Lauryn:
Riri, I am so happy to have you back on the show. I couldn't believe that I had never done your money story before. So if you don't know who Riyanka is, you're gonna know by the end of this episode.

But you can also go back to episode 119, when I had a whole bunch of my female financial planner friends on, and we talked all things being a woman in finance. But that is not what today is about. Today is about momming, being a business owner, and who you are.

So why don't we just start at the beginning, and you just kind of give us a little rundown. Like, where are you from? Who's your family? How did you grow up? Give us kind of like, you know, the basics, girl.

Rianka:
Oh my goodness, what a journey we have been on, Lauryn.

Just throughout our career, right? Just being these young whippersnappers, right? And excited with enthusiasm and energy and sleep. Sleep? What is that, right? To you know, at the same time, starting a business, right? And here we are, almost 10 years in, and still, which I'm grateful for, of doing life together, right? You know, as a business owner, and now as a mom, it's, I'm just very lucky to have a really good mom tribe, which I'm sure we'll talk about in this episode. But a little bit about me before I get too mushy mushy with my girl, Lauryn.

My name is Rianka Dorsainvil. I'm a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER. I have been practicing financial planning for 15 years or more.

Lauryn:
Ooh, honey, baby, we're old. I know, no baby, honey. But we look good.

Rianka:
Listen, face card never declines, okay? So I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, went to school, high school in Virginia Beach, and that's, so I claim both places in the 757, Norfolk, Virginia, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. I went to Virginia Tech, which is where I found financial planning, and super grateful for that. I'll skip that story.

And ever since then, I've been doing financial planning. So I was lucky enough to stumble upon Personal Finance. It has a CFP for a registered program at Virginia Tech.

I loved every class and course, and here I am 15 years later, still a financial planner, and very lucky and very privileged to be doing what I'm doing. When I first started, you know, I always, as a financial planner, we always have an approach of not placing judgment on people and how they choose to spend their money. And especially when I was not a parent, seeing from a budgeting standpoint, how much parents were spending on their children, I clutched my pearls a couple of times, right?

Lauryn:
Wait, wait, wait, okay, hold on a second.

Also been guilty of that. Like you said, when you don't have perspective, you just don't know what you don't know. But I think to add a little bit of color to this story, we do have to go back just a little bit to say, like, give us a little bit of insight into like what your upbringing was that brought you into financial planning.

You know, do you come from a two-parent household? Do you come from like, you know,a white picket fence lifestyle? Were you getting, you know, fancy vacations? And like, yeah, give us a little insight into that.

Rianka:
Okay, well, no to all of that, Nyx. No, I'm joking.

So no to all of that. However, I will say that how I was brought up and how I was raised has influenced how I parent, how I manage money with my children, and how I save and invest for my children. And again, I think both of us are extremely lucky to have the knowledge that we have, so that as soon as we have children, we know there are several things that we need to do, right? Open a 529 plan, custodial brokerage account, et cetera.

My parents didn't know that when I was born, okay? I don't think my mama still knows that. She might be, 520, what, huh? Lauryn, let me tell you something real quick. And this is between you and I. I'm sure nobody is in the room with us.

So I'm still teaching my mom about money. At my young age, I'm an elder millennial, okay? A seasoned millennial. And my mom is in her sixties and I'm still teaching her about money.

But you know what? She's my mom, so I'm never gonna give up on her. However, I'm teaching her about her credit cards and she's paying her minimum on them. Girl, I wish y'all could see our faces right now.

Let me tell you about my mama. So I was like, mom, you cannot just pay the minimum, okay? You have to pay more because you're going to be paying this card off for forever. And I was like, you know, interest and principal, you know, I'm going off on a spill for about 15 minutes.

She was like, baby? I was like, yes. Who is interest and who is principal? I've never met them in my life. I don't know what they got to do with me spending my money, but interest and principal, we don't know each other, okay? I was like, mom, clearly, you don't know these people because what? Mother, you cannot have a CFP, an award-winning CFP as a daughter, and you out here not knowing who credit and principal and interest, you don't know them people.

We going to have a family reunion, okay? And we're going to meet these people.

Lauryn:
Oh my goodness. We laugh, but oh my goodness, can I relate to what you are saying? And to your point about like, I mean, the buzzword nowadays is generational wealth.

So many people are always like trying to create generational wealth. I want to do this so I can get that generational wealth, but it's like, we also have to define like what that is and define the wounds that we have, the trauma that we have, the upbringing, the experiences that we have, so that we can name it and be able to move forward from it. And so you were just talking about like being a financial planner and clutching your pearls as you listen to things.

It's like, some of that is from like, you know, coming from some humble upbringing, but some of that is also like we know better, so we want to do better, but that's also easier said than done sometimes.

Rianka:
It truly is. It truly is.

And so as you can see, my mom still doesn't know who principal and interest is. So you can probably have a clear indication of what my childhood was like. I will say I had a very humble upbringing, and I didn't feel like I ever went without, and I didn't know it was abnormal for certain things that I experienced financially as a child, I would say.

I don't want to generalize things. However, from an upbringing standpoint, I was raised by my mom for a certain period of time and then my nana. And nanas or grandmas are the matriarchs of the family, hold a special place in my heart.

I will always be super grateful for the care and love that she gave me. And there's some financial stuff that we got to talk about with her too. Sorry, nana.

But girl, that's probably a different episode. And then I lived with my dad. I knew, so this is a question that I ask with my clients too like, what's your first memory with money? And my first memory with money is understanding taxes.

So what I mean by that is I would go to the grocery store and buy a bag of chips and it was 25 cents. If I went into the store with a green $1 bill, I will get less than 75 cents back. However, if I went in there with a brown $1 food stamp, I would get three-quarters back.

And I was just like, what's the difference? And it's because you don't pay taxes. On food stamps. On food stamps.

Or at least back then you don't. I don't know what the situations are now or how it's taxed. And snap, I think they have debit cards now.

It's fancy. Back in my day, we had a coupon book. Right.

Brown, green. But that's my first memory with money of just like there's a different currency depending on the type of dollar you have. And there's this thing called taxes that you pay depending on what type of currency that you have.

And so we were on food stamps. There was a church at the end of our street and it's still there. So let me, I got in a side real quick.

So let me tell you how children can humble you real quick. So I went to go, I go back home often. All my family is still there.

And I wanted to take my son. I was pregnant with my daughter at the time and I wanted to take my son to my stomping ground where I grew up, right? So I'm literally driving down this road and the beginning of the road used to be trailer parks or a trailers park area. You drive down, then there's individual homes, duplexes and not apartments, but like this U-shaped type apartment style.

And then the rec center in the back, right? So I'm literally driving down, sharing with my son Remington, like, yeah, mommy used to play right here. Mommy was a cheerleader. It was the Sharks, this is, and he's just looking at me, mind you, he's three.

So I can't fault him. He's like, Mommy, this is cool and all, but I'm hungry. And I'm just like, Mommy, are we getting ice cream? Here I am like almost in tears, like seeing where I come from, sharing the moment.

At the end of the street, there's this white church and it's still there. And right next to it was like, it was like a mini home, but it was kind of connected to the church and that was a food shelter. And we used to go there often to get food.

And again, like, I didn't know it was abnormal to not have, to not go to the grocery store to get food. What I appreciate it now looking back is that they made it feel normal. Like when we first walked in, we had like a little basket.

They even had a cash register, but no money was exchanged. Now, you know, looking back and then we got back, it wasn't, it didn't feel anything different than going to a grocery store. And now I know that it was a food shelter that we were going to get food.

Something that my children, and I'm super grateful to say, they will never have to experience that one. And that right there is generational wealth. If I do nothing else in life, right? We are super blessed and privileged to be able to afford food to put on the table to feed our children.

Like that is a true blessing. And so that combined with money memory and just like food and food stamps and different things like that. Like that's my first memory.

And again, just knowing how our children are going to grow up. It also reminds me how we have to make sure they don't grow up entitled. And which might be another podcast episode.

We got a five part series with Rianka. I'm jotting it down. The next episode is Nana and her woes.

Right?

Lauryn:
But you bring up a really good point about the privilege that it is to be able to pay for the things that you want. To be able to choose what you wanna eat versus a very small selection at a place like a food bank. The quality of the food that you eat.

And that comes from the income that you earn. And so as a dual earning income household, there are certain things that you can afford that maybe other people can't afford. But you and I talk all the time about the difference between cost and value and being able to afford things and price.

Like all those words mean something different to us as financial planner. And then one of the things that we definitely talk a whole lot about is like having to pay for a village because there's an income. But also like in order to earn that income, it requires time away from your children to be earning.

So talk to me a little bit about like what you've experienced in that realm as a working mom.

Rianka:
Oh man, man.

Okay. I will say that that's one of the things that I would love to write about. And just this different, we are growing up in such a different time than when we grew up, right? We are raising children and at such a different time, speed, pace, work environment than our parents.

And when we were growing up, I think maybe at eight years old, my mom used to like leave us in the house by herself. I'm here. So everything worked out well.

And it was do not open the door, okay. And do not pick up the phone until the voicemail picks up. And then you hear it's me and then you pick up the phone, right? And so there was no, my mom had a village, but it was like me and my brother, you know, we were kind of watching ourselves.

Nana would come in, but Nana was also working two, three jobs, you know? So however, now in days you can't, you cannot leave your kids home by their self. They just have access to too many things and the world is just different. So what was very frustrating becoming a mom, two things.

One, you lose control of everything. And, you know, both of us are very A-type people, okay. We have a calendar, and whatever's on our calendar, we do.

We're always on time for things. If we say that we're gonna do something, the expectations are met, but not even met, they're exceedingly met, okay. So that was one thing I had to realize.

And then that goes into, you have to ask for help. Being a hyper-independent person, because I was parentalized as a young child, I basically was raising myself and my brother before I was 10 years old. I was making sure that we were getting to school on time.

I was making sure our laundry was done. So I have been hyper-independent, literally my entire life. And I have never asked for anything my entire life until I had kids.

Lauryn:
Rright. And then what had happened was.

Rianka:
Then when you become a parent, while you're pregnant, you have an idea of how people will show up in your life.

Family and non-family. Now we having church. Okay.

There is an expectation that you have of how people are gonna show up in your life. And I will say, if you are an expecting mom or a mom to be, please drop all expectations of you have of anybody, so you will not get disappointed. That was probably one of the hardest things, giving birth.

And then to put on top of that, my first child was born March, 2020, when the world literally shut down. Shut down. The whole world shut down.

Literally the whole world. So that is in itself another episode. So now we're on eight episodes

Right. So matter of fact, let's just have a series. Okay.

We're just gonna call it the Rianka Show. Like, forget the name of this podcast. Listen, listen.

The woes of the motherhood. Emphasis on hood. So drop expectations, right? And then if you do have expectations of people, they don't show up or they don't show up how you expect them to show up, again, you're disappointed.

And then you're just like, all right, I have to hire help. Before, back in the day, there was a village, right? My aunt watched me. My nana watched me.

During the summer, we didn't go on summer vacations because there was no school. There was a family member that watched you. Now you have to plan for summer camps or a full-time nanny so that you can work eight hours a day.

And then on top of that, kids' school let out at 3.15. But you gotta work until 5, 5.30. I'm like, who set this up? Right, this system don't work right. This system is not set up for working families at all because then it costs more to put your child and then into aftercare. I saw this, again, so going back to what we were talking about in the beginning of this episode, the budgets that I used to see for families being a freshly minted financial planner, I'm like, how are they spending all this? What is a summer camp? Again, it was spring break.

We stayed home. You don't go on a family vacation because it's spring break. I get it now, mama.

You go on spring break. 2,500 on daycare, you just like, wait, to watch your kids? To watch the kids. That's a mortgage.

You go on spring break with your children so that your house is not Hurricane Remington and Romina. You want your house to stay intact. So you take them outside of your home.

And let them tear up somebody else's. And let them tear up somebody else's. Hotel, a pool, they have so much energy, Lauryn.

Like, wow. And on that same note, I understand why we pay the daycare providers what we paid them. Thank you.

And you will continue to get a Christmas gift and flowers for your birthday because you are the unsung hero, okay? So again, so I'm just trying to bring it all together of just not passing judgment when I was a newly minted financial planner, but also not understanding. But now again, as a parent, I understand why these costs are what they are and how you have to now hire help. We have a paid village.

There's no longer a village of people just like chipping in, unfortunately. And I think that's from a couple of things. One, I think we move away from our family.

I do not live close to family. My firm is virtual, 100% virtual, and has been before the pandemic. So I can go anywhere.

However, with my husband's job, we are located in the DMV. For those who do not know, that's DC, Maryland, Virginia. And we are here.

So unlike other people who may be able to move back home or move back closer to their parents or have their parents move in with them, both of my parents have health situations going on. So they have specific doctors that they have to go to. And so now that my children are older, I think they both feel comfortable helping versus them being an infant and kind of not knowing what to do, even though they did it about 30-some years ago.

Right, you should see my mama with my baby. Like she on, and I'm like, how did you keep me alive? How did I become this strikingly independent individual? I guess, look, I must have raised myself. You probably did too.

So yeah, so it's a paid village. And that was super frustrating. That was something I actually had to work through in therapy because I'm just like, why do I have to pay so much to raise children just so I can work and do something I love? We have gone through an au pair that works for some families that doesn't work for other families.

For those who don't know what an au pair is, it's like an exchange program where a person that's coming from outside of the country comes in to help with your children. You pay them a specific stipend per week and they are also going to school here in the United States. And so they are usually with you for a year to potentially two years, and then you can switch and get a new au pair.

And they also live with you in your home. So you have to have space in your home, potentially a car if that's gonna be their responsibility to drive your children around, et cetera. And then nannies.

Let me tell you, Lauryn, it is so hard to find really good help. And it's like, listen, I'll pay you. But it's so hard to find good help.

And going back to the control piece, I've had to really release a lot of control. I've had to release perfectionism that I have, even with work, right? Because if your child is sick, you're home tending to your child. It's not like, oh, let me still have my client meetings.

I'm sorry, I need to reschedule.

Lauryn:
You don't want this little terror running around the back of these meetings, but also a sick child needs to be tended to. Yeah, or doctor's appointments.

Rianka:
And so, but what I am super grateful for is my clients understand. Most of them are parents or their aunties or uncles or their godparents, or they just understand that, hey, your child comes first, which I greatly appreciate, but that took me years to accept myself of letting my clients down. So yeah, the pay bill, and it's expensive.

It is super expensive. I now understand how some parents try to balance or juggle or even do the math of, does it make sense for one parent to stay home, to be the homemaker, to be the economic engineer of the home, right? And for one parent to actually go to work because daycare is that expensive now. And depending on where you live, it's astronomical, right? And so I totally get it.

And I also understand why there's so many dinks in the world. For those who don't know what dinks are, double income, no kids. And when I tell you they are living their life and they are happy, they are living their life and happy.

Because they were like, listen, we see the struggle. We saw the struggle with our parents. We see the struggle with our friends and we don't want that life.

We don't want that life. We got an episode for that too. Oh, see, listen.

And so yeah, it's some things that you have to think about. Now I'm just putting my CFP hat on. One, what does support look like? Even before you get there, what does your parental leave look like? Maternity or paternity leave? And hoping that your spouse or significant other also have some sort of leave.

It's super unfortunate that women have to bank hours for maternity leave because of FMLA. If you have 50 or fewer employees, they don't by law, they don't legally have to offer maternity leave, but you can go out on FMLA, which is family medical leave of absence. It secures your job.

But it don't give you no income. But it doesn't give you any income. And so again, when I was at my second firm, one of the women there, she was pregnant and I would see her come to work sick.

And I'm just like, you don't look good. You should probably go home. She's like, no, I gotta- You got no date.

I got no date. I gotta bank all my hours. And I'm just like, we need a maternity leave policy.

Matter of fact, a paternity leave policy because it's not the moms that just needs to be home. The other parent needs to be home too to help, right? Cause baby, if it was just me by myself trying to survive them first few weeks, like I still don't know how I made it. Look, with my partner, my sister, my mama flew in.

We have in-house help. Like you said, it's very first world, my problems. And I still always have problems.

Problems didn't make it, so. Yes, by the skin of our teeth, as they say. And so, if we're going to be, as we know, the system is broken.

I mean, in today's economy, we see how broken it really is. And now as a parent and as a farm owner, it was no question to offer paternity leave for my team. At least four months, because I am a mom.

I know what those first few months are like. And that's a different story, as far as these other companies that can afford to pay somebody to take off for maternity leave, but choose not to. That's another story, but anyway.

So yeah, you got to bank hours. You have to think about medical insurance, right? And the cost of that, you're going from a potential individual plan to a family plan, pediatricians, and making sure that you have the doctors that you like. You have to advocate for yourself.

If you don't advocate for anything else, you advocate for yourself. If you don't feel like the doctor is listening to you or hearing you, you find another doctor ASAP. I unfortunately have another experience with that with one of my friends.

She was seven, almost eight months pregnant. In and out of the hospital, just something wasn't right. And they just kept sending her home.

And then two days later, she passed away. She had a stroke. She had a stroke and something else, and they couldn't save her or the baby.

Oh my goodness. And it was because they wouldn't, she was constantly saying something doesn't feel right. And they kept sending her home.

And it's just like, no, you don't have a doctor. And of course you probably have to pay a little bit more for good care. And it just sucks.

Having kids are expensive.

Lauryn:
It is expensive to say the least.

Rianka:
I don't know where I was going with that, but it's expensive.

You have to pay for your village now. There's different nanny websites, care.com, UrbanSitter. What's another one we checked out? Depending on where you live, there's probably some sort of professional nanny service that will help pair you with a nanny.

But then again, that's a very expensive route because then you're paying them a finder's fee and all this other stuff, the au pair route. And so if you can move back with family or have family move in with you, okay. And you also have to protect your peace.

So make sure you're mentally strong enough for whomever is moving in your house because it's not worth it if-

Lauryn:
Right, like I said, cost versus value versus price.

Rianka:
That is what we're saying. There is a difference.

There is a difference. But all in all, I'm grateful for the journey that I've had being a mom, the things that I've learned to not only sympathize, not empathize with other parents, understanding the cost to raise a child. I have always felt like I was an amazing financial planner and not saying that to brag, but I love what I do.

I'm really great. That is what it is.

Lauryn:
Yeah, what a privilege to be able to, like you said, do your work and also be a mom.

And I think that is like the key piece of the puzzle. There's so many people out there that feel like they can only do one or the other and you can do both. Like you're wrapping up this podcast.

You're gonna go like, we gotta finish up because you gotta go get your child. But you had a full workday. So what would you say to like, you know, as we wrap up to the working mom out there, like what's your one like big piece of advice or that one like thought that you wanna share with somebody who's out here, like you said, that may have that mom guilt because they're working to pay for this village or to pay for these people or to, you know, you're giving up time with your child and it's hard to balance it all. Like, what do you say to the working mom?

Rianka:
I'll tell her what has been told to me is that if it feels hard or if it feels difficult, that means you're a great mom. And it's because like you are doing the hard things, you're making the tough decisions to set a foundation for your children in which they will grow to appreciate even if they don't appreciate or understand it now, they will eventually, even now, right? To the different things that my parents have done, either my mom, my Nana or my dad, I get it now, right? And again, now at my age, I didn't get it at 18, at 19, at 20, in my 20s. But now as a parent, I've gone back and say, thank you.

Or man, I was a strong headed individual and I get it now because my two-year-old is already giving it to me. She is giving it to me. But to the moms out there, if it feels hard, that means you're doing it right.

And no, we don't wanna have to, it's just like, but no, I don't want to wear the cape. Take this cape off of me. I don't wanna be the strong woman no more.

I don't wanna be the strong mom. Don't give me that badge. I don't want that badge of honor.

I don't want to thug it out to have the survivor badge. No, I get it. And even if you don't want that cape, it's still gonna feel hard.

And just know you do have a village. I have a question for you, Lauryn. This is something that I share with moms is that there is a motherhood, right? Now, motherhood is the ghetto, right? The ghetto.

The ghetto. And I say that in the most loving way, right? And if you're not a mom yet, you would not get this. But once you become a mom, you're like, Rionka was right, this is the ghetto because what is going on right now? Especially that first couple of months, you're just like, did I shower today? Did I eat? Was that yesterday? What is today? But what I say to expecting moms and new moms is that there is a village.

It's invisible, but once that baby comes, there is a village that you did not expect that will be there. Have you experienced that?

Lauryn:
Nice little setup. Yes, yes, and yes.

So to go back, you mentioned where you had these expectations, this idea of how people were gonna show up and you were disappointed. And that was very, very much my situation. But then, rising out of the ashes was a whole new set of people.

Like you said, you become a part of a community that you just like, you weren't in the club before. And people show up and show out in ways that you didn't even know were necessary. I ain't had no bras, y'all.

Rionka was like, don't worry, girl, I got you. Because there's special type of bras that you have to wear when nursing or after giving birth and your boobs are just heavy and sore. You put that stuff on the registry and nobody wanna buy nothing for the mama.

Everybody wanna buy a cute little onesie that the baby just gonna throw up all over. In the meantime, I don't got no bras to hold this milk that this baby is throwing. And so, yes, girl, yes.

I 100% agree that there is a village that will rise up out of the ashes and will ride or die for you. And you will connect with a whole new group of people. Your circle will change.

It doesn't mean you're gonna get rid of everybody who was in your life previously. But like you said, there's some people that you thought like, oh, this is my bestie, we go way back. And they ain't seen or heard from while you're out here struggling these mom streets.

But then there's a whole new set of people that are just like, girl, let me call check on you. Let me make sure you alive. Let me bring you something to eat just because.

She's four months old and somebody will just show up some days. And I'll be like, oh my God, how did you know? Did Jesus send you?

Rianka:
Right, Jesus and his disciples was just like, go check on Lauryn. So those are the two things.

One is, if it feels hard, you're doing it right. And then two, release any expectations that you have of anyone in your life so you don't get disappointed. And there is an invisible mom village that will rise and come to help and support you.

Lauryn:
Amen, amen, amen. All right, you gotta go pick up this child from school. Y'all stay tuned.

You gotta like, subscribe, do all the different things. If you want Rianka to come back for the eight episode series.

Rianka:
Just put in the comments, yes, to the series. We wanna hear about all of it. Because me and Lauryn together, we just cut up.

Lauryn:
Exactly, but we don't give it to y'all real.

Rianka:
Right, my friend, I love you so much. I gotta run so I can go pick up my son and then my daughter. Y'all have a great day.

Lauryn:
Peace out, till next time.



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