"Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody." -- Agatha Christie 🌟

Hello!

24.7%! I am not sure whether you’ve seen the bad news but in September the average APR (i.e. the annual percentage rate or amount of interest you'll pay annually on a credit card for example) was the highest in 13 years, report by Moneyfacts. Basically, the cost of borrowing money short term is increasing, with households bearing the extra cost. That’s why this week we’re looking at how to best use your credit card.

📅 As promised our next London event is coming up and we will be talking about “Housing: Buying and Renting”, it’s at Huckletree West on October 2nd at 6:30pm 🏠

📈 In other news, on Wednesday I was invited to the opening of the London Stock Exchange by Natwest and the ELITE program to celebrate women in business and female entrepreneurship. The most inspiring Alison Rose (Deputy CEO of Natwest) opened the market and shared insight on the recent Rose Review: an independent review of female entrepreneurship. The review has highlighted barriers faced by women starting and growing businesses and identified ways of unlocking opportunities. 

The fact is, female-led businesses could add £250bn to the UK economy and we need more women starting businesses and more support for them (funding, mentoring, advice etc). It was an exciting morning! Really inspiring to see so many female business owners and how much support there is out there. It’s only the beginning and we definitely need more but the conversation is getting started. On which subject, here is a summary of our event on money for female entrepreneurs by Found & Flourish last week.

👀 Press & Podcasts
I spoke to Charlotte Lorimer for her new podcast about women & money #BangOnTheMoney, you can tune in here.

🌟 In this week’s newsletter, we’ll look at the main money news of the week; we are interviewing Theodora, followed by our anonymous money story, book reviews and events.

So credit card interest has risen to its highest amount in over a decade. We saw the recent report from Moneyfacts and found it worrying to say the least. 

What does financial independence mean to you?
"Freedom to do whatever I want without depending on anyone! It’s unbelievable how amazing the feeling of not depending on anyone is. It gives you freaking power!"

You may already know Refinery29’s Money Diaries… this is our own version of it! We’ve put together a few questions to understand what women are doing with their money. Let’s break the taboo and talk more about finances!
It’s short, snappy, fun and anonymous.