Money Talks with Elizabeth Buko

In this episode, I am speaking with Alison Boutoille who is a French expat who arrived in London in the middle of the pandemic. She quickly fell in love with the pub culture and was fascinated by how British people consider a pub as an extension of their living room.

With the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns she was sorry to see how people deserted these amazing places dedicated to gatherings.

So she decided to give pubs some support armed with her marketing background, she launched her business City Stack and this unique gift idea: a pack of beer mats that offers £100 worth of food & drinks at independent pubs. This unique collection pack offers ten money-saving coasters, each giving £10 off a £20 spend at one of the ten independent London pubs that are part of the collection. With this pack, our users save money, keep going to lovely pubs, and support independent pubs at the same time.

Alison says "launching a start up is investing a lot of money without being sure you'll get a return on investment and it is definitely something new to me. I decided to stop worrying about how much money I invest without return (for this launch at least) and my thoughts now are more along the following: some people spend hundreds in passions like sport, music, travel. Something that makes them feel alive. I consider this project as my passion for now and I try not to be counting too much each penny I spend". 

Alison also says she has a minimalist mindest, from her point of view "what makes you happy in life is not the amount of objects you collect, but what you do, how you connect with people and the purpose you follow. Launching this project to support independent pubs participates in my happiness so I don't consider the money invested (nor time) as a loss."

To find out more about Alison & Citystack go to: