Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

cazmanian_minx

All four games sold and even though the money hasn't hit my bank account yet, I've already transferred the equivalent into the offset account :A I found my Final Fantasy games, but they're only fetching a couple of quid at the moment, so I'll hang onto them for another year or so until they get rarer.

I'm currently lumping money into the offset account like there's no tomorrow. Every time I spend something on the newly cleared credit card, the same amount gets transferred from my current account into the offset current account. Microsoft Money is currently predicting I'll have £289 left over at the end of the month and although about half of that will go on food shopping, whatever's left over will get transferred in as well.

UK supplier was happy to accept payment by card, so the first lot falling due was paid this morning. I don't have enough in my business account yet to place that order, but I had some absolutely fabulous crystal beads turn up yesterday, so this weekend's job is to get them photographed and listed ASAP!

cazmanian_minx

Checking in with Chart 3 of the MFi3T2 challenge and it appears I have to find nearly £12k to get back into the green zone by September. Well, £1500 of that will come from the set-in-stone overpayments, unless the Bank of England puts the base rate up, so that just leaves another £10.5k to find. Given that's more than I pay myself, I'm guessing I'm not going to catch up this quarter unless sales suddenly go through the roof.

Had a whoops moment this morning, OH got an email to say that our broadband usage was over limit and would we like to consider upgrading? I'm guessing that's all the downloading I did to install Tradebox etc. So I've bitten the bullet and I'm getting a business line installed in the annexe with unlimited broadband. Fortunately Quidco has an offer for £80 cashback on business packages, which means I'll only pay £19 for the new line installation

cazmanian_minx

Some really good news to report today; Mr Minx has decided to get fully on board the good ship MFi3T2 :T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T He emailed me yesterday with his Grand Plan and as long as he sticks to it, he'll be putting £384 a month into the offset account from August, increasing to £584 a month from November and then £1000 a month from next summer when his cards will be paid off (he's shuffled everything onto a 0% deal and is planning to ditch the lot in 10 equal payments). If he can do it, then we should meet our MFi3T2 target and possibly even exceed it

gallygirl

yay, well done on seeing the light Mr M :j

setmefree2

gallygirl wrote: »

yay, well done on seeing the light Mr M :j

Good Luck to Mr Minx :T:T

cazmanian_minx

I'm getting used to using the offset current account more, but it's still strange to see the balance going up and down all the time rather than thinking the money in there can't be touched.

Mr Minx and I have agreed that this year's project is going to be the living room and main house bathroom, so last night we had Jeff the plumber round to quote for fitting a woodburning stove, connecting it to a back boiler for the main house immersion tank and putting in a decent shower. We've got £850 sitting in our joint savings account (about four years of loose change!) which earned us the grand sum of 84p in interest last year :eek:, so we're going to empty the account and use it to pay for the work.

It's only taken me 10 or so years of using Microsoft Money to discover that it has a loan amortisation report If interest rates stay the same we're due to pay off the mortgage in January 2028, five months before term. This doesn't take into account any offsetting (not that there's much of that at the moment ). It does show how the low interest rates have helped us though - it's calculating total interest due between now and Jan 2028 (if the base rate doesn't change) of £19,955.22 on a loan of £135.221.82.

cazmanian_minx

Grrrrr, I spent all day logging in and out of Intelligent Finance but for some reason they didn't update the interest due until today even though the payment went through yesterday :mad:

Anyway, let's start with the good news, of which there is quite a bit

- We've paid off over £10,000
- The interest-bearing amount is back in the £128k region
- We've got £920 in the joint account, not £850 as we thought
- My biggest Christmas stock order has been placed and paid for
- I'm writing again

There are a few bits of less good news

- My tax bill of £1371.71 is going to come out of the offset at the end of July
- I need to find another £3,500 for my final Christmas stock order
- I also need £1800-ish (haven't worked it out yet) to pay the VAT man at the end of August
- And about £1000 in import charges for an order in transit due at the end of the month

I've got £2,500 available in the business account as I've continued to lump stuff on the business credit cards wherever possible to free up cash. It's not ideal, but I reckon it's probably far better to pay ~£150 in interest now than to miss out on several £000s of sales because I don't have the stock. Just one more order to place and then I can pay them off - I reckon I'll have them zapped by the end of September.

cazmanian_minx

Well, sometimes life takes an unexpected turn that hits the finances and that's happened to me - we have a new addition to the family

No, I'm not pregnant :eek::eek::eek: (given neither of us can have kids, that would REALLY be unexpected!), but a horse I'd expressed admiration for was offered to me on loan So this morning I went and spent a small fortune on electric fencing for my field and this afternoon I set it up and fetched Merlin from the vast distance away of the field next door.

It's a good thing business is up 25% on last year! The last Christmas order has been placed, the VAT bill is paid, now I can crack on with paying off the business cards and then it may be time to think about a small payrise to myself.

setmefree2

Whooo Hoooo


Looking forward to pictures...

cazmanian_minx

I paid my tax bill this week, so the net mortgage figure is back into the 129s

Business cashflow is doing OK. I have £1450 'spare' at the moment, but there's £1850 falling due to a supplier on 15th August and I'd rather pay that direct than put it on the card as I have been doing. Plus my overseas orders will start docking at Felixstowe next month (the first ship of three with my goods on is due to make port on 5th August) and that'll be about £1000 a shot in VAT, import duty and transport costs. So once I've got a £5k war chest built up to make sure I can pay those, I can start paying off the business cards.

And there's another piece of good news, Mr Minx is now down to two credit cards :T:T:T:T:T:T One's interest free, which he'll have paid off in 10 months, and the other is his day-to-day one. He mentioned last night that he was going to be able to start putting money into the offset from next month, but I've persuaded him that it makes more sense for him to get the balance off his day-to-day card as the interest rate on it is pretty horrible. He got his annual bonus this week and immediately paid £1k off that card, I'm so proud of him