We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Setu Shah. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Setu below.
Setu, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?
Financial Doula, LLC is a small business dedicated to help expecting and new parents enter parenthood financially stress-free. Clients come to me for many reasons – they could need help getting aligned with their partner on how their finances will be impacted in the first year of having a baby, there could be one parent that hopes to take a step back to care for their baby and needs help understanding the financial impact, and there could be other reasons like navigating unpaid maternity leave, insanely high childcare costs, and maternity-related medical bills.
I had the pleasure of working with one client who was faced with an unexpected expense during her pregnancy – having to pay her OB/GYN for her full delivery six months BEFORE she delivered her baby. This practice is becoming more common as OB/GYN providers are looking to protect their time and investment in caring for maternity patients sooner by asking them to pay the professional bill ahead of time. Depending on your health insurance, this could be over a $5,000 out-of-pocket expense.
My client was faced with this exact scenario and wasn’t in a position to pay the bill due to her current financial situation of living paycheck to paycheck. I helped her navigate this challenge in three ways:
1. I guided her on how to negotiate with her OB/GYN practice to set up a payment plan that would be more manageable for her financial situation
2. I helped her assess her current finances to determine if there were any existing expenses that she could pause or stop altogether (such as streaming services or unnecessary dining out)
3. I helped her determine what the first year of her baby’s life will look like in terms of costs and impact to time
The quick result was that she was able to stay cashflow positive while paying of her OB/GYN medical bill early and the game-changing result was that she was able to enter parenthood financially prepared and stress-free. And the cherry on top? She finally got her partner on the same page financially in terms of what their major expenses will be in the first year of having a baby and how to manage their money in a way that both partners feel good and is consistent and clear with their lives.
She was incredibly grateful for our work together and especially appreciated my ability to guide her as a coach while also being interested in her well-being as a first-time, expecting mom.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Setu (pronounced “Se-thu”), and I am the Founder and CEO of Financial Doula – a consulting service dedicated to helping expecting and new parents financially prepare for the amazing journey into parenthood. I help expecting parents through 1:1 consultations, group coaching, in-person and virtual workshops, and online courses. My support begins with helping couples understand their relationship with money and how they manage their finances as one household unit. Once that foundation is built, I guide clients on how to build their custom Baby Budget based on their unique circumstances and help create an easy-to-follow action plan that allows parents to prepare quickly and reach their financial goals. Areas considered in the Baby Budget include fertility (optional), mom and baby expenses, health insurance/medical bills, parental leave, postpartum services, childcare, taxes, insurance, investments, time management, and more.
Most first-time, expecting parents today are left to their own devices to prepare for their first child. That often means they are turning to various friends and family members who may give them conflicting information, searching Google or social media platforms and getting overwhelmed with information, consulting their employers but getting the short end of the stick, getting confused by childcare options and what’s right for their family, and forgoing necessary investments and insurance that will protect their family.
And when you dig a few layers deeper, there is bigger challenges that new parents could face – having to align as a couple on values and priorities (and finances), having to figure out what it means for one parent to “take a step back” from their career, and having to deal with what it means to set your family up for success now.
Working with me will help you solve these challenges. You’ll work with a third-party maternity & budgeting expert who truly cares about your family and is there to help you understand your money mindset and relationship with money, help you get aligned with your partner, and create one place to manage everything you need to buy and prepare in your first year of parenthood. Along the way, I’ll help you save time and money, create options and flexibility, and secure your family’s financial future. I believe all parents deserve to enjoy the beauty of parenthood without the burden of financial stress, and I’m on a mission to get every family there.
A little bit about me – I have over 15 years of finance, healthcare, and consulting experience and have an MBA from Emory University Goizueta Business School. Additionally, due to my accountant immigrant father, I have lived and breathed numbers and spreadsheets for most of my life. However, my most important job is being a mother to my sweet, two-year-old boy. I strive to be a positive role model to him every day. Alongside building a business and being a mom, I am also a dance instructor at the local YMCA and a board member of Emory’s Goizueta Women’s Alumni Group (EWG).
Financial Doula has been featured in Business Insider, Babylist, Newsweek, BestLife magazine, and more and built hundreds of connections in maternity, parenting, and expecting mom communities. I am excited to continue to build momentum and make an impact on growing families. Reach out anytime at [email protected] – I can wait to meet you!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Becoming a mother comes with many lessons, and I learned a big one the hard way. Before having my son a couple of years ago, I am ashamed to admit that I had strong preconceived notions about what it means to be a working mom vs. a stay-at-home mom. I grew up in a family where my mom never stopped working (even after having kids) and in an extended family where every single woman with kids worked full-time. That’s all I knew, and I felt strongly that was the only way to be a successful woman. I thought moms that “stayed home” with the kids did so by choice or because they didn’t want to “work hard”. Boy, was I mistaken.
After the loss of my job when my son was only six months old, I found myself in a situation I never imagined I’d be in – a stay-at home mother. I was unable to find another job that allowed me to keep my professional title but also offered the flexibility I needed as a new mom. I was conflicted between knowing I shouldn’t give up my career but wanting to spend every waking minute with my son because I knew this time with him was limited. And despite having access to childcare and resources, I was struggling to “manage it all” due the demands of taking care of a new home, a new baby, aging parents, and needing to be a supportive partner to someone with a very demanding career that was primarily out of the home.
I never imagined that I would “stay home” to care for everything and everyone but that’s precisely what my family needed at the time. However, I struggled for quite some time coming to terms with this reality. I truly felt I had lost my identity because for so long, my career defined me. It took me a long time to realize that I never lost my identity but instead I finally found it – it just looks completely different and is much more than one phrase. I am a successful professional but I’m also a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, dancer, founder, board member, and so much more. I finally realized that it was ok to prioritize and value other things beyond my career.
As I found my footing, I discovered that so many new moms felt the exact same way. Loss of identity and grieving your old self are common feelings after becoming a mother, and I knew I wanted to do something to help moms heal in this journey. Part of my identity struggle was the fact that I became financially dependent on my partner and was no longer contributing to our family income after the loss of my job, and I heard many similar stories of women having to take a step back in their careers (and financially) after entering motherhood (also known as the “Motherhood Penalty”). That’s how Financial Doula, LLC was born. I firmly believe that motherhood should not be a reason why women take a hit to their financial trajectory, and it’s my life’s mission to help new parents financially prepare for parenthood, protect and secure their finances, and maintain their financial potential regardless of whether or not they are forced or choose to take a step back in their careers after having kids.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
My clients are like family to me, and I’ve been lucky to work with some incredible expecting and new parents. After almost a year in business, though, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that the best source for getting new clients has not been my own sales and marketing efforts but instead the referrals given by local mompreneurs and mom-focused businesses. From lactation consultants to newborn photographers, I’ve been fortunate to build a network of unofficial referral partners that see tremendous value in Financial Doula and willingly refer me to expecting and new moms in their community. I am extremely grateful for my partner network and look forward to continuing to nurture and grow these important relationships.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.financialdoula.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialdoula/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourfinancialdoula/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/setukshah/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FinancialDoula
- Other: [email protected]
Image Credits
River West Photography