Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

cazmanian_minx

Gosh, I forgot to come back and update my sig on mortgage payment day - done now.

So what's been happening here? Sage and Tradebox are now up and running and are BRILLIANT (they're tweaking it to make the VAT thing work but for the moment I've just switched stock control off and am doing it manually). My accountant is happy as well, because apparently I can just press a button and Sage will send her my accounts over the internet. I had a very useful meeting with her a couple of weeks ago, she's drawing up a 'proper' set of accounts for me this year because Royal Bank of Scotland doesn't like being sent an Excel spreadsheet when they ask for proof of income

It also means I've been able to separate my personal finances and my business finances properly for the first time in several years. They always were notionally separate, but instead of running everything through Microsoft Money I've now got personal in Money and business in Sage - it makes it a lot easier to budget when it doesn't look like you've got an income of £9k a month! It's been an expensive month for the credit card though, £550 at the vet for starters However, Senior Dog's last set of x-rays came back showing that her lungs are clearer than they've ever been and she doesn't have to have another one until 6th May.

On the business front, I actually paid off my business overdraft last week :T:T:T Unless I have a sudden flurry of sales I'm going to go right back into it in the first week of May when I have to pay the VAT man (£1k), one of my UK suppliers (£2k) and an overseas supplier (£2.8k) as well as my monthly drawings (£1.4k), but I've banked over £2k this week and because I've been holding off on ordering overseas stock while the pound is low against the dollar, cash flow has been pretty good. I do need to place big orders with suppliers in India and China, because I'm running low on their products, but since both of them ship by air, there's very little point until the ash problem resolves itself. I may go for a much bigger order than usual from China and bring it in by sea, but it needs to be at least 100kg of stock to do that and with 11 boxes due in the next couple of months from the supplier I owe above, I'm not sure I'll have the space!

I don't think I'm going to achieve my challenge of paying back the £7k before the next reporting date, let alone making the additional £4.5k in overpayments, but the interest-bearing amount has gone down by £900 in the 16 days since I last posted, so you never know.

cazmanian_minx

It's mortgage payment day and another £564.29 has come off the total :j I think the best I can hope to report in the June update now is that we're back in the £12x,xxx area for the interest-bearing amount, because business is fairly quiet and I'm going to make it even quieter by going on holiday next week!

I'm still juggling cash flow like a frenzied orang-utan, but it seems to be working out so far, touch wood. I just need to find another £800 from somewhere to pay that overseas supplier when it becomes due and I can fund that from my savings if it really becomes necessary. I did place an order with one of my Chinese suppliers now that the airspace has opened again, but it went on one of the business credit cards so I don't need to pay for that until towards the end of June and it should have been delivered a week before then.

My personal credit card is in a bit of a state thanks to Senior Dog's vet bills Given that the card costs me less in interest than my overdraft, I've only paid off £400 of the £1600 on it (usually it gets paid off in full each month) so that my current account stays in credit, although it's temporarily dipped into the red today because OH's transfer of his share of the mortgage and bills is a day late thanks to the bank holiday :mad: Senior Dog has another x-ray tomorrow, but she's still coughing, so goodness knows what they're going to suggest now. We'll wait and see.

setmefree2

Have a good holiday

cazmanian_minx

setmefree2 wrote: »

Have a good holiday

Thank you, I did

Finances are slowly untwisting themselves. The house insurance renewal quote came through, not much up on last year at £221, and I wasn't initially going to look round because when we insured with them 2 years ago they were so far below everyone else it was almost funny. But I fired up a couple of price comparison sites and ended up getting the same cover for £122 with £30 cashback on Quidco :j Suitably fired up I applied for an Egg Card with 0% on balance transfers until July 2011 so I could transfer Senior Dog's vet bills onto it and was accepted, with a further £35 cashback After getting the knock-back from the bank with regards to the business loan, that was a boost to the credit ego. The card will be cut up when it arrives and the direct debit set at an appropriate level to make sure it gets paid off in full by the end of the period.

OH and I are both having a belt-tightening summer, so with a bit of luck the offset pot will have grown by the autumn. The main area we need to tackle is the Tesco spending - £400-£500 a month for two of us :eek::eek::eek: We've put the fence posts in for the bigger veggie patch - about quarter of an acre - and I hope that next summer I'll be able to grow enough vegetables to be near self-sufficient in that respect. We'll also be eating our own pork from September, they're growing nicely and I'm looking forward to sitting down to a Sunday roast where I have grown everything on the plate at home!

Caz

taka

Have a look at Weezl's site for some cheap but seriously yummy recipes and a monthly food planner for 4 people for £100! :drool: (Or have a look at the "how much have you saved" bit of the MSE forums for the threads where everyone has been testing them)

Good luck with your growing of all types! :eek:

cazmanian_minx

Thank you, I shall point Mick in that direction (he does all the cooking!)

Cool_man

Good one dude..keep doing nice work

cazmanian_minx

Have just updated the MFi3T2 challenge spreadsheet with a figure higher than my starting balance Tempted as I was to pay the extra £78 off to make it £10k paid off the start figure, I've got my tax bill due at the end of July...

Business cashflow remains tight - I've got to order all my Christmas stock in the next six weeks, so pretty much all the money coming in is being turned straight round again, though I MUST remember to keep enough back for the quarterly VAT bill! Let's see, what have I got going out...

UPS import bill (due imminently, the goods have just reached Germany) - about £400
UK supplier - £1300
Business credit card - £1600
Royal Mail business account - £550
Other business credit card - £600
Freight agent - ~£1000
UK supplier - £1900
VAT bill - ~£1500

- that takes me to mid-July and I have to find another £7k-ish on top of that for Christmas stock at one of the quietest times of the year :eek: Note to self for next year - build up a war chest for June...

I've had three no spend days this week and will probably have another tomorrow to make four out of seven, my best record yet. Tesco today, but OH is away for four days next week and I can live out of the freezer/on sandwiches, so it shouldn't be too horrible.

cazmanian_minx

Have managed to pay myself the second half of my monthly drawings now and have put £500 of the £700 straight into the offset :T I'm not going to update the challenge spreadsheet because I've got an electricity bill coming and it won't be far off that because it was so cold so late in the year here - we had snow only a month ago!

I also did a mini bit of decluttering last night and put four Nintendo DS games I never play any more on Amazon. Two of them sold in four hours so that's another £20 coming in and that'll go straight into the offset as well :A:A:A:A:A

cazmanian_minx

Sold another game I should really sell my Final Fantasy DS games as well because I haven't played them for yonks, but I can't find them :mad: Will try the annexe next...

Good news for this morning, the UPS import bill is £100 less than anticipated. I've also decided to pay the UK supplier on business credit card #2 rather than the usual cheque and just pay minimums for 2 months so I have the cash to buy the Christmas stock. If I do that, I'll have about £2,900 going out instead of £8,450 and the difference will allow me to get the order placed for the slower of the two companies (comes in by sea instead of air, so I need to give it a month for delivery).