The 300k debt-free diary!!!

tyllwyd

pandapaws wrote: »

No, unfortunately it's all personal debt as it's me that has to pay it! All bought on personal credit as I didn't want to get involved in business loans etc. Because I'm not actually paying any significant interest on any of my cards, I haven't bothered adding that as an expense. It would probably be far more bother than its worth to try and seperate business from personal expenditure, and I'd end up in a right muddle! And no, I've barely started clearing the debt, but hoping to be there by 2012 or before!

Its a shame that you haven't kept things separate - for one thing, it will make your paperwork more complicated when you do your tax return.

If I'm right (and I'm not good with tax so I may be wrong!) every little bit that you can use to keep your proft down helps.

The way I was thinking about it ...

Say you had £2000 profit for the year, and paid £100 credit card interest.

Assuming you were paying 22% tax on your business earnings
you would pay 22% x £2000 = £440

If you claimed that interest as an expense
you would pay 22% x £1900 = £418

So that would be £22 that you have paid in unnecessary tax.

Like I said, tax is not really my thing - but it would be worth talking it through with your accountant to see what advice they could give.

pandapaws

I know, I know!!! But I just wasn't organised at all when we started out, and things got really messy. I was great at buying stuff and kitting out the office, but not so good at keeping on track of the finances - ostrich syndrome really.

As it is though, it's going to look more like a loss of about 10k once I put together all my receipts, rent, staff wages etc, so the amount of card interest that I've paid, which will be virtually nothing as I constantly switch 0% deals, really is a very small number (probably less than £20 in tax) for all the effort that would be involved in trying to calculate it! Since there are things that are included as business expenses which are also personal expenses (e.g. internet use, printer inks, stationery etc) then it probably balances out with neither me nor tax man losing out.

But I do really appreciate the advice! I buy very little stock now since we've got so much still to do (but being worked on as we speak!), but when I do, and all other expenses like postage, Ebay fees etc all come straight out my business account, which is funded solely by Paypal receipts, so it should be much easier next year. I hope...

pandapaws

YAY!

Just had an email from the National Lottery - we won £47 on Saturday! That goes straight to the save-for-debt account, so should give us another little boost towards something at the end of the month!

chocaholic110

Yay! Very nice. And nice to hear people do win on the lottery. OH puts it on every week and we both do a syndicate but we may as well just throw the coins straight down the drain and cut out the middle man!

But well done! £47 is a nice little bonus!

pandapaws

Right, too much time on here already this morning.

If anyone sees my light on, tell me to go do something else!!!

tyllwyd

pandapaws wrote: »

But I do really appreciate the advice! I buy very little stock now since we've got so much still to do (but being worked on as we speak!), but when I do, and all other expenses like postage, Ebay fees etc all come straight out my business account, which is funded solely by Paypal receipts, so it should be much easier next year. I hope...

Congrats on the lottery win!

Yes, sorry for keeping on - the reason it sticks in my mind is that I'm self-employed as well, and so my tax return is something that I spend a fair amount of time worrying about, just trying to get my head around how it all works.

pandapaws

Tax is my least favourite thing in the world (well, sort-of, after all the really, really awful things in the world!). I thought I was bad with my box of reasonably-ordered receipts and statements. Saw my sis-in-law last week, and she had bags, boxes, random piles of paper all over the place. She's been self-employed for about 15 yrs, so really should know better by now, and after seeing that I don't actually feel quite so bad about my own realtively minor mess! Funny how seeing someone worse off than yourself has that calming effect!

I've just put the new HSBC details into my home-made snowball calculator, and it has knocked another month off my DFD - now April 2012! It was Nov 2012 when I started, and I've added a 5k car loan to it since then, so I'm well chuffed with that!

Had a good day all in really - £47 lottery win, £167 received from Quidco, £230 unexpectedly received from a VERY kind friend who sold some of my Ebay stock to people she knows, plus reducing my debt by quite a bit without spending a penny just by re-calculating the figures with the new reduced interest. And I barely moved off my lazy backside all day - wish every day could be like that!

hypno06

A good day's "work" then :rotfl:

I hope you have many more like that!!

I also hope your estate agent pulls his finger out! 20th October, indeed!!

pandapaws

hypno06 wrote: »

A good day's "work" then :rotfl:

I hope you have many more like that!!

I also hope your estate agent pulls his finger out! 20th October, indeed!!

Incidentally and unsurprisingly, no reply whatsoever to the email I sent!

Definitely bedtime now. Night!

pandapaws

We won our council tax appeal!!!

Have overpaid £980 in last 3 years, now Band E instead of F.

Instead of refunding it, they're reducing our payments to £15 a month for the rest of the year, so I'vr just set up a SO for £200 for 6 months (decided to include the ones you don't pay CTax!) to a seperate account and will pay lump sum off a card in the spring.

I LOVE THIS SITE AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!