£102.60 and a Large McFlurry!

The main perk I get with my job is 13 weeks holiday a year, which is fab. All that time I get to spend with my family, which inevitably ends up with spending far too much money. Sometimes this makes me think about the perks other people get with their jobs. One of our closest friends is the manager of a health club so his family never have to pay for membership to a health club. I have another friend who works for Marks and Spencer so she gets fab staff discount and they sell off all their food (which we all know is totally lush!) really cheap at the end of each day.
When I first started teaching full time I had to give up my job at a Brewer's Fayre restaurant which also meant surrendering my Whitbread discount card, which gave me really good discounts in Brewer's Fayre, Pizza Hut, Costa, Travelodges and all sorts more. What did I get in return? 20% of insurance with a certain company who shall remain nameless, but let's just say their prices are about 30% more than most insurance companies!

I've been teaching for 9 years, so some of my ex students are now in their late 20s, only about 3 years younger than me (scary!) and some of them are in pretty good jobs. Over the last few weeks, I've discovered another of the many perks to my job - who you know! I may not get 20% off in a store, but I've done pretty well in recent times thanks to the wonderful students I (or to be fair my husband too) have taught! Sometimes I've even felt guilty but I've never ever asked to get the treatment I have!

• We ordered a takeaway the other night. Hubby answered the door. "That'll be £22.60 please - oh, alright Sir, just call it a tenner then!"
• Buying our kids new shoes the other week, came to a total of £59 including some unnecessary bag that Evie managed to sneak up to the till. After getting served by a lovely girl who was in my tutor group for 5 years we had staff discount applied to our purchases and ended up saving nearly £20
• I get a 10% discount on my acrylic nails every time I go
• We went to buy a new hoover and bumped into an ex student who saved us a whopping £70 on our purchase through some kind of price match promotion
• I've had free Nandos nuts and McFlurrys with loads of the extra toppings whenever I've popped in recently!

I'd just like to add that all of these things that I've benefited from are totally above board, nothing corrupt has been done! All of these students are in management responsibilities, the takeaway is actually owned by an ex student!

So as I'm sat here enjoying my break while the kids have a little rest from their hardcore playing, I'm mulling over how I can encourage next year's school leavers to perhaps pursue careers in sports car retail, or luxury holidays!