00:06I've always been drawn to the non-traditional path. I was never the girl that envisioned her
00:14wedding and her dress. Even though marriage was never important to me, I always imagined having
00:20children. On my 38th birthday, I was single and I had this realization that I was getting close to
00:2840 and I didn't have a child yet and that I had to take matters into my own hands and
00:33make it happen.
00:37Before becoming a mom, I wasn't paying much attention to my spending. Travel, exercising,
00:44shopping, going out to eat. In order to financially prepare myself, I started paying more attention to
00:51my spending and I learned what I needed to cut back on. I was traveling less, I was eating in
00:57more,
00:59I went through the process of IUI, which is intrauterine insemination. Buying sperm is very
01:05surreal. You get to choose specific characteristics, eye color, hair color, height. The prices vary based
01:12on the popularity, seriously. So sperm is about $700 a vial. I bought seven vials. I can't believe I'm
01:21like having this conversation with everyone here. Okay. I had to do several rounds and there's
01:25medication involved, doctor's bills, hormone injections, the whole works. And it cost me about
01:33$10,000 to get pregnant. Being an entrepreneur and a business owner, I wasn't in the position where I
01:42could take a real maternity leave. I was obsessed with boutique fitness. I stumbled upon this machine
01:50in LA and then I created a business based around that machine and that is SLT. Right from the start,
01:57I really needed full-time help. A lot of people I know have their moms come and stay with them
02:02and be
02:03their baby nurse for the first two weeks. That wasn't something that I had an option to have. Both my
02:09parents passed away when I was in my 20s. So I had to prioritize getting help from a nanny and
02:16a baby nurse.
02:18Childcare was the area that I felt like I couldn't budget or save on. So I had to save in
02:24other areas.
02:25My daughter wears a lot of hand-me-downs. I think I've only bought Flynn like five pieces of clothing
02:31in two years. My other big expense was going to be moving. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment and
02:38I
02:39knew I'd need at least two bedrooms to accommodate for a baby. I doubled my rent. I looked for places
02:46that
02:46allowed me to walk to work so I could first of all save on the cost of traveling and second
02:51of all,
02:52having my office within walking distance of my apartment allowed me to run home to breastfeed
02:57or pump and run to doctor's appointments with my daughter or be home for a play date and then run
03:04right back to work. Even though rent became a big expense, I thought very strategically about it.
03:12Being a single mom doesn't close you off forever to the possibility of getting married or not being
03:18a single mom. What happened for me is after having Flynn, I reconnected with an ex-boyfriend. And when
03:24Flynn was two, I had another baby. And Archer's two months old. Flynn's a proud big sister. While I didn't
03:33plan to take the non-traditional path when it came to my family, it definitely suits me. I think people
03:40tend to focus on the emotional aspect of having a baby more than the financial aspect when they're
03:45both equally as important. Figure out the things you are unwilling to give up and then the other things
03:51are going to be areas of your life that you're going to have to be flexible on. Michael and I
03:56aren't
03:56married. When it comes to my daughter, it's 100% my responsibility. And when it comes to my son,
04:02we budget and coordinate and split everything 50-50. And now, thanks to Archer, we have to move again.
04:11Mommy, picture maker.
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