Lately I have been hearing from women who would love for me to return to creating new podcasts. I took 2011 off from the work, but hope to return this year with new shows -- and perhaps a webinar series! I currently have 46 shows available, with more than 39,000 downloads. Here's what's available.

A will is a critical part of your estate plan, but it is only useful after your death. To protect yourself in the event that you are unable to speak for yourself, you must do more.

Did you know you can save money with Trust planning? And that a revocable living trust is not simply for the wealthy?

At our recent networking event in Toronto, noted money management expert Gail Vaz-Oxlade offered in the raffle a copy of her book Debt-Free Forever: Take Control of Your Money and Your Life. Here's an excerpt.

At the Philadelphia Choice Mom networking event, estate planner Laura Stegossi offered these 5 steps to a healthy estate plan.

This week I learned in conscious conversation with a fellow church member/realtor that maybe I should NOT sell my house after all. I've had this mindset that to simplify my life I need a smaller house. Ultimately, I discovered while sitting down frankly with my 2010 spending habits, that it's NOT the expense that is draining.

From new Choice Mom-friendly estate planner Chris Tymchuck, of Unique Family Law: When we saw a man on the side of the road asking for money, my 3-year-old daughter asked, "what is he doing with that sign?" I braced myself for a difficult conversation.

Three noteworthy news items to share with you this week....

It's great to find this community, and I'm so excited to get to know you all! My story goes like this. I was married to a wonderful man, John....

A Choice Mom who is always thinking of ways to boost the community emailed recently to suggest a "sperm sharing" service.

Here it is! For a limited time, the special new baby for our Choice Mom community. Our Choice of ChoiceMoms.org tips from 2010, featuring everything from Organization to Building a Support Network, Q&A to Commentary.

I've been reminded in the last week just how fragile life is. A Choice Mom friend unexpectedly lost her younger sister last week -- a mother of three -- in a tragic accident. And a neighbor couple are BOTH battling cancer, one of them terminal, with 7- and 9-year old daughters at home.

We can't all be prepared. We lose our job. Emergencies tap our reserves. We find ourselves accidentally pregnant and not quite ready for the daunting responsibility we embrace. Here's one resource that is reaching out to offer help.

I didn't have life insurance until a few years ago. If you've also put off this step, watch this video

I'm hearing from many Choice Moms these days who are stressed because they can't afford fertility treatments, and don't think they can afford adoption. But adoption IS affordable, especially thanks to this grant -- with a deadline of October 15!

So many of us "wait" to have that first baby until we have a certain amount of money in savings or until school loans are paid off or until we have a bigger house. Whatever the reason, most often those are superficial reasons and if we "wait" for these things to happen, that baby doesn’t come!

Are you a Toronto-area woman in debt because of fertility treatments and/or pending newborn? Are you on the Choice Mom path anywhere in the world and want to get out of debt? Then read this....

This service is designed to recommend estate planners who have a special connection with the Choice Mom community, either through commendation by a Choice Mom client, or sponsorship of Choice Mom workshops or other educational resources (signified here with direct website links).

Are you struggling (alone) with the weight of deciding whether to persevere with costly fertility treatments? There are mental health counselors who specialize in the fertility industry who are here to help you. This is great, detailed advice from one of them.

The topic of using estate plan templates -- kits with fill-in-the-blank options about guardianship and will issues -- came up among a group of single mothers by choice recently. A Choice Mom and attorney in the group offered her insight.

This is a continuation of Lori's story, who realized that someday her donor-conceived child might need to qualify for federal student loans. Since the paperwork requires income records for both parents, and since there are plenty of other occasions in her state of Alabama where having a blank or "none" on the birth certificate might not work with government employees, she wanted to be proactive. She was surprised to learn recently what she really needed it for.

submitted by Lori
Will you ever have to prove your donor child doesn’t have a father? When I gave birth to my daughter via anonymous donor IUI in 1999, I hoped that the information regarding her father would be left blank on her birth certificate.

I lived in New York City 18 years, so it's always a little odd for me to fly in and out of town for a weekend workshop, as I've done the last two visits. But we do pack a lot of information-sharing and support into these events, and the NYC event held in July 2010 was quite dense with resources. Here is some of what we shared.

I am happy to announce that Choice Moms® is launching a growing library of regional resource guides for the Choice Mom community. The first guide is now available, with its ongoing collection of insights and tips offered by experts and single women specifically from the New York City area.

Thanks to the generosity of Choice Mom Emily, I've been able to spend a wonderful 10-day holiday in London with my kids and parents. While here I met in Coram's Field with 14 women, including Moms, Thinkers and Tryers from Belfast, Dublin, Belgium and many others in the United Kingdom. I also met with a large group of Ph.D. students in Cambridge, who were interested in the Choice Mom story.

We all know it's not healthy to be in debt. But when you've got fertility or adoption costs, a home to set up, a safe car to invest in, loans to pay off, and childcare to save or pay for, raising a child on one paycheck can be incredibly daunting. One friend of Choice Moms at numerous workshops has been Ameriprise, which offers this advice on debt.

That's how much it reportedly costs to raise a child these days. That is, if you are part of a married couple with middle class income. The report indicated that the amount you spend on a child depends on what you earn. But here's what the average costs tend to be.

If you need to get creative about finding ways to pay for fertility treatments, here are a few tips from Choice Mom-friendly Laurel Fertility Care (San Fran):

Some Choice Moms embark on this journey because they have high-powered, high-income jobs and can afford to build a family on their own. Others don't earn that much. For those who are trying to pay off debt and keep on top of bills in order to balance single motherhood, here are more tips from author Kara Stefan, author of "Head of Household: Money Management for Single Parents."

Laurel Fertility Center of the San Francisco area became a Choice Mom sponsor in May 2010, which means they will regularly be featured on this website for tips related to fertility treatment. Here are tips from the clinic's Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh about how to get the most for your fertility dollar.

At the San Francisco event, organizational specialist Kim Guay of A Clear Vision Organizing offered these tips for getting ready for parenthood.

I recently discovered a great book by Kara Stefan titled "Head of Household: Money Management for Single Parents." It covers budgeting, childcare, credit, healthcare, housing, insurance and more.

May is "Money Matters" month on the website. This month we'll take a look at what we're learning and sharing, from each other and from experts, about financial matters. Starting with this week's Choice Mom query: As parents who might expect more help from our kids, but with one paycheck, how do we handle allowances?

I have managed to go 11 years without holding a full-time job. I am Choice Mom of two kids, own a large home, and am self-employed with ChoiceMoms.org now as my primary source of income. So...how have I managed to do that?

We usually include an estate planner at Choice Mom networking events, to make sure women understand everything they need to about protecting their child both BEFORE and after motherhood. Here's a tip that Julie, 28 weeks pregnant, learned from attorney Chuck Roulet at the Minneapolis event.

Uber organized Jessica, a Choice Mom in every way, will deliver her first child in a few months. While she was in the Thinking process -- preceding a long Trying phase -- she developed a worksheet that calculated how much she would need to spend trying to conceive, for prenatal care, for newborn items, and for post-delivery childcare expenses for a year. Here are the numbers she came up with.

Choice Moms Expo sponsor Joan Gilles, of Ameriprise Financial Services, offered this important tip about disability insurance. Admittedly, this is a form of insurance I hadn't given much thought to. But as single parents, there are a LOT of ways we need to be smart about protecting our assets, and this is one we need to understand.

The new health bill signed into law March 2010 has an extra credit for adoptive families.

I recently attended a talk by money counselor Ruth Hayden, author of "Your Money Life" workbook and many other resources for people who want to understand personal use (misuse?) of money and time. As she pointed out, the two are often linked. Here is some of what I learned.

At the Austin Choice Moms event we started to talk about ways to simplify, and add flexibility to our work life, so that we can enjoy more time with our kids. How do we do it?

There is often a misperception among Choice Moms-in-the-making that pay for IUI or IVF might automatically lead more easily to pregnancy than a couple simply having sex. As one woman wondered: "Why are the success rates so low? If I have only a 1 in 5 chance of getting pregnant, should I even be attempting this because of the expenses involved?"

I asked Louisville fertility specialist Dr. Steven Nakajima to respond:

If you're like me, organizing your financial picture so you can take the temperature of whether you can afford Choice Motherhood, or fertility treatments, or adoption, or an au pair, is not nearly as fun as those "Who Am I" surveys they make you do in third grade.

After a Choice Mom died in her third trimester, leaving a son born posthumously, we became more aware of the importance of having an estate plan in place -- as this Choice Mom had done -- even BEFORE we conceive or adopt.

Dawn Davenport at Creating a Family is the source I trust for up-to-date adoption information. Here is some of what she's compiled about the various costs of adoption.

Don't miss the special section about the costs associated with fertility treatment.
In addition, Choice Mom Marinela did a comparison of fertility drug costs by calling various pharmacies. Here's what she found:

The expense of fertility drugs is depressing, even for couples with two paychecks, or for people who are fortunate to have good insurance coverage for fertility treatment. Here are some options for learning more about absorbing the cost and finding good prices.