[Yash]

Hi,

I was wondering how you paid for your adoption?

Thanks,

Yash

[DisneyFan]

I see that you haven't had any response so I'll pipe up.

Our first adoption was funded through refinancing a property that we owned. Our 2nd and 3rd adoptions were at no cost to us since we adopted older children through our states foster care system.

[ourdreamcametru]

Even though our cost was not very much, we did a private domestic adoption, it happened very quickly and since we were not looking to adopt we did not have any money saved towards it. We took our a small personal loan.

[HappyTwinsMom]

We took out a personal loan...in fact, just paid it off last spring when the girls were turning 5 years old! Worth every penny, though!

[droach]

hello, did you adopt through a company that asks for their fees up front?

[jaenelle]

For Yuna, we wound up borrowing most of what it cost to adopt her -- most on our house but some on credit cards, too, when the house equity wasn't enough to finish it off. We don't want to do that again -- I REALLY don't like owing money and debt makes me very nervous.

For #2, we want to have the money either entirely or mostly saved before beginning the process, so we don't have to worry about coming up with money mid-stream and delaying the process, so we're trying to save whatever we can in order to make this go as fast as possible.

We have moved to a smaller house, so we owe less on it. We sold our other house for quite a bit more than we owed, and used the extra money to pay off credit cards, medical bills, Yuna's adoption, and my car, as well as a personal loan my mom gave us. We didn't have much left over after all that, but the money we spent each month paying on those things now gets banked instead of going toward payments. Our new house does need some things (new carpet, paint, and a few other things) so we're saving for those, too.

Our utilities are less because our new house is smaller, so that's a little extra savings. We no longer have credit card debt outstanding -- we are paying off the bills each month. My car is now also paid for, and DH's only has a few more payments on it. We also use coupons for anything we can -- we figure every little bit helps. We buy almost all of Yuna's clothes used (Goodwill or Salvation Army, mostly), and many of her toys/books as well. We buy generics for a lot of things, especially if we don't have a coupon for the brand name and aren't picky about it.

I figure up at the end of the month how much "surplus" we have, and some of that stays in our checking account as a cushion. We plan to buy the things our house needs with this money, mostly. The rest (anything we can easily do without, so it varies month to month depending on our expenses) goes in savings. When the savings account balance reaches $500.00 (the minimum to buy a CD at our bank) then we buy the CD. We figure we'll just keep repeating that process until we have what we estimate we'll need then we'll begin.

[Juliana13]

I just worked overtime like crazy before our first, and we did without whatever we could. So we did not have to go into debt. Then when the federal adoption tax credit trickled after finalization, in we squirreled it away into a separate savings account. Again we did without, and weere very frugal. We also sent a few hundred dollars a month to the "adoption" savings account. We considered it untouchable. It took careful budgeting, and sacrifice, buying most of DD'd stuff second hand - we figured she'd rather have a sibling thatn new stuff! By the time her baby brother showed up we were okay, and although we used ALL our liquid savings, we did not have to go into debt.

Now with the third... we are about halfway to where we want to be, but hopefully not only halfway through our wait time!!! We want a baby!!! We'd rather not go into debt - I am a stay-at-home mom and want to stay that way. But we have enough in our home equity line of credit, so we can handle it if it happens.

All I can say is SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! Be frugal, don't eat out, and put the money where you can't touch it. - We did CD's like jaenelle said. Every time we scraped together $500 or $1000. Then it's harder to get out until you need it.

Good luck!

[Juliana13]

I don't know how others feel, but I would be VERY wary of an agency that required high fees upfront. What is their guarantee? Do you get your money back if they don't work out? Is there a time frame guarantee? It makes me uncomfortable.

The agency we use requires $1000 up front, for the homestudy, interviews, paperwork, distributing our profile, etc. and the rest of the fee at placement. If we never get a placement, then we're only out the money they needed to do the preliminary stuff. I have heard horror stories of folks who are out thousands of dollars (like $16,000) and then no baby, ever. Too risky, I think. Make sure you check them out well.

[joelynn]

We researched agencies and options that didn't require large fees. We then saved and paid into our "adoption" account until fees where paid. Our first agency charged only fees that were required for that particular placement...our second agency was subsidized by United Way and private donations so we only had to pay the small fee that they set for all prospective families. Most of the bmoms and babies were eligible for medicaid until placement. They required all fees paid by placement so we paid into our account until paid in full.
We knew how much we could afford to spend and set out to make sure we stayed in that budget. Save is what we did. We rented at the time and didn't have a home equity to borrow from or any relatives that could loan us money so...we had to pinch pennies until we got it together. Finally we got it all back after our second finalization with the Adoption Tax Credit.

[Barksum]

There are low interest loans and even some 'grants' for adopting through Christian agencies. You can google for them. I used to know the web page that listed these, but don't have it anymore.

We thought we wouldn't be able to ever adopt because we didn't have the money to do a private adoption. We did get to adopt when God shoved us through the door, though! LOL We adopted through our state foster system and the money we paid for some of the costs was reimbursed at the time the adoption was finalized. We ended up paying only for a copy of the birth certificates (about $40 per adoption) for 3 of our adoptions, and about $500 for our 4th adoption. (Another state, and we had to pay some court costs. We also didn't want to have the paperwork amended to include the reimbursement of the money we paid for travel, etc., as this would have set the finalization date back by about a month, so we just paid it ourselves.)

The flip side is that our children all do have 'special needs', but I'm always hesitant to use that term since they aren't as serious as some other kids' special needs...but they are still there and the kids do have some 'special' needs, so I suppose I need to mention them. Prenatal exposure to multi-substance abuse, neglect, developmental delays, probable FASD, etc. Frankly we're just used to how our family is, so I don't usually notice much of the time. Other times it is more obvious, of course.

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by droach

hello, did you adopt through a company that asks for their fees up front?

No. We paid a fee for application, when homestudy was started, when we were matched (which was refunded if I recall if the match didn't work out...) and at the time of finalization. From time to time we would get an extra little bill because we paid some travel costs since we lived out of town. I would NOT work with an agency that required a lump sum up front.

[Adopted-B-4]

I was working as an RN before my boys were born and with 2 incomes, we were able to save. But our agency is one of those that you pay a small fee with the initial application, another one once the homestudy is done and the balance I think is due once placement takes place. And if things don't work out, the only money we were out would have been the original fees and homestudy fees, we wouldn't be responsible for anything else. Actually, this agency also helps if we were to find a birthmother on our own and they would take care of all legals and such but at a much reduced fee. There were couples in our orientation group though that had their churches help them through it through fundraisers and donations, so that is another way.

Good luck!

[nikkianni]

Our Golden Retrievers paid for most of our adoption. Three litters of puppies goes a long way.
We signed up for a no interest for 12 months credit card to cover the last couple thousand. We'll have it paid off with the tax credit long before we start accruing interest.
We didn't have to pay everything up front either. Payments were due at the home study, matching, placement and the last will be at finalization.