"As a mother you have to divert your attention from your personal goals and focus on your child. It is common to have 'wake up' points throughout childrearing where you question what you’re doing for yourself," said Laura.

"As your child grows older you gain more autonomy with your decisions, however you may not always know what to do after focusing on others for so long.

"In my own journey as a mother, I struggled to do things for myself or work out how to allocate my time and money. I wrote this book to help people who were in my situation, as there is not a book or course that focuses on mothers, mental health and finance all together," she continued.

Laura now works as a psychology lecturer and runs her own professional mentoring business, which helps mothers at any stage of parenthood to achieve and focus on their personal goals.   

"The critical thing I learned when writing this book is that every woman experiences the same loss of a sense of self and identity when they become a mother," she said.

"No one teaches you how to balance being a mother while trying to reach your personal goals or how hard you are hit financially during parenthood. I hope that my book is able to help mothers plan for the future, become more confident with money and learn to ask for help when they need."

Laura graduated from UEL in 2018 and credits her organisational psychology course as one of the reasons for her success. Since graduating, she now works as a mental health mentor to students at UEL.

"My course at UEL gave me the psychological underpinnings and confidence to write my book," she said.

"I have very fond memories of my time at UEL. When I started my course, I felt accepted. I knew that UEL was where I could grow personally and reach my career goals. I still feel a part of the UEL community. I feel great admiration for UEL as we have the same core values of social mobility, education and personal growth," she concluded.

You can buy The Independent Mum's Handbook on Amazon.