Hello, everyone, and welcome back to a brand new episode of The Financial Confessions.

Today, I have a guest who may be well familiar to you if you are someone who has watched the channel, but who also may be new to you. I don't know if you have or haven't.

But no matter whether or not you know her, she is a very awesome person with lots of very insightful things to say about money. But before I say hello to her, I want to say hello to our awesome partners with whom we make every episode of The Financial Confessions. As you guys may already know, we make every episode of The Financial Confessions in partnership with Intuit, and if you haven't heard about Intuit yet, you have almost certainly heard about some of their amazing products, things like TurboTax, Mint QuickBooks, Turbo, et cetera.

And basically, what the Intuit products provide is a really synthesized nice little package of different programs and apps that you can use to help navigate all of your financial decisions and to understand your financial health, whether it's, for example, having help navigating the process of doing your own taxes, like with TurboTax, or getting a higher level view on the overall indicators of your financial health, like with Turbo. Intuit provides the products that will help guide you through these decisions and give you that peace of mind that the decisions you are making are the right ones for you, and they're based on real knowledge about your own financial health. So if you cannot wait to get started with Intuit's awesome suite of products, check them out at the link in our description or our show notes.

So as promised, someone you may know, maybe you don't, but I bet you probably do it's Tasha Cochran of One Big Happy Life, our former host of the Friday show, The Lifestyle Fix. Hello. Hi, Tasha.

So excited to be back. So excited to have you. A homecoming indeed.

How have you been? Really good. Yeah.

It's been a while. Yes, it's been eight months. Since you've been on the channel.

Although any of you who came out to our event in Silver Spring would have seen Tasha there talking about money and relationships. And you have been going through all kinds of changes since you left The Lifestyle Fix. So tell us what's been going on in your life.

Oh, OK. Let's see, so I quit my job. Which was what?

Which was-- so I was a banking and consumer finance attorney. I worked for the federal government for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And so I quit my job to work full time in my business, which is One Big Happy Life.

Let's see. What else has happened? We implanted our one and only embryo with IVF.

So-- Team embryo. Yes. So we are waiting to hear the news on how that has turned out.

Let's see. I switched my kid's school, so now my 3-year-old is in a private preschool, something that I never thought was going to happen, and I'm getting ready for my oldest daughter to graduate from community college and head off to college at 18 as a junior. Same community college I went to, fun fact.

Anne Arundel Community College, shout out. Team community college. Yes, save so much money.

So tell me about One Big Happy Life for those who may not know. What is it? Yes.

So I like to say that one big happy life is personal finance for people who like nice things. So we believe that you can create a money plan that allows you to enjoy life while also meeting your big financial goals, like building wealth and paying off debt and doing the things that you really enjoy. So that's what we teach over on One Big Happy Life.

And I know that you had mentioned that you recently left it. For a long time, you were an attorney working in banking regulation at the federal level. Yes.

So can you just talk to us a little bit about what that means, what you did, what are some of the things that you learned from that experience? Sure. It's like, I want to say what didn't I do, because I worked for the CFPB.

So there are many different federal regulators when it comes to banks. And I worked for several of them, including the CFPB, which is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the FDIC, which provides the insurance that so many of us rely on with our banks, but also is a bank regulator. I also worked for HUD, because HUD is in charge of the Fair Housing Act, which includes fair lending and so any complaints that were filed with HUD against any financial institutions, I also dealt with that.

And I worked as outside counsel for banks, so in private practice, so over the course of my legal career, I got to see the inside of banks from many different perspectives. And I would say, the first thing that I would want people to know is just about everything that you do with a bank has some kind of regulation behind it, you know, including when banks have to give disclosures, how long they can hold your deposits, like what types of-- even down to the credit models that they use and the impact that they have on people. Like, the federal government is keeping an eye on all of those things.

And so that's what I did as an attorney. Wow. And do you feel like there are a lot of, just kind of rights and best practices that a lot of people don't know when it comes to what they have access to at a bank or what they should be able to advocate for themselves about?

Yeah, absolutely. I see that all over the place, especially-- and not just with banks, too. I mean, we're talking about all financial products.

So student loans are a big one and I would say one of the biggest ones that people don't understand how to work with their servicers to make sure that they're in the correct income-based repayment program so that they're able to pay their student loans as agreed and not go into default and not go into forbearance. A lot of people don't know how to navigate those conversations with the servicers, and so then they end up feeling really hopeless and powerless when it comes to their student loans, when the reality is, that they have options. And that was something that would really frustrate me when I had one foot in the personal finance media and another foot in personal finance-- consumer finance regulation, because on our end, it's like, well, consumers have all of these options that can help make their student loans more affordable, and it's like, why aren't they using them?

And then on the personal finance media side, I could see that they were getting mixed messages. And so that's one of the reasons why I decided to leave the work that I was doing, which had massive, worldwide impact to the extent that countries look to the US and how we regulate and the kinds of laws that we promulgate to help our people. I left that to do this, because I really enjoyed having that direct reach and to be able to spread the message directly, rather than trying to figure out, well, how can we, as an agency, get this information out to people?

What are some of the-- you say mixed messages about what options people have. What are some of the messages that you think personal finance media consumers might be getting that are misleading or incomplete? So one, I would say, is this idea that debt is bad and that banks are out to screw them.

And that's really not from the bank's perspective. Most financial products are structured in a way that is meant to be beneficial to the consumer and to the bank. There are very few financial products, one of them being payday lending, where there is actually an incentive for the lender to make loans where the person is continually defaulting because they can still make money off of those loans.

So with a bank, when you default on your loan, the bank loses money. The bank does not want you to lose money. And so I think more and more banks are realizing, they were assuming that people were able to understand what they were getting into with these financial instruments, and over time, I would say over the past 10 years, they've really started to realize that, wait a minute, we need to do more consumer education to make sure that people understand how to use these products well so that they're not taking on more credit than they can afford, they're not trying to buy more house than they can afford because it's not in our best interest as a bank, and it's definitely not in their best interest as a customer, too.

So I would say, there's that, and obviously, not all debt is bad. If you use debt responsibly, then debt can do wonderful things in your life. I know for me, when I was a single teen mom, I was 19 when I had my daughter, and I was in the Marine Corps.

I had just a high school diploma, and neither one of my parents went to college, and I wanted to start going to college, but I was a single mom. And so I didn't have anyone to watch my daughter. I had no one.

So it was me and my daughter all the time, or I was at work. And I took out a loan from Dell to get a Dell computer. I paid $50 a month for something like a year to pay off that computer, but that computer allowed me to start taking classes online at a community college, and if I didn't have access to that debt, then that would have delayed my college education by a whole year.

But what I did was, when I decided to take on that debt, I made a plan for how I was going to pay that debt off, and I fully understood how it was going to impact my finances for that year. So I was able to use it responsibly, pay it off, and not feel like it was a burden to me. I could see it as something that was benefiting my life.

I feel like a lot of people are-- they still have those lingering fears from the 2008 crash, and they know that risky or, you know, subprime lending was a huge part of that. I think one thing that would be really interesting for our audience to hear is kind of a summary of how we got into that place and what we're doing differently now that can help the average consumer who might be going for something like a mortgage feel more confident. OK, so when 2008 happened, there were a couple of things that were going on.

So one were these low dock loans that allowed people to get mortgages that they would not have otherwise qualified for because they didn't have to provide information to the banks showing that they had the income to cover that loan that they were taking out. Another thing is adjustable rate mortgages, and specifically like ARMs, ARM mortgages, they can be three-year or five-year or 10-year mortgages, people were using those mortgages to pay to get into a house and make it more affordable because an adjustable rate mortgage or an interest only mortgage, you're just paying the interest due and none of the principal, but the problem is that you'll end up with-- your payments will balloon over time because at some point you do have to start paying those deferred principal payments. Also, you're subject to interest rate fluctuations.

So as interest rates rise, now your payment is rising, and so now a house that was affordable is suddenly not affordable at all. And then of course, we had a lot of even worse predatory lending going on with a lot of bait and switch where these lenders would say that they were giving, say, a conventional mortgage at x interest rate, but really, it was an interest only mortgage or an ARM or it was a conventional mortgage at a much higher interest rate or with much higher fees, and so then, that type of predatory lending then set us up to be in a position where we had all of those foreclosures and then also there was the securitization of all of those mortgages as well. And so then it impacted our financial system in really horrible ways.

And so I would say in terms of how-- the things that we have in place now to protect us from that is that now, banks are actually required to show that the mortgages that they are originating are actually affordable. So they have to show ability to repay, and there are regulations around what constitutes ability to repay, what percentage of someone's income they can say is affordable when they're devoting that income to their mortgage, and so that really helps, because if the bank isn't meeting those affordability requirements, then that kind of already paints the bank as a bad actor. If something bad were to happen to that mortgage, then the bank is going to be basically automatically at fault.

And again, I would say that the actors that did that were-- it wasn't all banks that were doing that, you know? There were a lot of things that were still lending responsibly during that time, but unfortunately, it doesn't take our entire banking system to be corrupt to have these huge negative impacts. So that's why it's so good that we have agencies like the CFPB that are not just looking at what's going on now, but trying to anticipate what kinds of issues might be coming up as new financial products are created.

Now, when, pre 2008, those lenders were misrepresenting the types of mortgages that someone was entering into, was that illegal at the time? Yes. So they were just straight out breaking the law.

Are there things that everyone going into something like a mortgage should know to look for to be certain that someone's not getting one over on them? Yeah, so another thing that has happened since 2008 is the disclosures that you receive when you buy a house, they have completely changed, and they're now-- the Truth in Lending disclosures are now made in a way that, in theory, a person should be able to clearly see what they're being charged, how much the loan is going to cost them, and what fees that they're going to have to pay. So when they're looking for-- when they're shopping for a mortgage, what they'll want to do is shop around a different mortgage lenders, get those Truth in Lending statements up front so that they can compare the lenders, and then by law, the lenders can only vary their fees within a certain tolerance, very small tolerances, and otherwise, the lender has to actually pay the customer back.

So that's one of the things that we would check as regulators to make sure that their fees were within the tolerances. Otherwise, they'd have to pay restitution to any borrower. Got it.

It's interesting because I feel like, as you mentioned earlier, there can often be misleading messages around debt in the sense of overly stigmatizing it. And I think, you know, if I'm someone who's not super financially literate, I saw what happened in 2008, I see maybe what happened to my own finances as a result of, you know, really high interest student loans. Perhaps I've gotten myself into trouble with credit cards.

And I hear some financial, you know, people out there, some media figures basically advocating to never have any debt, to never use credit cards, to never get a loan, to never do any of these things. And I see why that would be appealing. I'm someone, and I know you're the same.

Like, I love using credit cards to my advantage, for example. But I see how the avoidance of it outright could feel, I think-- it just gives people more of a sense of security and more of a sense of control. What are some ways that someone who is a little debt phobic could use to start improving their relationship and working toward a place where they're really using things like credit to their advantage?

Well, so honestly, I think a lot of people right now would hop straight into, OK, so you should understand your debt, and let's look at those credit card statements and see how much that interest is costing you. But really, I think that we all overlook the emotional aspect that comes along with debt, and because of the messages that we can get in society about finances, in general, and especially around debt, we might all have a lot of shame around debt and a lot of resentment around debt. And so if you're looking at your debt as a negative force in your life, then there is very little that you can do to improve that until you improve how you think about your debt.

And so one of the things that I encourage people to do as they're reframing is to, first of all, forgive themselves. Let loose all of that shame, because there is no need to feel ashamed of your prior financial decisions. You made the best decision that you could in that moment, because if you could have made a better choice in that moment, you would have, and we all need to accept that we made the best choice that we could have.

It's only in hindsight that we now have the knowledge that we're going to start choosing differently. So we can decide to start choosing differently from now going forward. And then the other thing that I tell people to do is to be grateful for whatever it was that their debt bought them.

If your debt bought you two or three years or four years of being able to study and focus on your education without having to work, there is value in that. You are never going to get that opportunity again, I mean, chances are. If your debt bought you a repaired car that you can now drive to work, be thankful for that.

If your debt bought you some great nights out with friends, be thankful for that, because those are wonderful memories that you now have. And so yes, they are impacting you now, but reframing how you think about your debt and thinking of it in a positive light in terms of this is the value that it brought to my life, I now realize that I don't necessarily want to make those same choices again, let's course correct, is the best place to start. Yeah.

We've talked about that before on [INAUDIBLE].. I think it's so important to just kind of make peace with whatever the number is that you owe because I feel like you can lose so much time and energy feeling resentful or bitter or remorseful that you did that, particularly when it comes like we hear all the time it's funny we have in our rapid fire questions, we have two. One is like your best financial decision and your biggest financial mistake, and nine times out of 10, one of those two is their student loans.

So people either are so happy that they did it, or that's like their biggest regret, but I feel like what's interesting is that for most people, even if you can't draw a straight line, like you obviously, being an attorney, there's a straight line from law school to your job. There's no ambiguity about you not being able to do what you do without it. But there are many other things that you do that probably aren't a straight line from your degree, and I think for a lot of people who will sit in this chair or that chair, and they'll say that their student loans were their worst decision and that they didn't really lead them to getting a job.

I don't feel like you can really say that with confidence, because not only is that degree often an entryway into the door. But that experience set you on the path that led you to this job, and it's highly likely that if you had not done that, you would be somewhere else, not a worse place, but it's highly unlikely that you'd be exactly the same place you are. So I feel like if you can, to your point, just like accept it, embrace it, and no longer hold on-- because I feel like when you feel really bitter and remorseful, you're almost secretly hoping that it will go away.

And it never will. Nope. Make peace.

Yes. And the other thing is that when it comes to our debt, another thing that I encourage people to look at it as is another bill. So the issue with debt is not that you have debt itself, it's that you have a cash flow issue, because if you have debt, but you have an extra $5,000 every single month that you can do anything you want with, is your debt going to feel like a burden?

No. So the issue isn't your debt itself. The issue is the impact that it has on your cash flow.

But your debt is not the only thing that has an impact on your cash flow. So there are many different ways that you can manipulate your budget and your cash flow to free up that extra cash, so you can do the things that you want to do. You can also go out and, for many of us, we can go out and make more money.

And that's one of the things that I did so that my student loans would start to-- well, not my student loans, but my debt, in general, would feel less restrictive to me. I realized that if I just make more money, I will have enough cash flow to be able to meet my debt obligations and still also be able to do things that I enjoy. You also said something really interesting before we turn the cameras on about how another way to look at debt and even another way to look at interest is you're buying yourself time.

Absolutely. With which you can be doing other things. Yes, because that's all interest is.

It's you get money now, and in return, you agree to pay the person who's lending you that money a convenience fee, because otherwise, think about it. Let's say you were going to get a $20,000 car, and it would take you five years to save up for that car. For five years, you don't have a car.

You just have $20,000 slowly being added to your account, and who knows what you're doing for a car in those five years? Or you can go ahead and borrow to get that car and decide, well, I'm willing to pay 20,000 plus this many dollars for the convenience of having my car right now. And if you think about it, we all pay for convenience.

Many of us have Amazon Prime subscriptions. Many of us buy our own clothing, rather than make our own clothing. Many of us use, say, city provided electricity, rather than go out and get solar panels so that we can go off the grid and stop paying so much in electricity.

We pay for convenience all over the place. And so thinking-- debt is just another way to do that. You just have to be cautious about how much of it you're taking on, because you have to understand that for the time period it's going to take you to then catch back up, you're going to have to make different choices.

Totally. I am someone who used to be absolutely debt phobic so it really destroyed my life in a lot of ways. For many years, it was like I saw how much damage it could do when I wasn't in control of it, and I think not only looking at it that way, but also realizing that giving yourself the ability to manipulate your cash and manipulate how you're spending the money you're already spending is such a-- once you do it, and once it becomes part of your life, like for example, churning most of your expenses through your credit card to reap all those benefits and paying it off in full at the end of the month, things like that.

Once you start doing it, like to me the idea of being beholden to a schedule of just like my checking account essentially seems crazy to me. But I think it's just a mindset switch of learning that what you can't do is treat credit or debt or loans as a way of buying things you can't afford. Absolutely.

Ultimately. Like, even if you're not going to be able to-- because obviously, it's unlikely that you're going to be able to pay off your mortgage without interest or what have you. But if you know that it's a reasonable financial decision that you can comfortably afford and which is building valuable equity, there you go.

For a credit card, if it's something that you know you can pay off in full at the end of the month that you're not asking me carrying a balance endlessly, there you go. Because it's no longer about living the life that you can't afford to live, which I think was such a horrible element of the crash. Yes, absolutely.

And I would say to that idea of cash flow, I love the concept of consumption smoothing, where we look at our income and expenses, not just this paycheck or this month or even this year, which I recommend that you do as part of a one-year spending plan, but you look at it holistically over the course of your life, and when you start looking at it that way, you'll realize that there are parts of your time, your life that are more expensive, like your 20s and 30s if you're raising kids, and then those costs start to decrease. And so you don't want to have a feast and famine aspect to your life. You can use debt to help consumption smooth as long as you do it responsibly.

And over time, you want to be able to do things like also build up your emergency savings, make sure that you are investing for the long term, so that you're building wealth, so you can stop working one day, and then start building sinking funds, too. So you might find that in your 20s and 30s, you may need a car payment or want one, but then by the time you get to your 40s, because you've been building sinking funds, in part because you've had that cash flow, the flexibility with your cash, because you utilized some debt, then you'll find in your 40s and 50s that you already have a sinking fund, and now debt is entirely optional, and you just can game it if you want to and take your credit card and buy a car and then pay it off, if they'll let you. They often don't.

I have-- yeah, we-- it's funny when we look at our year to year Mint, the holidays, my birthday, and my husband's birthday are always within three weeks. So it's like every year, it's like net worth is going like this, and it's like ugh, and then it goes back up every single year. But it's funny because once you start looking at it that way, to your point, like you can start to mentally adjust for it.

And we're like, OK, so we know that like October, November, we're going to want to save a lot more. And we know that we're going to go on a financial diet every February if that makes sense, because we don't want it to feel like-- because I think the other thing, and I think credit cards in particular can be a slippery slope with this, is you can really have that feeling of like, well, I'm already going crazy, let's go crazy. You know?

And it can be really hard to pull yourself out of a spending spiral, I think. It can be really hard to pull yourself out of a spending spiral unless you have a really good handle and already know and accept when is going to be a time that costs a lot and when is a good opportunity to save. And that's why I really recommend that people create a one-year spending plan versus just going month by month or year by year or month by month or paycheck by paycheck, because when you get into this habit of just looking at your next paycheck or just looking at the next month, you don't realize the impact that the decisions that you are making today are having on your Christmas.

Totally. Right? So when you have that one-year spending plan, if things went crazy in December, first of all, you already have next year's one-year spending plans, so you can already see that it's affecting everything that's happening in that following year.

So if you have the one-year spending plan, and then you develop a habit of always checking, because of course, if you avoid, then you're going to keep spending, because it's going to feel like funny money, but if you just track what you're spending, you plug it into your one-year spending plan, then that's going to stop you, because it's not just like, well, I want to buy a purse now. It's oh my gosh, I wanted to go to Cabo in June, and this is killing that. I don't want that to happen.

I want to go to Cabo. And so that will help nip your spending in the bud. Because those two things are linked, whether or not we choose to acknowledge them.

Like, your decision today has a huge impact on your summer. And I feel like Mark and I years ago moved to a model of yearly savings goals, rather than monthly, because I think, to that point, there are months every year, usually, the same month, where we don't save anything. And then there are months where we save like 60% of our income, and it just totally depends on what your life looks like and keeping in mind, as you said, just like the idea that it's not like-- your life doesn't reset at the first of every month.

And I feel like a lot of people, especially when they get on that paycheck and bill cycle, and there's not as much variability, they treat every first of the month as if it's like a completely blank slate, and it's absolutely not. Yep. Yeah, it's completely linked.

Yeah, and I think one of the things that I think is so important about teaching people to embrace what, you know, something like credit or debt can mean is I think there's something almost infantilizing about this idea that people can't use it responsibly or that especially if you ever did use it irresponsibly, that you can never again-- it's like something you can never go near, and I think for a lot of people, it keeps them in a bad place, because for most people, I would say for nearly everyone, building wealth and building a better life, it's almost impossible to do without ever leveraging debt or ever leveraging credit. You really can't do it. I mean, even if you look at something as universal as like for many people buying a home, are you going to pay cash for your house?

Like, I highly doubt that. Or even something when it comes to like how are people supposed to build credit if they're not going to be able to responsibly use credit cards? So I feel like, yeah, as you said, like getting that emotional connection to it and changing your relationship and learning that no one is fundamentally unable to master debt and credit.

Absolutely. It's just teaching yourself the ability to do it. Yes.

Now, if you're someone who's mastered debt and credit, you're going to want to master the rest of your money, too. As I mentioned earlier, one fantastic and free app that you can use to help get a bird's eye view of all of the different indicators of your financial health is an app called Turbo. Basically, what Turbo does is it provides a really comprehensive look at all of the different indicators of your financial health, things like your net worth, your debt to income ratio, your credit score, basically, all the things that you'll need to understand and improve in order to make those higher level financial decisions, something like, for example, applying for a mortgage.

Lenders are going to look at your finances in a really nuanced way and are going to want to understand a lot of the different ways in which you navigate money and how well you manage it. And Turbo helps you understand those things yourself, so you can put yourself in the best possible place for eventually making those decisions and be sure that when you walk into something like a lender's office, you have everything working on your side. Check out Turbo at the link in our description or the show notes.

And remember, it's totally free. So this is something that is totally different, although for a lot of people it does involve the leveraging of loans or credit, and it's something that you were talking, you'd mentioned earlier and are very open about on your social media. You and your partner Joseph have been kind of on an IVF journey, as they say, for how long now?

I guess you could say-- a little over-- about a year, about a year, about a year. And you guys already, you have two children? Yes.

And this would be your third, and it's, as I think you said, your third round of IVF? Yeah. So it's actually-- it's funny.

So IVF has two parts. There's the retrieval part where they actually take out the eggs and fertilize them and potentially freeze them, and then there's the implantation part. So it's possible to do multiple rounds of part one before you move on to part two, and then it's possible to do multiple rounds of part two without ever going back to part one.

So we did three retrievals last year, and then we just did our embryo transfer of our one embryo, our one and only embryo a few weeks ago, two weeks ago. Wow. Can you choose the gender?

Do you know the gender? I do. But you don't have to share.

OK. But that is so interesting that you know the gender. Well, we only have one.

No, totally. So I'm so curious about so many elements of that process because I think-- you know, let's just say it. Women are having kids later in life now.

That's just kind of a reality, particularly for urban, millennial, professional women. I don't know what the average age is now, but I think it's like closer to 32 than 31, which is like-- I mean, biologically, you're like one foot in the grave. Basically, yeah.

And it's tough because I feel like that is almost a taboo thing to say at some point, because I think we have this strange relationship to our own bodies, I think, as we live longer lives and as we have different lives than we used to. For most women, it's like not really been many generations that you had much of a choice in this matter. So I feel like it's almost like we feel like we can will it away somehow.

And I think that for a lot of women who are coming to the realization that they may not be able to conceive naturally or not on the timeline that they want, there's so much mystery around the IVF process, and so I'm curious, first of all, if you can kind of walk us through what that looks like financially and what that process really entails, what someone should know if they're considering it. Sure. So I would say that, first of all, IVF is not necessarily the first step.

IVF is the last step, and there are other less invasive interventions that you can try beforehand. Like, there are things where you can just take medication to help you ovulate, and then you can go home and try naturally. There is intrauterine insemination, where, again, you take medication to ovulate, and then the sperm is put in like a turbo charged solution and then manually injected in the hopes that the egg will fertilize.

And so we did several rounds of IUI, and this was actually before we had our son. So our son, Reeves, it took us three years to conceive him. And he was conceived through IUI.

He was conceived naturally actually. Look at that. Yes, it was crazy.

So over the course of those three years, it took us 18 months to conceive the first time, and that ended in a miscarriage. And then 18 months later, we got pregnant with Reeves. But we actually were not expecting to get pregnant because we tried six rounds of IUI and did not get pregnant.

So we decided to move to the DC area because the insurance-- like New York, the insurance mandate requires insurance to cover IVF under the fertility coverage for health insurance, so that's why we moved to DC. And you know, so we both got new jobs. We were house hunting, and then we discovered we're pregnant.

So we didn't have to use IVF, but then four years later, Reeves is now-- well, three years later, we weren't able to conceive again, so we decided to move into IVF, because we already knew IUIs did not work for us. So in terms of the cost, so our costs are very different, because it's partially covered by our health insurance. So we just paid the deductible for our health insurance, which since I knew I was doing IVF, I made sure to get a very low deductible because it was just more cost effective.

And then we also had to pay for the genetic testing, and that was $3,500 for every six embryos. So that was pretty pricey. And then our own medications, some of it the pharmacy coverage of the insurance covered, but not all of it.

So all in all, for the three retrieval and the one embryo transfer, we paid about $15,000. Which is on the low side. That's with insurance.

Yeah. It could be much, much more if that's not covered. I would say generally, you'd be looking at something like 20 to 25 at a minimum for a regular-- so we had three retrievals, not just one.

And so those retrievals are. So let me explain what happens with the retrieval first of all you take medications for like two weeks. You have multiple ultrasounds, like four to six ultrasounds during that time.

And then when it's time for your retrieval, you're actually put under. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Because they put a needle up inside of you and retrieve the eggs one by one. Oh my god. How tedious for that doctor.

Yeah, especially because my doctor had to retrieve 50 eggs at once. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Wow. I was their-- I don't know what they called me, like super producer or something. Look at you.

Excelling on-- That's what they said. That's funny. But none of the eggs or only two of the eggs ever fertilized, and only one of them was genetically normal.

So that was the process. Now, the actual transfer process is much simpler because I'm awake, and the baby's put in a little-- the embryo's put in a little syringe and then just kind of injected in there, and that's it. Everybody-- and then we all listen to some Adele while it was happening.

It was nice. So it's not just the money even. It's also all the time that you have to-- you know, who knows if your job is going to be, you know, comprehensive for that.

So I knew that-- I had a strong idea that I was going to be quitting my job. You know, and I had a lot of sick leave. And so I was saving it up just in case we got pregnant, because I knew I would have to use sick leave as my parental leave because my job at the time did not offer parental leave.

Yeah. So I used my sick leave for that because my transfers were actually very, very painful. The egg extraction for me, the recovery process was very, very difficult.

Because I was an over producer, my ovaries would go from the size of a kiwi to cantaloupe in two weeks, which, you know, is as painful as you can imagine than it would be, and the recovery process was really difficult. So I ended up taking probably about two weeks off of work for every retrieval that I did. That's huge and something most people can't do.

Yeah, it's funny. Like, you talk about this-- you've talked about it before on your channel, on ours. You talked about it at our event in Silver Spring, this feeling of like, you don't have as much time as you think you have, and I think it's so funny because for all that, you know, feminism has given women and all of the opportunities that we now have that we didn't, that our mother or grandmother's generations didn't have, there is also a heavy cost with that, which is like, until further notice, women are still going to be the ones who have to physically go through the process of having the child and, like, listen, we have Jeff Goldblum out of here having like his first kid at 62, which I don't approve of, but whatever.

It's like his choice. But they have that option. And that's something that they just won't have to think about in the same way.

And I think for a lot of women, it's interesting when I talk to a lot of my girlfriends, like I'm very much-- like as much as I love children, I know that at the very least a biological child is not for me. Like, that is just something that I feel very comfortable with, and luckily, my husband is very much the same way. But I have a lot of girlfriends who are in their early 30s, even their mid 30s, and they're like, I don't know.

I could go either way. And I wonder sometimes, if thinking that you have more time can in some ways be a curse. Yep.

You know? And I would be curious what your advice would be as someone who had a child in her teens, in her mid 30s, and is now trying in her latter 30s, to help interrogate with yourself and to figure out what that inner voice is and what you need to do to get there. Wow.

That is a really tough question. No pressure. So one thing I will say that I do tell Alexis, my daughter, who is about to be 18, you know, she has seen what I'm going through.

She's actually currently-- she's the one that gives me my progesterone shots in the butt in the morning. Woo, Alexis. She was there when I pushed out her brother, 10 pounds 3 ounces.

So she's had the full experience. And so I have conversations with her, like, look, I want you to be able to do whatever you want with your life and enjoy your life, but understand that if you wait until 30 to start having kids, you could potentially find yourself in a position where you're not able to have kids when you want to have them, or you are not able to have them at all, because at the end of the day, 25 is when stuff starts going downhill real fast for us. As long as we live, our reproductive tract is on its own timeline.

You might feel like you're still 20, but your eggs are saying, look, we're pushing 40, you know what I mean? So I think that you really need to think about what it is that you want out of your life, what do you want your life to look like. An exercise that I like to do is to pretend that I'm about to die.

I know you like this, like this-- I love it. It's my favorite. You could die.

Exactly. And so when you're on your deathbed, who is around you? What do you want that to look like?

Do you see it as a group of like lifelong friends, none of whom are your children? Or do you see your children and your grandchildren? And I think that can really help you, but also understand that will never know what decision is the right decision.

It is impossible to know how you're going to feel about something until you've already made the decision, the baby's there, and you're like, oh my god, right? Even after having one child, the decision to have additional children, I felt uncertain about if I wanted more children, even after Reeves, if we wanted more children after him. And so that uncertainty, I think, is perfectly normal.

But at some point, you need to make the decision. And honestly, with Reeves, I made the decision as soon as I could to start trying to conceive, because I knew I didn't want to have a baby in law school. And then I got divorced right after law school.

So as soon as Joseph and I decided we were going to commit to each other, I said, all right, let's start trying. And it took three years to have him. With Reeves-- with this, trying to conceive now, we weren't sure for about a year and a half, we kind of went back and forth, and now I regret that lost time.

You know, I wish we had just gone for it, because at the end of the day, we know that we love our children. We know that we love being parents. And so sometimes you just have to jump, even if you don't know for sure where you're going to land.

Yeah. I think that's really astute. I think also, there's-- when I think about a lot of people in my life, and I think it's increasingly common for women of older and older ages, biologically, to feel that uncertainty, I think, as you say, like it's natural and human to feel uncertain about things, particularly if you're not necessarily in the relationship where you'd want to be having a child, but I think it's a question of being honest with yourself, as you said, that like, I have to be understanding and accepting that if I do end up going this route, it may not look like what I want it to look like, or it may not be possible, because even financially, that's a huge preparation.

Because listen, IVF is very expensive, but so is adoption. Like, adoption is incredibly expensive. You know, surrogacy is incredibly expensive.

These options, like as soon as you have decided that-- or as soon as you've accepted that it's not going to be the natural way, like almost every option available to you is quite expensive. And I would be curious for the person in the non-heteronormative relationship in the room, Ryan, have you guys started your planning? Because obviously, you're going to have to go one of these alternative routes.

Yeah, we think and talk about it a lot, and it's one of those things that we plan for, and we're trying to make space for. But we also have to come to terms with the idea that if a financial hardship is to hit us, that bad timing would really take those options off the table. And lightning can strike anybody at any time, and then it can make things a lot more difficult.

But we know that we're going to have to go to extreme lengths to welcome a kid in, so we really want to know that we're going to do it in the best way with the resources possible to create the best situation for everybody. And so we have to-- we've had to make peace with it not being an option, but also, you know, actively working, like, that's a big goal of ours, to get there at some point. And we also have to have the understanding that if we do have to have kids later in life, that there is a level of understanding that within our families, that like, my parents can't expect us to have kids within the first five years of getting married or-- you can't really put a time on it, because it's going to come down to price, which is a huge, huge barrier for entry, the availability of those options.

So we need to find someone that we're comfortable with for surrogacy. We have to find an adoption agency that's open to the option. And then we're going to have to find the right fit, and then from there, there's a million things that can go wrong.

So-- You'd be better off kidnapping. Honestly. It's like those penguins, who-- like you ever see that documentary with the penguins in the North Pole and they steal the eggs?

Anyway. We stan those penguins that stole an egg. I remember seeing there were gay penguins that stole an egg.

Did you see that one? Yeah, they stole an egg, and there's also penguins that collect rocks, and then they wait all winter for them to hatch, and then they don't, and then they come back again, and [INAUDIBLE]. All I think is like, well, some people love being pregnant.

Honestly, I'm one of those people. I really do enjoy being pregnant. And the thing is that it's interesting.

Like, I've had this conversation with a friend of mine who's old. I would say not much older, but older enough that it's not a possibility for anymore, and she's child-free by choice. And that was one of the conversations we had of like, I can never relate to how important it is for women who want that feeling to have that feeling.

And when you look at, for example, how trying, because you were describing earlier, just the physical toll that something like IVF will take on you, but that goes to show, if that's something you really want, how important it becomes to you. And I think that is also an important question for women to ask themselves is like, is it important for me just to be a mother, and I'm more agnostic about what that looks like? Or is it really important for me to give birth?

Because that's its own financial preparation. And I wish that-- I think there's so much just taboo around all of these conversations, because I think we do sort of-- I think on some level, we want to pretend we have infinite time. It's the same reason people don't like talking about retirement, because you don't ever want to imagine that you might not have the option one day.

But honestly, I would say, too-- the one thing, the one caveat that I'll throw out there is that if you want to adopt, you can adopt-- a woman, a woman can adopt like in her 40s and still be able to raise that child and put them through college before she decides she wants to retire. And she might be in a better financial position in her 40s to have a surrogate, to have a baby for her or to adopt in her 40s, than in her 30s. Like, for us, we already have a child that made it to 18.

I feel like I need a pat on the back for that and that we have a good relationship with, and she's a good kid. She is a good kid. Thank you.

I've emailed with her. She's very sweet. But we also have a four-year-old.

And so for us, it's like a timeline thing. It's like how much more of our lives do we want to spend child rearing? And so we want that to end.

We don't want to go deep in our 40s, and then have a brand new child. That means my whole life, my whole adult life will have been spent in rearing children, and I don't want that. So I think that it's OK for you to delay into your 40s, but just understand that you might have to pursue a different option and also, that you're going to be tired as hell, because chasing after a toddler in your 30s is like-- it's exhausting.

And 19-year-old me had no problem running circles around my toddler. Yeah. I can only imagine.

And I will say also, if something-- if you feel like you're someone who's open to the idea of adoption, one thing to keep in mind is there are a lot of programs you can get involved with that are a way to start understanding what the foster care system is like, what getting involved with children who need homes looks like, what the system looks like in your city and state, because it's super different in every city and state, and there are many different roles that are needed in different areas. For example, like a lot of people in the foster system, they need access to certified baby sitters, and they need access to the court appointed special advocates who work with, you know, children in the foster-- like Big Brother Big Sister. There are tons of programs that you can start looking into that are ways to understand what that really might look like up close, so that you can know in a little bit of a better way, whether that's something that you could really be part of, because the truth is that it's not for everyone, and it's something that you should really understand before you just say, well, that's always on the table, because it might not be for you.

I'm curious. Do you have-- have you found in sharing a lot about your experience with IVF that a lot of women have come to you with their own stories? Oh, definitely.

To me, because I'm constantly googling IVF stories, it seems like it's everywhere, but I guess it's not something that you see talked about a lot in the media about people who struggle with infertility, people who go through IVF. It's like we all have this common idea that you have to constantly, for your entire life, actively try to not get pregnant, because the minute you stop, there's a baby. And it's just not like that.

So yeah, there are a lot of women that really appreciate the fact that we are sharing so openly, but also having a very-- we're able to have a very positive outlook on the whole thing, and I will say fully in part because we have been able to have two children. And I think it would be much, much harder for us if we didn't have any. But still, it's hard, because when you have this vision for your life, and you've spent your whole life working towards that vision, even if we already have two, if I had always envisioned having four or five, and that is what I wanted my life to look like, it's difficult when you feel like you did all the things right, and you can't have that.

So I think women really appreciate me being really honest about it, being really vulnerable, and sharing also how I'm mentally working through the things that likely to come up during this process. So one thing is during IVF, it's a crapshoot whether or not you're actually going to be able to have a baby. That's one thing I've realized going through IVF.

And so sometimes, you can feel tempted to withhold your joy to where I'm not going to celebrate this moment until I'm sure that I'm pregnant, and that's something that we have resisted doing with this process. So the minute we were implanted, I'm like, I'm pregnant, we're celebrating, and it's like however long this pregnancy lasts, why would we deprive ourselves of the joy of this moment because of fear of what the outcome might be? And so I'm glad that we made that choice and that we were able to share that message with other people to say, well, these moments of hope are all we have.

And so a lot of people have told me that they really appreciate that. What would you say-- I think one thing that I've always found really interesting about you and Joseph's paths with regards to balancing your 9:00 to 5:00 jobs, your careers as attorneys, your small business, the media, kids, IVF, all of this stuff, is I feel like you guys have an interesting balance of practicality with regards to, like, right before we were talking, you're like, well, we're probably going to sell our house at this time 2022, and I'm like why? And she was like well, because x, y, and z, public student loan, all this stuff.

So there's that huge practicality in terms of like there's a real order and internal logic to things, and they're made at the right times, as right as you can get them. But then there's also this like huge level of optimism and ambition, and you kind of always strike me as someone who has the feeling that like, good things will come. The business will grow.

We'll make the money. We'll make it work. How do you keep that level of optimism, and how do you ground it in pragmatism with your choices?

Well, so I would say that I always ask myself, well, what's the alternative? You know, like what is-- because I get that question a lot, like, how do you-- where do you find your drive and all of that? And I'm like, well, I only get one life.

So I might as well try because I know what's going to happen if I don't try. I'll just stay right here. So since I already know this, I can at least try these other things, and, you know, fun things will happen.

And I think at this point in my life, I've done so many crazy things, like things that people thought I was crazy to do, like having a child at 18, buying my first house at 19, selling my house right before 2008. But you know, it was like, who sells a house? Like, you have a perfectly good house?

What do you mean you're selling your house to go move somewhere to go to law school? You don't even know what law school you're getting into, and you're selling your house. I'm like, this is going to happen, and then I got into Yale.

So you know, I've just found that-- and it's not because things have never gone wrong. It's just that I'm committed to living my life fully. Like, I like to say that I'm going to live the hell out of my life?

Like, when I look back, there is nothing that I'm going to look back on and say, damn, you know, like, boy, did I waste that. It's like, no, I am like wringing every last bit that I can get out of these years that I have here. And so I find that really fun, because there's so much that I want to do and experience.

And in terms of keeping it practical, well, every single life change has a financial cost. Like, the currency of our lives is money, period. And so I always-- when I think about my financial plans, the things that I'm looking to do, I break out my one-year spending plan, and I create projections.

So when I decided to sell my house, and I said, OK-- well, so I got into Yale. I also got into Stanford. At the time, I was living in Virginia.

Stanford is all the way in California. And so I'm comparing Yale and Stanford, two separate budgets. How much does housing cost?

How much is it going to cost us to move out there? Every single decision that we make in life has a dollar attached to it. So I ground my dreams in practicality by looking at, OK, well, what do I need to do to make this happen?

And how much is it going to cost me? And then also, what are some backup plans that I can put in place in case that plan A and B and C did not work out? It's so easy, I think, for most adults for their professional life to feel just overwhelming and everything feels high stakes and every email and phone-- and it's just you kind of never get off the hamster wheel, and I think it's important to remind yourself, like, let's say worst case scenario, I got laid off tomorrow.

I would find a way to make it work, you know? And I think that there's something really valuable in going to the logical end of your worst fears, because I think that most of what we are held back by are these suspicions of what could happen, but we never interrogate ourselves as like, OK, well, say that happens. You would figure it out, or would do x or you would do y.

And I think just not letting yourself get so hung up on, you know-- what's the saying? It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Yes.

Yeah, I do think that people let the fear of what if get in their way way too much. And I love asking that question of, OK, well, if the worst did happen, then what am I going to do and actually come up with a plan. And then you feel good.

Then you feel like you have a safety net. But the other thing that I like to say is to redefine success. So people, they fear failure, and they define failure as not achieving that ultimate goal.

And so basically, the only way to be successful is to have that thing all the way at the end. But I say that you should redefine success as showing up every day as the person that you want to be and living your life the way that you want to live it, right? Not just because you feel stuck, but because this is what you actually want, and so what that does is it separates our actions, our daily actions from the outcome, right?

Because sometimes, too, we can get so invested in the outcome, that we reach this outcome, and we realize that it actually wasn't this thing that we wanted. So if we pay closer attention to who we are, showing up as every day, then we can make sure that we're staying on that right and better path, and we're not focused on the fear, we're focused on just that next step today. The time has come.

Our favorite time. It's the rapid fire questions with Tasha. These scare me.

No, they're good. No, because I'm prone to saying random things if I don't have time to think it through. Let's get random.

OK. Number one. And let's go with the banking regulation industry for this.

What is the big financial secret of your industry? There is no secret. Yeah, I would say probably the biggest secret is that many banks are trying really hard to do the right thing and that studies have shown that increasing consumer access to credit enables consumers to build wealth.

So yeah, they're not all bad. There are lots of good financial institutions out there. So that's the best kept secret, I think.

Except for boop-- redacted. What do you invest in versus what are you cheap about? Oh, I'm super cheap about my nails.

I do not get manicures. I do not put nail polish on at all. I've been getting my lashes done.

I was going-- do you know that like half the time when you were talking, I was like, are those real? They are not. But they're amazing.

But they're subtle. Yeah. They just look like really good natural lashes.

And also, my brows. So right now, my brows are filled, because I'm, you know, fully made up for the camera, but when I'm barefaced, I still look amazing because I got my brows micro bladed. So like, you know, not having to do my brows, which were, you know, '90s skimpy and my eyelashes has just been the best.

Oh my god. I was talking about micro blading with him, because I have really fair like face hair. So I'm like always having to go in.

And like anytime I'm about to go on a beach vacation or something, I always get them like tinted and shaped and the lashes tinted and curled, and I'm like just skip the middle man and go micro blading. So [INAUDIBLE]. What has been your best investment and why?

It's going to be any money that I've invested in myself. So that means all of my college education, Yale Law School, just because I know that I am my biggest asset. I believe in my ability to turn any money that I invest in myself, including-- I've spent tens of thousands of dollars learning how to run an online business, because I was a lawyer and had taken zero business classes, and our business has grown to a multiple six figure business, hopefully seven figures soon, and so yeah, definitely investing in myself, and I wish that more people would value themselves enough to use some of their money to invest back in the knowledge that they need to build a better life.

What has been your biggest money mistake and why? God, that's hard. Because I rarely see the decisions that I've made as a mistake.

Oh my gosh, so one time-- Or do you? My ex-husband and I were in a parking lot, and this guy walked up to us with two Movado watches and was like, I'll sell it to you for $300 cash. We paid him $300 cash.

Stop. And realized that, of course, those were not Movado watches. [INTERPOSING VOICES] That is so out of character for you. Look, I was like 22, 23.

I just thought like-- Oh my god. People did that kind of stuff. I don't know.

I trusted people. The easiest marks there ever were. Absolutely.

No, my Louis Vuitton bag. Oh, really? Yes.

Because I was-- so I was working at a law firm at the time. I was making 160,000, the equivalent of 160,000 a year, and so I bought this Louis Vuitton bag. It was $1,400.

I'm like, this is my first big purchase. And then a year later, the straps were falling off, the inside had like a hole in it, and I'm like, OK, great, I paid this much for this bag, there must be a lifetime warranty. They're like Patagonia, right?

And they're like, that'll be $800. I'm like are you effing insane? And so I'm like, never again, Louis Vuitton.

Never again. Those French D bags. They're not giving anyone a lifetime warranty.

They're like, you bought this. You can fix it. What is your biggest current money security?

Continuing to grow my business revenue. It's hard. It is hard.

It's really challenging. And as an employee, I always knew that if I was good at what I did, I'd make more money. That's all I had to do, just be knowledgeable, be good, be an expert, and that would be enough.

And in this business, being super knowledgeable about all of this stuff kind of does not matter, because there are many-- all you have to do is call yourself an expert, and many people do that, they just say, I'm a financial expert because they said so, and that's enough for them to get a following, for people to believe them, for people to question me, because of the things that they say. And so it's just-- there's no guarantee that the fact that I'm giving people, like, the best, accurate, legal, least sound information possible, like that that will matter, and so I struggle with that in business. Listen, there are a couple people out there in the PF world that I'm like, every time I see them or someone cites them, I'm just like mm hm.

Right. But listen, it's not like doctors. Like, doctors, there's like some real regulation-- even therapists and stuff, like, there's a lot more regulation around who can cite, like who can claim expertise.

Yes. This financial world is all over the place. Yes.

They are financial-- really, they're financial entertainers, and not like credentialed experts. And so just take everything-- I say don't ever trust-- you don't have to trust just me by myself. Like, I will give you all of the information, all of the facts, the figures, the calculations that I use.

I'll cite you the regulations, and then you can go fact check me, right? Which is what every single person should be able to do. If someone is asking you to just follow their one size fits all plan without any deviation, and they're not open to answering those types of challenging questions, then you should-- that's a big question mark.

That's a red flag for you there. I'm a financial entertainer. I'm not an expert.

You can like put a little sequined top hat on me. I'm an entertainer. No, it's true.

Which, I mean-- and it's totally fine. You know, there are-- and people who are like finance writers, who are committed to reporting the most accurate information possible is wonderful. But I think too often, the general public thinks that everything that they read is actually accurate and true, and that's not necessarily the case.

And I think it's also really important to differentiate between what is an editorial or a narrative experience and what is actual factual recommendations. Like, we have an upcoming series we're creating with YouTube that's explicitly for learning financial education, and that thing is going through like eight financial experts before it gets out there, because it's like, once you enter into the territory of not this is what is right for me, but this is what is right period, like, you should set a higher standard for yourself. And some of them do not.

What has been the financial habit that has helped you the most? Saving. Saving first, foremost, and always.

I remember-- so when I had my daughter, I was super broke, right? There was even a point in time where I was on WIC, even though I was an active duty marine working full time for this country just after 9/11 when things were extra crazy. I just did not make enough money to be able to afford everything.

So WIC was super helpful with formula and stuff. And over the next 10 years, I increased my income, I went to law school, and then I got divorced, and I didn't have anything because I did not develop a savings habit. It's not because I could not have saved, because I tell you, even when I was making, like, let's say $24,000 a year, I definitely went out to McDonald's several times, I went out to restaurants that I didn't need to several times a month, so I could have saved at least $50 a month.

And so I wish I had done that from a very young age. And so for that reason, even though, mathematically, it pays to pay off your high interest debt first, I will say that developing a savings habit is the most important financial habit that you can develop, because there are always other ways to deal with your debt. There's basically no way to deal with the fact that you have zero assets.

So save, no matter what. Keep some of your money, all the time. You said it.

And lastly, when did you first feel successful and what does that word mean to you? Gosh. These are hard questions, Chelsea.

It's how we make them. You know what, I will say that when I got into law school, I think it was the first time I felt really, really successful, because I didn't just get into law school, but I got into all the top law schools. The number one law school in the country if I know correctly.

I had full rides to some top law schools, and so I felt really in demand and, like, really, that I had shown that it didn't matter that I had a child or any of that, that I could still go on to live the kind of life that I wanted to live, that I could provide for her, that we would have this amazing life. So for the first time, at that point, I felt like absolutely anything was possible, except maybe for becoming president of the United States because I wasn't born here, but sometimes I still think that maybe I could get a congressional amendment going. You know what I mean?

I always feel like there's a slight chance that Arnold Schwarzenegger, especially when he was governor, I was like, are they going to make an exception for that man? Constitutional amendment. And let him be president.

Because everyone seems to love him. Or they did anyway before all those scandals. Anyway, so thank you so much for being here, Tasha.

Thank you for having me. This was fun. This was fun.

I feel like I left like everything out on the-- what is it? Out on the mat? What's the sports analogy?

Out in the field? Oh, we don't watch sports. So where can people go to find more of you?

Of course, you can find me here on YouTube, One Big Happy Life, and Instagram @onebighappylife. Also, if you want to grab a free one year spending plan, onebighappylife.com/budget, and get started planning your whole next year. Go get planning.

All right, guys thank you for watching, and we will see you next Monday on another episode of The Financial Confessions. So it's less than two months away now, guys, tax time. So one thing Tasha and I talked about a lot today is really preparing yourself for those bigger financial moments by grounding yourself in a kind of pragmatism, and there's basically nothing more pragmatic or that you can count on happening more regularly than tax time.

And for a lot of us, tax time can create a sense of anxiety because we genuinely don't even really know how to file our own taxes and have a lot of questions about the process and are worried about getting the maximum possible refund that we're entitled to, and we don't know, like, what things are deductions and what aren't and, like, how we're supposed to fill in all those different boxes. So TurboTax is a fantastic product to check out if you are someone who has been wanting to file your own taxes with confidence, but maybe has some questions about the process or wants a little bit of help navigating all of those forms. TurboTax walks you through the process of preparing your taxes step by step and helps ensure that you are getting the maximum possible refund that you're entitled to, so you don't have to worry if you're leaving money on the table or if there's something you forgot to do.

There's nothing more helpful at tax time than that peace of mind that you are doing your taxes properly and that the right amount of money is coming your way. So if you're someone who's been sitting on possibly doing your taxes and wants to get started with the best possible product, check out TurboTax at the link in our description or our show notes. [MUSIC PLAYING]