Hi! My name is Jo and I am This Mum Cooks.

To all who know me, including myself, the position that I find myself in now, as a creator of social media content and as some would say, an influencer, has come completely out of the blue. I would go so far as to say it was accidental. I am naturally an introvert who never even took drama lessons at school, hated public speaking and would turn crimson and stumble through my words if a room would turn and look at me. However now, behind the camera, in my own kitchen and possibly due to a confidence that comes mainly with age, I have thrived sharing cooking recipes and money saving tips in the difficult times that we have found ourselves in this Cost of Living Crisis.

When I say that this came about accidentally that is exactly how this started. My eldest daughter, who was 12 at the time, wanted to join Tiktok. I, naturally, was unsure, given I had little knowledge of the platform other than the negative reviews that it gets across the National Press. But to keep the peace, and acknowledging that she was accessing this content when socialising with peers, I agreed that she could get the app so long as I was able to follow her and see what she was posting. And so it began.

My preconceived perception of the app was that it was a platform where people sang, danced and lip synced and that was as far as it went. It was designed for teens and certainly wouldn’t have any content that I would be interested in. How wrong was I! Instead, what I found were communities of people sharing their knowledge, tips and love of almost any topic you could imagine. I realised that there maybe was something here for me and I may (quite possibly) have tips that I could share too.