Alex Schinasi’s father sketched the first Hulken on a hotel notepad in Paris because he was tired of breaking his shoulders carrying shopping bags. Six years later, Vogue named it the "it" bag of summer, and everyone wants to get their hands on one. Alex is building it toward a hundred million dollar brand with fewer than ten employees and no outside investors.

She runs it with her husband Johnny, also hosts the Unfinished Business podcast, and is raising three kids in Lisbon.

In this episode, she sits down with me to break down how she actually affords the lifestyle.

Alex and I walk through how she funded a physical product business without raising a dollar, the manufacturer relationship that let her front inventory before she had sold any of it, and how she and Johnny knew the company could finally afford to pay them. Plus, what her podcast costs to produce every month and why this fall is the first time it might pay for itself, why she takes out insurance on any purchase order above $250,000, and what her two previous exits actually did for her finances.

Alex reveals the AI infrastructure that’s part of her minimum viable company framework, including her chief of staff Freddie, who is not a person, and an entirely new business she announces on the show for the first time.

She gets into the Lisbon schools that cost a quarter of what New York private schools do, the thing about moving to Europe that genuinely surprised her, what her parties actually cost, and what she's working toward affording next.

Download Ashley's 'Become Your Own CFO' bundle (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/cfo-bundle) for everything you need to manage the money you make in a strategic and financially savvy way.

Follow Alex on LinkedIn and Instagram [HANDLES TO CONFIRM].

Listen to the Unfinished Business podcast [LINK TO CONFIRM].

Shop Hulken [LINK TO CONFIRM].

Learn more about Northstone (https://northstone-ai.com), the AI infrastructure company Alex announces on this episode.

Check out Ashley's Money Club (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/money-club) to join a community of women unabashedly going after their money goals.

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Paige Connell is raising four kids outside Boston and has become a refreshingly transparent voice on what childcare actually costs after posting her own bill on a whim. She's the creator behind She's A Paige Turner, host of the Just Us Girls Pod, and an advocate for affordable childcare and paid leave.

She and her husband became parents through foster care in 2019, six months before the pandemic, and she has since gone from a corporate job to a content business that replaced her salary and then doubled it. In this episode, she sits down with me to break down how she actually affords it.

Paige and I walk through the $60,000 to $70,000 a year her family spends on childcare, her household’s income trajectory, the freelance sales job she worked at night and on weekends to cover daycare, and why childcare costs are so hard for anyone to find in the first place.

Paige reveals the unpaid labor snowball that started after kids, the spreadsheet she and her husband used to divide the invisible work, and the time equity assessment that finally explained why she was so burnt out. She gets into the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood bonus, the one thing about her finances that people would never guess, and what she's working toward affording next.

Download Ashley's free 'Get Paid What You're Worth' negotiation guide (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/get-paid).

Follow Paige at @shesapaigeturner on Instagram(https://www.instagram.com/sheisapaigeturner/), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@sheisapaigeturner), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@sheisapaigeturner).

Subscribe to her Substack (https://substack.com/@sheisapaigeturner).

Check out Ashley's Money Club (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/money-club) to join a community of women unabashedly going after their money goals.

Take this quiz to get a personalized Wealth Building Blueprint (https://bit.ly/4v94g2C)

Brittany Valdes has been at Microsoft for thirteen years, and in that time she has also built a nonprofit, an AI-powered renovation company with her husband, and an AI academy for women. She is a fourth-generation entrepreneur raising three boys and 23 chickens in Miami.

In this episode, she breaks down how she actually affords the lifestyle, starting with a number almost nobody can name.

Brit and I walk through the household system that runs it all: the $180,000 a year her family lives on, and why everything the businesses earn above that goes toward renovations, vacations, and investments. She shares how she and her husband run their budget like a P&L, the quarterly check-ins that keep it honest, and the small swaps she made to protect the number.

We talk about the egg business her sons run at $8 a dozen, and what happened when they learned that feed and electricity come out of their revenue.

Brit reveals exactly how AI puts money back in her pocket every month, from the QuickBooks subscription she replaced by building her own version on Claude to the hours of follow-up work she no longer does by hand. She gives her best advice for three types of people: someone intimidated by AI, someone trying to get promoted, and someone who wants AI to be their first employee.

Plus the family history that shaped all of it, what ten days in Hawaii actually took, and the early retirement she is planning in the next five years.

Join The Mother of AI Academy at themotherofai.com and use the code FISCALFEMME for 10% off.

Download Ashley's 'Become Your Own CFO' bundle (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/cfo-bundle) for everything you need to manage the money you make in a strategic and financially savvy way.

Learn more about The Mom Economy, Brit's 501c3 supporting female founders with benefits and parental leave, at themomeconomy.com. Follow Brit on Instagram at @themotherofai.

Check out Ashley's Money Club (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/money-club) to join a community of women unabashedly going after their money goals.

Take this quiz to get a personalized Wealth Building Blueprint (https://bit.ly/4v94g2C)