I love to write these posts every year, its such a great way to end each year by reflecting back on what I am super proud of. Despite all the difficulties of life in 2020 its been the best year ever for Mrs Mummypenny.
2020 has seen me being an author, a model, a podcaster, a journalist, an Instagram influencer, a TV expert and so much more. Its been a brilliant year for my business with the years and years of commitment and hard work really paying off.
I Wrote a Book!
This is something that was always on my to do list but I just never seemed to have the time to get to it. This year was the year of the book and it was written in May & June. The Money Guide to Transform Your Life was then published in September 2021.
It was a joy to work with my best friend Rebecca Megson-Smith who coached me and helped with editing of the book. Without her this book wouldn’t have been possible, with her guidance the book became a brilliant piece of writing.
Its part memoir and part personal finance guidance. Much of my life is laced into the chapters, where I share me learnings and experience. Much of my life has seen financial struggles and demons trying to knock me down, but I have beaten them and am now well on the path to financial freedom.
You can buy a signed copy of my book (now £2 off, down to £12.99) direct from me by visiting this page on my website.
Newspaper and Magazine Articles
I have had many opportunities this year to wrote pieces for many newspapers and magazines. Here are a just a few of them!
On my blog I kept very detailed spending diaries during the first lockdown, I then turned these into an article for iWeekend on my lockdown learnings.
I wrote a piece for The Sun in July that was huge, it was read by a million people in week it was published! The article shared how to feed my family for less than £10 per person per week. Packed full of healthy recipes, using up leftovers and fakeaways. It went viral!
I ended the year with a piece for The Mirror on 25 Money Saving Tips on the lead up to Christmas and also appeared in Take a Break answering questions from readers on their personal finances.
TV & Radio
There were also many TV and Radio appearances, now made easier as they can all be done from home. Early lockdown I appeared on ITV Lunchtime news doing a finance Q&A. Radio was more like a weekly occurrence for most of the year with regular appearances on BBC Radio London and Talk Radio as one of their personal finance experts.
Billboard and TV Ads
This is a project that I am hugely proud of and have LOVED getting all the messages from you guys when you spotted a billboard with me on it! I was one of the featured customers on the PensionBee huge marketing campaign this year.
The billboard were everywhere, all over the country in train stations and at road sides, it is such a buzz to see your face on a huge marketing campaign. There was also a TV ad where you can see me chatting about my pension confidence as well.
The shoot day was back in March, we managed to get it in the can three days before lockdown number one, such a relief. September saw the release of the billboards and I went on a search for them, finding these ones near by in Finsbury Park and Kings Cross.
Incredible Brand Campaigns
Of course its been a great year working with PensionBee again, 2020 made it our 4th year of work together with me a brand ambassador. This carries on into 2021 with lots more exciting work planned together.
I have also loved working with many other brands, including Zopa who have introduced lots of new products this year as one of the countries newest banks. There has also been wonderful campaigns with Fidelity, American Express, Music Magpie, Octopus Energy, LifeSearch, Santander and Idealo to name a few.
Financial Well Being Presentations
A brand new addition to the suite of services I offer is financial wellbeing presentations to organisations. These have started after the launch of my book. The beauty of technology means that I can talk to a huge group of people about my favourite subject of personal finance. My biggest audience so far was 1000, not scary at all!
I talk about finance for now including money mindset, budgeting, debt, emergency savings and then I go onto talk about finances for the future so pensions, investing and protection. I talk for 30 – 40 minutes with a Q&A section at the end, always packed with many questions from each audience.
If you and/or your company would be interested in one of these presentation then please drop me a line, lynn@mrsmummypenny.co.uk.
Instagram Growth
I have seen a huge growth in my Instagram channel this year, mainly thanks to that article from The Sun. I started 2020 at 7k followers, I now end 2020 at 14k followers! Picture shows excited me when I hit 10k and finally got the elusive swipe up option for Instagram stories.
This has meant that I do a lot more Instagram work with branded campaigns, with all blog work being promoted on Instagram. But I also love to use it to document my every day life or lockdown life. Countryside walks, Trev the cat, beautiful food and money saving ideas and tips of course.
Rebranding Mrs Mummypenny
2020 also felt like the right time to rebrand my website and turn it into a fully fledged grown up website. And this was not something I could do by myself. The team from Lingo designs helped me to rebrand everything, including all the technical aspects of making a huge website change.
We started with the logo and the colour of my website, and moved onto a fresh new design, making my website incredibly user friendly. It is now so much easier to find content. my page view doubled within a week. We also flowed the new design through to my book with team creating the graphics for the front and back cover. As well as a shop on my website to buy the book.
It really has been an incredible year, here’s to 2021 being even better. It has to be right?!
