to do something to reverse this trend.

My volunteering has been good fun this week but is very tiring. I guess I’m realising how unfit I’ve allowed myself to get during the past year. Standing and walking around all day is exhausting.

Best get on and do an hour of listing –whilst I put my feet in a bucket.

Take Care…

Cottie

August goals:

Personal bills £52/485, house bills £0 / £1400, personal float for Sept £0/£100.Bills float for Sept £0/£230, OVERDRAFT 1/8/13 = -£600.

kika

remember accentuate the positive, you've done well.

Julie67

Well done cbts,

I try to be positive. This month I've done well on eBay. I'm trying to save any money I make on there.
We've also paid off the mortgage arrears which means an extra £100 a month to throw at the DMP
Don't get me wrong it's been a struggle as always but we will get there.
Have a good day x

cottage_by_the_sea

I agree - must stay positive, but it is difficult sometimes.

I’ve paid almost all of my personal bills this month. Just 2 more debits to go out and they will be covered by an Amazon payment in the pipeline.

An extra house bill has arrived and I’ve had to buy those packing materials I put off buying last month. Both have been added to figures and paid.

I’m currently at -£800 with a £1300 transfer to make to the house account next week, which will just about limbo under my overdraft limit . No more bills until the start of the month which will give me a bit of time to pay some of it off before it starts all again in September.

I've applied for 5 part time jobs this week. One bounced back straight away as being rejected even though I have years of relevant experience. Two requested that I had to re-register on another agents’ websites. One of these looked so amateurish that I didn’t bother. I’m really not convinced that there are actual jobs behind these online ads.

I’m going to ring the agents concerned and give them a nudge. My favourite out of the 5 hasn’t replied and would provide a £1000 injection of funds over the next few months, whilst fitting in nicely with my other weekly activities. Cross fingers for that one. If I get it, I’m going to continue to use self-employed income to live on and send all wages to the credit card.

Take Care…

Cottie

===========================================

August goals:

Personal bills £450/535, house bills £230 / £1530, personal float for Sept £0/£100. Bills float for Sept £0/£230, OVERDRAFT1/8/13 = -£670. 15/8/13 -£800

cottage_by_the_sea

Welcome to a new week.

Well, I’ve repaid all monies owing to my house bills account plus paid half of September’s figure. I need to transfer another £100 to cover everything but I’m going wait until tomorrow for that.

I have enough space in my overdraft but it would take me right up to the wire and I worry that a DD will come in early or perhaps a less frequent one I’ve forgotten about will appear. So I’ve decided to let the bills account dip into it’s own overdraft for a day, just to give me time to raise a small buffer for my main account. It would be a nightmare if I went over my limit, incurring fees, penalties and possibly a reduction or withdrawal of the overdraft facility completely.

Goals for the rest of the month:

Pay last 2 personal bills - covered by an Amazon payment on it’s way.

Raise £230 for house bill due on 1st Sept

Raise £130 for September float – will get me through to 12th

I’ll be so glad when this month is over. I only have to put a small amount in the bills account in September so will be able to focus on getting the overdraft reduced.

Back to the grindstone

Cottie

====================================

August goals:

Personal bills £450/535,house bills £1430 / £1530, personal float for Sept £0/£130. Bills float for Sept £0/£230,OVERDRAFT 1/8/13 = -£670. 15/8/13 -£800, 19/8/13- £1900

cottage_by_the_sea

Whew! Got through the tight section of the month. Pressure is now off and I just need to work at reducing that overdraft.

Hubby noticed that the bills account had dipped into the red and topped it up. I wanted to manage until September without asking him to contribute but very glad he did it. I would have just about managed it but yesterday received another house bill for £300 payable in 7 days. It never seems to end!

Anyway, I’ve calculated that there is enough in there for me to pay light in September (already paid 50%), full in October and will need major top up mid November. I scrapped the bills float line in my goals below as no longer needed.

All personal and house bills paid for the month and I’ve cleared enough overdraft to see me through to the 13th September.

Next set of goals:
Raise £230 by end of August to cover mid Sept cluster of personal bills.
September
– raise £400 for bills account
- raise £100 to pay end of month personal bills(should be covered by Amazon sales payment)
- hammer overdraft. I’d really like to get it under -£1000 if possible, but realistically it will probably end at around £1250.

I have decided to upgrade my ebay shop and list everything and anything during September using my free 1200 listings. I’m going to consider this my last chance to increase the business from hobby size to one that can properly support me. If this doesn’t increase turnover considerably then I’ll have no option but return to full time work.

On that depressing note, I am going to get cracking. The bay was completely unusable yesterday due to a system fault so I need to spend today catching up.

Take care …Cottie

=================
August goals:

Personal bills £535/535,house bills £1530 / £1530, personal float for Sept £130/£130. Bills float for Sept £0/£230 now not needed,OVERDRAFT1/8/13 = -£670. 15/8/13 -£800, 19/8/13- £1900, 24/8/13 - £1790

kika

You're so right about bills never ending! Good to hear you did so well.

cottage_by_the_sea

Hi Kika,
Good news today. The bay have given business sellers free listings until Friday- up to a maximum of 50,000 listings. I guess as a sweetener for the outages last Friday.

100 created, only 49,900 to go.
I've been through a quarter of my prepared inventory, checked stock and relisted.

Hubby is busy this week so I'm going to pull a few late nighters and see how far I get.

Weekend sales have been good - nothing big but loads of small sales. I'm half way to my end of month target...only £120 to raise to take me through to the mid September.

Am going to plod on for another hour then zzz time.

Take care...Cottie

cottage_by_the_sea

Nasty August is almost over. I’ve raised enough to get me through to the 15th of September. Plus I’ve bought £100 of stock – a bargain that was too good to miss.

I've used 260 of my free listings so far...only 49740 to go.

I think 1200 a month is going to be plenty when the new rules come in....but it’s been good to 'go for it' to give me an idea how many is practical. I’m aiming for 400 before midnight.

With that in mind, gotta dash…every minute counts today.

Take care

Cottie