Monday Money #8 The Fitting Room Stevenage, Harry Potter & Charity

Monday Money #8 The Fitting Room Stevenage, Harry Potter & Charity

Last week has got to be up there in a week of the highs and lows of running a brand/social media/blog business. I crashed, self-medicated, had an emotional outburst, grounded myself, then experienced wonderful things. I wrote about it here.

Its almost as if you need the lows to get the ridiculous highs. Karma repaid many times over. I met with so many incredible people last week who helped me to cope with life, pulled me from the depths of despair and made a huge difference. A huge lesson in knowing who your friends are, again the universe needed to shake me up a bit and remind me who was good and who was not so good. Thank you.

A busy week meant A LOT of money was spent. To be honest I am a bit scared to add it all up, but I will! Okay that has freaked me out, £552 spent in one week. I am a bit shocked. But I lost control of my mind and therefore lost control of my spending and control of money. I remember the feeling of @@@@ it, just spend the money, you have plenty (I don’t) don’t worry about it. That was the devil telling me that. I had no angel on my shoulder telling me not to buy it.

Some of the spending was essentials with some money savings linked, but other was non-essential. Um £140 in Sweaty Betty on 2 items of clothing? Totally non-essential, but beautiful clothes for yoga, and I was given a £15 off voucher;-)

New Bras

I only get my bras from one place and one place only, the wonderful Clare from the Fitting Room in Stevenage. I have known Clare for a few years now and she is doing a wonderful thing. MOST women wear the wrong sized bra, often wearing too big a back size and too small a cup. Clare can look at you and know exactly what size you are, no measuring goes on here. She looks at you, picks up one, maybe two bras, you try them on and sorted. Back problems sorted, posture is helped and the right size bra will make you look slimmer!

I visited on Saturday afternoon, my running, PT and HIIT has changed my body and my 32 FF bras were baggy and uncomfortable. Turns out I am now a 30 F. HUGE thank you to Kane at No Bull Fitness, Joe Wicks of The Body Coach and running for this change. A 30-inch measurement around my back means a size 10. Boom.

I got a new flesh coloured bra to take home, a new black and new sports bra. When I have all the bras I will take a picture and pop them on Insta. Clare’s bras are branded panache, Freya, Fantasie so they are a little bit more expensive. But you get what you pay for. Go to Clare at the Fitting Room and try her out.

Lunches Out

I am very grateful to many lovely people who have paid for my lunch over the years when I was earning peanuts and they had their established businesses. Well now its payback so I did have a couple of pricey dinners/lunches this week. I spent £110 on eating out with clients/mentors/collaborators. How is this money saving? Well I owe them as they bought me lunch many a time. And I am not paying them for guidance, mentorship or advice, they help me for free. So, a lunch or dinner is a small price to pay. Do it, take out your trusted advisors for lunch, say thank you.

Harry Potter Tour in Watford

More to come on this, later this week, but the boys and I got to go to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Tour on Friday night. They had a special parent blogger night and we were invited along. It was freebies and VIP all the way, and we each got around £100 worth of stuff from tickets, to photos, to food and gifts. It was extravagant, so I am forever grateful to the Warner Brothers for inviting us. The boys loved it and we got to spent a quality three hours together. More of a longer post coming on that.

We did spend some money. As you will know from previous weeks the boys are using the free app Rooster to track their money. Jack decided to spend £25 of his £50 balance on a light up broomstick. And Josh who had exactly £18.06p remaining bought a quidditch ball for £19, hmmm that doesn’t work;-). Dylan, the one with a balance of £100 spent nothing!! My children are so so different with their spending habits, it is fascinating.

Re-organisation of Finances

I have restructured my regular spending accounts to make the most out of cashback. I have switched our regular spends credit card (that is paid off in full every month) to American Express, mainly due to the 5% cash back offer, plus the £20 cash back I got opening it via TopCashBack! But what I am finding is that not everywhere takes American Express. I am told (by Clare from the bra shop who does take Amex!) Amex takes much longer to pay you the money from the card transactions and charge slightly more per transaction. I have worked out that I still need to keep my Tesco Mastercard for the shops where Amex isn’t taken.

Also, I am in the process of switching all my business banking over from Barclays to Starling. I have a couple more invoices still outstanding from the Barclays account then its bye bye Barclays and their monthly fees and lack of information.

One last switch is me moving my personal banking over from First Direct to Starling as well. I have been a First Direct customer for 20 years, so I am pained, but as well all know, or you do now, loyalty never pays. Brands very rarely do more to look after their existing customers than their new. A big however, First Direct have been great with my mortgage and have given us a super good five-year fixed deal. I will leave my personal and joint accounts with them, I just won’t be using them so much.

Charitable Donations

Despite the high spending week, I have still given money to charity or have sent gifts to people who, you know, just need a boost. My friend Damien of Money to the Masses did a very long walk for Crohns disease, which he suffers from. And has raised a HUGE £4,500 and its still rising, click on link to donate if you know Damien. Money donated there. The yoga class I did on Sunday was for a local children’s charity. I paid far too much for ice lollies at school after sports day on Thursday😉 There is my tithe.

I sent a beautiful journal to my wonderful colleague Kirsty to say thank you for everything she is doing with Mrs Mummypenny. All those new YouTube videos you are seeing, that is down to Kirsty. All the pretty images on my blog, that is Kirsty. Thank you.

If you want this very same journal, I have a voucher code to save you 10% off, so including postage it cost you just £14.49. Just pop mrsmummypenny into the voucher code box. Far less money than other journals for sale, and Wendy who invested/produced/sells it is lovely.

Thank you for reading, as ever this post contains affiliate links where I will receive a small payment if you decide to buy but it has no impact on the price you pay.

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