“From Survival to Stability: Financial Freedom for Single Moms” with Foluke Olayele

Welcome back to The Mommy Pod—where we have real conversations about motherhood, healing, rebuilding, and learning how to thrive… not just survive.

Today’s episode is powerful because we’re talking about something that impacts every single one of us—
money, stability, and stepping into leadership as a mom.

Because let’s be real…
 being a single mom and managing finances?
 That can feel overwhelming, scary, and sometimes isolating.

But today’s guest turned that struggle into her purpose.

Foluke Olayele is an entrepreneur and financial coach who helps people renovate their finances and build lasting wealth. After going through a divorce and realizing her financial foundation wasn’t where she needed it to be, she committed to a process that changed everything—and now she helps other families do the same.

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Connect with Aunty Foluke at http://handinhandconsulting.net/ for free money tips, guides, and resources.

POV: you’re a single mom or parent trying to hold everything together financially… THIS is the shift you need 💸✨

#SingleMomLife #MoneyTalk #FinancialFreedom #MommyPod #WealthBuilding #SoftLifeMom

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:49

All right, welcome back to the Mommy Pod where we have real conversations about motherhood, healing, rebuilding, and learning how to thrive, not just survive. Today's episode is a powerful one because we are we're not just talking about something that impacts every single excuse me. Today's episode is a powerful one because we're talking about something that impacts every single one of us: money, stability, and stepping into leadership as a mom. Because let's be real. Because being a single mom and managing finances, that can be very overwhelming, scary, and sometimes isolating. But today's guest turned that struggle into her purpose. After going through a divorce and realizing her financial foundation wasn't where she needed it to be, she committed to a process that changed everything. And now she helps other families do the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Thank you so very much. I am glad to be here also talking about my purpose and everybody's favorite subject, money.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yes. Can you briefly introduce yourself? I gave a little bit about you, but can you introduce yourself in your own words and your background? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yes, I am Auntie Foluke, a financial coach, helping high-income earners to turn their income into net worth. How? By inspecting their financial roots and deciding where they want their money tree to grow. So if you are looking for um another perspective on your finances to build that net worth, I am the coach for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

That's amazing. We are all doing that. Um, what was the moment that you realized that something has to change financially?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, given that this is mommy pod, I want to talk about what it was like being a single mom. Um, when my son was two years old. That's when I started my single mom journey. And it definitely was a rug being pulled from underneath me. And I didn't know what I didn't know, and I learned very quickly that I was not financially stable. Um, thankfully, I was given a gift of a book, basically a coaching tool that walked me through how to think about finances in a different way. And too often, when you're in a community that thinks one way, you think that that's the only way to think. Until you see something, you see that there's another road that you can take, and I decided to explore that road, and it changed my legacy, it changed my son's legacy, and it helped me build wealth so that now my son is literally turning 18 in a few months, and I have his college saved up and ready to go. He just needs to decide which college he's going to. So that is where I started my journey in regards to single parenthood and building wealth, and it feels like they both have been almost at the same time synonymously working together.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

That's incredible. Good for you. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

I think a lot of us uh know that something needs to change or know when something needs to change, but we don't really know how to take that first step.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Well, this is very fundamental. Honesty. It sounds like it's the smallest thing, but honesty is the foundation of every relationship, and when it's broken in a relationship, the relationship actually does not exist. It's the foundation, and if that foundation is rocky, then it's difficult, almost impossible, to build a stable relationship home or even a physical home, and it's just as rocky to build a financial home. So I start with honesty, and what I mean by honesty is evaluating the truth of where your finances actually are. What do the numbers look like right now? No more putting your head in the sand, you cannot do that, not as a single mom. There's way too much at stake, not just for you, but for your children and your children's children. There's just way too much at stake, and we as women have way more power than we often admit to ourselves, and we have the power to make decisions that change the trajectory of our children's lives. So start with honesty, really look at every single spend, every financial document, open it up and face it. You don't always have to do anything right away. I simply walk my clients through gathering that information, and once you gather the information, then you can start deciding what to do with it. Um, but the gathering of the information, surprisingly, is where people are not bold enough or courageous enough to start. So that's where I would definitely challenge people, encourage people to start is by looking at their finances with an honest, open eye, not judgmental. No one's judging you. Can I add that? Do not judge your own circumstances. You don't want to judge other people's circumstances. Why are you a single mom? Well, obviously, this happened, that's why. No, don't do that, and don't judge your own financial circumstances because you didn't do this or you should have known better, or none of that. Just look at the numbers because the reality is everybody starts somewhere, and you can change where you end up. It's never about where or how you start the race, it's about how you finish it. So, no matter where you are, you can change your finish line.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Wow, that's really good. I uh I agree with you, and I think it's easier when you sit down and look at your finances and you have everything in front of you. But honestly, that's where I that's where you lose me because I will sit down and look at how much debt I'm in and breathe. What are some of the biggest financial challenges that you see single moms facing? And uh of course, if you want to expand on that and reply to whatever.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yes, exactly. You caught me. I'm like, no, I want to chill into that because um when you what you said about looking at your finances and then freezing, that is so normal and natural. Okay, I'm not gonna use this session to coax you or any of the listeners, but I will simply say don't stop there. Don't stop there. We have a tendency to fight, flight, run, or freeze, right? That's our human nature. We want to just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Um, and that works in certain situations, or we just run away from the situation, or we like literally do nothing. I am going to say when you look at your numbers and your tendency is to freeze and do nothing, call a coach. It's like phone a friend, because as I mentioned before, there's too much at stake. So call someone that's going to give you a perspective. And too often people think that it's expensive, and I actually dislike that word expensive, because when we think about all the things we spend money on, a phone and different things like that, right? Don't even mention going to a concert or buying kids' shoes or even buying ourselves a purse. The things that we spend money on that literally are not going is not going to last us three months, let alone a year. And then you compare that to a financial coach hiring someone else to give you your perspective, give you their perspective on money that will impact not your next year, but your next 10 years, because the information they give you, you don't lose. You literally build on it and become even better the next year, the next decade. So that is a much more impactful investment than a new handbag or getting your nails done. Okay, so get somebody else's perspective on your finances when you hit a wall. Don't judge yourself and say, I should know how to get past this. Because too often what I find is that people do that and they don't realize it's almost like scrolling on a phone. They think they've been scrolling for two minutes or 20 minutes and it's been two hours. And too often, people, when they hit that wall with their finances, they think they've been stuck for a couple months and it's been 10 years. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that by the time they get to me, they tell me that they've been stuck for 15 years or 25 years in the same spot, not paying off their student loans or not making a decision about their finances. That within two hours of a conversation with me, they'd literally jump that hurdle and run. But if you don't face it, if you don't get somebody else to step in with you to walk alongside you, imagine next year you're in that same spot, and that's not what you want. So for me, when I started the journey, I embraced somebody else's perspective, and that information is in my head. I can't get rid of it, I can't undo it. It's in my head, and it has been what has allowed me to build my financial um wealth because from year to year I built on that and I built and I got more information and more information and more information. So I would say keep pushing and get somebody else's perspective. And then what was your next question?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Very good, thank you. Um, what does it mean to have, I think you kind of explained it a little bit, but what does it mean to have a weak financial foundation? And how can moms recognize that they're there?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

That's great. So, what I realized for me was a weak financial foundation was that I didn't know definitions of words. So, too often people say things like compound interest or even net worth or assets or liabilities, they say words, they even say credit, credit score. They say a lot of words. And when I realized I had a weak financial foundation was when I started looking up the definitions, and I realized, oh, I didn't know that that's what it meant. I didn't know that's what that meant. Oh, is that what that means? I did not grasp the actual definition of things, and the other way I realized I had a weak financial foundation is that I did not have a budget. Now, some people hate the word budget, it makes their whole body tense up. Okay, if that's you, I apologize. Relax, please relax. Um, because you can call it whatever it is that you want to, but the reality is that we budget in every area of our lives, we budget our time, we budget our emotions, and you never want to go over capacity in any of those things, not in your time. I know, ladies, we know what it feels like when we are over capacity, overextended ourselves in our time, in our energy, and unfortunately, this might just be me, but I think other people can relate. We start blaming people, we blame other people for why our energy is low. She should have known she was asking too much of me. I didn't have any time for that, and she's still made me do it. People aren't making us do anything, we are grown adults, not two-year-olds, right? We're not the children, we are the adults, and because we did not manage our energy, because we did not manage our uh emotional capacity, and because we did not manage our time, we want to blame other people for why we were late to an event or to a kid's drop-off or to whatever the thing is, late to an appointment. We want to blame other people, and we turn bitter why we start having an attitude because we did not basically communicate our limitations. No, I cannot accept that invitation, and you don't even have to tell the person why. But if you have way too many other things going, even if you have nothing, like staying home and doing nothing to refuel your energy is important, and you don't need to give an excuse for why you're not going to that event, that activity, that accepting that invitation. Thank you for the invitation, I will not be there. Enjoy, have fun. Okay, but I'm not going to be bitter towards somebody because I did not manage my emotions well. So the same budgeting that was my long-winded way of saying budgeting is important. And despite the fact that we budget every other thing, we don't want to talk about budgeting when it comes to money, but it is just as relevant, if not even more relevant, because money touches every aspect of our lives. That party, that event, that school, um, child's activity, all of it, there's money to be spent, and we have to be able to manage how much of it we give out and how much of it comes in, so that we are not overextending ourselves, over capacity, and financially, it's a lot easier to see financially when you're over capacity than it is to see when you're over capacity and your energy. There isn't a number over your head or on a spreadsheet or in an account saying your energy is at 200. You're about to spend 300 on this activity. There's no number like that, but when it comes to budgeting and money, there is your balance is 200. That purchase is$300. You are about to go in the negative, or and this is something we can't do with energy, you can't borrow somebody else's energy. Haha, you can drink coffee though. I'm such a coffee drinker. You can drink coffee and have a temporary energy boost. Um, but you can't borrow someone else's energy. But when it comes to money, you can borrow someone else's money, and it comes at a price. When you borrow energy from coffee or tea or anything other substitute, it also comes at a price, and your body pays for it. So financially, you're paying interest to someone else, a bank. So many institutions have found ways to collect your money because you did not manage it well. It's costing you. And as a coach, my goal is to keep that money in your pocket.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

I think that all the companies, not all of them, but a lot of them, are connected. Oh, of course. Cool, yeah. If you're doing Instacart, but you're paying it through Klona or Afterpay or uh, I don't know, one of those services, and then they get paid. And then if you default on something, then yeah, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that, but I just feel like it's all a conspiracy theory, they're all they're all connected, and yeah, we're trying to.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

I think you actually make a good point about that. They are connected, maybe even indirectly, but those banking institutions they have people behind them, human beings at the top. Okay, what they say, the top one percent, and those top one percent are gathering and talking to each other, and they are thinking of ways to get money out of your pocket. And one of the things that I talk about, um, I'd love for you to connect with me on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, by the way, but I do talk quite a bit about rewards, and some people like to get credit cards based on the rewards points or uh frequent flyer miles or some kind of incentive that they're going to get from those credit cards, and as you mentioned, those banks have figured out a way to get the money out of your account. You think you're playing a game that you're going to win, but they have rigged the game against you 100%. Okay, so for some people who think, oh, I'm getting, you know, 2% back, that's great. But let me give you being honest and transparent, because we're about to be honest here, it's about awareness. When we talk about 2%, think of it as a dollar. 2% of a dollar is not twenty cents. It's two cents. Okay. So for every dollar that you spend, you get two cents back. Now, let's blow that up. Let's add a zero. Let's add three zeros. Not one dollar, but one thousand. For every one thousand dollars that you spend, you get twenty dollars? Did you get that? Twenty. If you if we're talking two percent, right? Because nobody does one percent. Is I mean, like one percent is like, oh, what's that? You some people want two percent, some people want five percent, but you have to spend a thousand dollars, you have to spend a thousand dollars to collect fifty, if it's a five percent, to collect twenty. And this is the thing that some people are like, well, I was gonna spend that money anyways. No, you weren't, because they have done so much research on it. When you're swiping a credit card, you spend way more money than when you're paying cash. When you're tapping your wrist with your iPay, is it iPay? I don't have an iPhone, but you know, the watch thing when you're tapping your wrist or tapping a card, you're not feeling it. Because back in the day when people paid for stuff, they exchange things. The barter system, I give you a box of cherries and you give me a box of tomatoes, whatever, right? Now with money, I give you twenty dollars, you give me a bag of um, let's say rice. But I give you the twenty dollar bill, you give me a bag of rice. There's an exchange. When we remove that exchange, and when it becomes a tap, I tap my wrist, I tap a card, and I get a bag of rice. I keep my card and I get the bag of rice. My brain does not compute that there was just an exchange. So I'm more likely to tap more frequently. Oh, nothing happened. I just got stuff, I just got stuff, and your brain does not actually see that there was a transaction. So I say that to say you're more likely to spend, and they realize this. So the easier they make spending, by the way, every single time you're doing something except exchanging cash for that product, you're not feeling it. So you're more likely to overspend.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah. And then those that are trying to get to the rewards, and then there's those who are in debt from just trying to survive and like getting, and I noticed that even when I am in debt and at my lowest, uh, if I get a let's say I get a raise or my credit score happens to go up, I'll get a credit card in the mail and I'll get an offer. And I'm like, oh how nice they're offering me this$500, but really that$500, if I take it, is gonna eventually turn into me owing them like a thousand dollars because I'm going to eventually max it out, go over it, and then I can't afford to pay off all the credit cards that they have given. And I feel like that is a cycle, they're doing it on purpose that we just need to uh look out for. And so I am trying to claw my way out of debt after becoming a single mom, and it's not easy. So, what is the first step that some moms can take, or even dads, because we have some single dads listening. So, what are some first steps that we can take to get our finances in order after we have hired you, go got a coach, um, looked at our finances, um, and did the breakdown. What are some other things or another step that we could do to Well, I want to first start with the it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah. Okay. But let me acknowledge that I have been there. I know what it's like looking at an account and having all the expectations of things that need to get paid. I I know what it's like to make tough decisions, to live with other people, so that you don't feel the emotional and relational stress of doing life on your own. I know the pain of having to pick what gets paid and picking the child and what the child needs over myself and my needs. And I I know it's not easy, but I'm gonna tell you that neither is budgeting, neither is being responsible to steward money God's way. Neither are easy, but I will tell you which one has the most lasting impact, positively lasting impact. And that's doing the tough, hard, uncomfortable work of learning to manage money wisely. And this is what I mean by it's not easy, it's not easy when your ends don't meet, right? Financially at the end of the month, it's not enough. But it's also not easy to sit down and put a budget together, but one of them is going to lead to freedom and the other is not. I grew up with this mindset of choose your hard. I hope that makes sense. Choose your hard. You're either going to do easy today, bury your head in the sand, and do nothing, continue doing the same thing you were doing before with money. That's easy. But you're going to, when you do that, you're choosing the hard of tomorrow. Your kids don't have the money to go to college, they also have to go into debt for this and that and the other thing. Okay, that's one hard. Or you can choose the hard of today. I'm going to submit to a different way of managing money. I'm going to make myself do a budget, and I'm going to stick with that budget so that tomorrow is easy. My kids have money to go to that activity. I can buy dresses for prom and it does not break the bank. I can send them to the school that they want to. I can buy them a car or they can contribute. I can teach them how to manage their own money wisely because I did the hard work up front of managing my money. That's the part I really want to get across to single parents, moms, and dads alike. You pick your hard. But if you pick the hard today to work on yourself, you are going to have the intelligence, financial intelligence to pass on to these children. That's changing a legacy. Your children will not start at the same place you started. If you've ever heard about kids being born on third base, that's not a bad thing. They're born on third base because their parents did hard work or their grandparents did hard work of changing their financial legacy. Yeah. My child, I feel, was born, he wasn't born on third base, but by the time he realized what was going on in his life, he's like, Oh, I'm on third base, right? He has things, he works for it because I'm able to teach him about financial management.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

To him, it's almost like a given. Like he looks at other people like, why don't they get it? And I'm thinking to myself, dear God, child, you wouldn't have gotten it. Like, this is the stuff that people just are born with. But my son, when I was in corporate America, I worked in corporate America for 24 years. I just left five months ago to start this business officially full-time financial coaching. But my son would be in the backseat of the car listening as I'm doing business negotiations with large contracts, talking to clients nationally. He simply sat in the backseat and he's observing with his eyes, but listening with his ears, all of these things that these grown-ups are talking about. I mean, I did um, I was a national sales manager. So I could do a lot of my business in the car, picking him up from school, driving him to different activities, and he's hearing all of these conversations. So he got to absorb financial business strategies and lessons that most people would never experience simply by being there. So he, I feel, was not born, but landed, landed on third base, um, just by virtue of my experiences. So I will tell every single mom and every single dad, pick your hard, but pick the best one that allows your child to start off one base, one level ahead of where you are right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah. Wow, that's really good. I've never heard that saying before, so I'm gonna keep that in mind because that's always been my goal. When my kids figure out what's going on, I'd really like to have it all together. You've given us so much knowledge and so much like just wealth of you've answered like most of all my questions. Um, because I wanted to dive into generational wealth, but I think you have talked about it and how we can get there. I think everybody's next step is just to book an appointment with you.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yes. Um, I just created a content today. Check it out. It's about your roof.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Oh, the listeners just what can I where can our listeners find you and find your content and learn more about booking with you?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Absolutely, that is a great question. Let me go over all of my socials so they can find me rather easily. I am on LinkedIn if you want to look for hand-in-hand consulting, foluke at hand-in-hand consulting, on Facebook, hand in hand consulting, Instagram, hand-in-hand consulting, TikTok. I am Auntie Foluke Money Coach. I like that. Auntie Foluke Money Coach, YouTube, hand-in-hand consulting, and Spotify. I have a podcast, and um, I'm sorry, if my Spotify is Auntie Foluke, and as far as your roof, a lot of people want to go straight into building generational wealth or building their retirement account or investing in real estate. I will caution every listener here, especially the single parents, that start with your foundation. Start with your financial foundation, your financial house, the way you would build a real house with knowledge, with understanding, and by having the habits to manage your money well, that's budgeting consistently, paying bills on time, putting some money aside into an emergency fund, building up that emergency fund, and then starting to invest in a kid's college and your retirement and purchasing real estate. Because if you get that out of order, some people get lucky and they make it. But what happens when you get it out of order is one small crisis, you purchase a piece of real estate, but you don't have any emergency fund, one small crisis and that real estate that you thought was a dream turns into a foreclosure nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Wow, I've never thought of that.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

So it's important to have it in the right order. So that's where I will leave you guys, but I would love the opportunity to coach any and everyone that is, these are my criteria, by the way. Um, high income earners, and you can be a single parent, mom, dad, doesn't matter, and your income is over$150,000 a year, and you are what's called coachable, meaning that you will submit to someone else's way of doing money, trusting that they will get you further than where you've gotten yourself, and that's not a bad thing. Okay, and you are available, meaning that you will commit whenever you say you're going to be on a call at a certain time, you're gonna show up. And I know it may sound a little silly, but not everybody is coachable, and not everybody is available or keeps their word. And my clients do, because I want people who sincerely want to change the lives of their children and their children's children. That is how you build financial legacy for the future.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Start with yourself, and I am cheering you on. If I can be your biggest cheerleader right now, I'm gonna speak to you if that's okay. I'm going to speak to you the way God has commanded that I speak to his sons and his daughters to remind you that he loves you so very much that you are precious in his sight. And as much as you love your own children and you smile upon them and you watch them sleep and you want the absolute best for them, your heavenly father wants the absolute best for you. And he desires for you to trust him and to rest in his arms. And when he says go, he wants you to go. When he says rest, he wants you to rest. Simply believing that he has the best in store for you. Trust him fully, not just with your Sunday morning routines, but trust him with your finances and trust him with your children because he loves you that much.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

I believe that. Thank you so much. And pray for me that I will get to six figures because that is amazing, too. So that's the goal. And then once I get there, I can reach out for coaching.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yes, absolutely. In the meantime, I have resources available. Um, they can go to my handinhandconsulting.com, handinhandconsulting.net. Let me reach out for coaching.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Thank you so much for.