Raising children is expensive. Nobody is pretending otherwise.

But motherhood will also expose everything about how you use money - the stories you tell yourself, the happiness you think you can buy, the things you spend on without ever asking why.

In this episode:

• The myth: My daughter played with homemade playdough for four hours at nursery. At Christmas, the presents lasted 30 minutes. The box they came in lasted longer than the toys.
• How we see money: Are we spending for them — or for us? And where do we draw the line between giving our children everything and teaching them that everything needs to be given?
• What money is actually for: Freedom. Experiences. The people and passions that truly matter.

For the mother who already knows money isn't the villain.

Unconscious spending is.

Maternity redundancy isn't just an HR issue. It's a confidence heist.

Caroline didn't just lose a job. She lost her professional identity, her routine, the quiet confidence that comes from knowing you're good at something and being seen for it.

According to Pregnant Then Screwed, up to 74,000 women in the UK are forced out of work every year while pregnant or on maternity leave. The process is often technically legal. And almost always dehumanising.

Caroline's was no different. A calendar invite. A glass-walled room. Colleagues watching. No privacy. No dignity.

She went on to found Upsource, a multi-award winning VA agency, host her own podcast for mothers in business, and become a Goldman Sachs 10K alumna. She built all of it after the glass-walled room.

In this episode we talk about what that day actually felt like, why outsourcing is really about seeing time differently when you have children, why financial independence is non-negotiable for women, and what it genuinely looks like to build a business alongside motherhood — the real version, not the highlight reel.

This isn't about resilience as a buzzword.

It's about building a life that couldn't be taken from you in a glass-walled room - one your children grow up watching you choose every single day.

Hot coffee. A gym membership. A pair of earphones. None of it costs much - and all of it changed everything.

In this episode:

• The thermos flask: The tiny thing that makes me feel like I got the best end of the deal - even at the park on a Tuesday morning.
• The gym: Why I leave the house when my kids do - and what it means to meet them again from a place where I've done something for me.
• Earphones: On protecting the things that make you feel most like yourself, even when time is scarce.

For the mother who knows she doesn't have to choose between being present for her kids and building herself.

You can do both -and it doesn't have to cost a lot.