[manatee16]

My name is Ericka and my husband is Paul. We are intrested in adopting from Guatemala because we have heard of several couples that have had really wonderful experiences adopting from there. The only problem is we do not have the $25,000 it is gonna take. We are approved for adoption and foster care in Los Angeles County but there are very few infants that are not medically fragile. Anyway if anyone has any info on any grant avaliable please let me know. Thanks!
Ericka

[PattyR]

Ericka,

I don't know of any grants available, but I did just want to say a word of encouragement. When I first began considering international adoption, I thought I could never afford it. I certainly didn't have $25,000 stashed away anywhere. I really thought I just needed to give up on the idea because there was no way I could afford the costs. However, something kept pulling me back to the websites, photolistings, adoption forums, etc. One day I was reading and I read a post about someone who finally just decided to take the plunge and adopt a child. They stated something along the lines of, "is there ever really enough money to do everything you want to do?"

Something about that post really got me to thinking and I decided to take the plunge as well. I managed to scrape together the money for the agency fees and home study and began the process. Somehow as each step of the process comes up, I manage to find the money. I will have some loans to pay off when this is all finished, but I'm almost finished with the process and have paid most of the fees. I even managed to squeeze in a visit to my little sweetheart in Guatemala : )

It's amazing how many little ways I have found to cut back in my life. I haven't purchased "new" clothes for the past few years. I have purchased several things at garage sales, but not much new. I check out books from the library instead of purchasing them. I carry cans of pop with me instead of paying the gas station prices, etc. It truly is amazing when you put your mind to it. I have also had a couple of pretty successful garage sales.

I do hope you can find a grant that can help, but if not----don't give up! You will find a way.

Patty

[CRSR]

There is also the 10,000 tax credit.

[MarissasMom]

Hi,

We didn't have much luck - but my parents helped us out a lot. We remortgaged the house, got an equity line, and drained a small retirement account.

Try this website, they have a ton of resources:

www.angelfire.com/journal/adoptionhelp.html

Good luck! if there is a will, there is a way . . .

Amber Garrett

[Flops]

We heard a lot about adoption grants too. But I think very few if any adoptive parents ever get them. We went with a loan.

Flops

[ljohnson55]

Ericka:

Please be very cautious of anyone who contacts you privately claiming to know about adoption grants and their availability. I believe that the people who have posted here publicly have given good information, but there are those who will use this as an avenue to mislead you.

Check out the grants thoroughly, and demand real information that you can verify if anyone contacts you privately about adoption grants.

Best of luck on your adoption,
L

[allorton]

We got a loan through my husbands 401K. That is a good option if you can do that because you pay the interest back to yourself. Good Luck!

[Devora]

Ericka,

You might also want to talk with agencies about financial assistance they have available. For instance, the agency we are using for placement has grants that they provide to their own clients. We didn't apply, so I don't know a lot about it, but I do know that it's available. I don't know how common this is for agencies, but it's worth asking them about.

Devora

[DianaPrince]

I received a grant from my agency, and they were also willing to work with me on payments. If you haven't selected an agency yet, I would definitely recommend taking this factor into consideration.

Good Luck!

Valerie

[WANABEE'S]

Ericka

I certainly understand your frustration and concerns about this amount of money. My husband's first reaction was "all I see is $25,000 where are we going to come up with that?" We have since decided to adopt 2 so double that cost and then some. It took about 1 month for us to come up with a plan. The plan was to focus on our goal. We did have some savings but not nearly enough, I bugeted the "spending money" for the house, which included food and entertainment, to a bare minimum. We had a garage sale, the income tax return was put in the "kids fund" We saved our change. We usually alotted ourselves a certain amount of spending money per week. We didn't really change that but what we did do is put half into the "kids fund" unless we really needed it. Before we knew it the money added up. We also set a goal as to how much we wanted to save a month aside from all of this. We don't always make it but we come close. Believe me it does get frustrating at times but it is worth it... One last suggestion, if you don't have a car payment pretend you do..you will see how quickly your bank account grows.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Jane