[jsp]

My wife and I are probably about to begin the process of adopting a child from Russia. This site has been incredibly helpful in providing useful information. There is so much to consider that I am often overwhelmed.
My main question for those who have adopted is, Finances? How did you afford the extravagant fees associated with adoption? What sort of creative ways did you come up with to raise money? Did you use some of the loan programs that are available? I hope I am not being too nosy but I appreciate everybody's willing to share about such personal topics.

[beckyww]

Fortunately, most agencies let you pay as expenses are incurred. You don't have to front every dollar at the beginning of the process.

Becky
The Woodworth Family in Beautiful San Antonio TX

[kretzklan]

For us, it was something we saved for and put into our financial plans. But, on a financial note - and not to scare you further - but do understand that the agency fee listings most often do not include many of the "smaller" expenses that will add up to not so "small" amounts. Things like apostiles, notaries, copying...TRAVEL! We spent about 5,000 more than the fee sheet listed. (travel in the summer is ungodly expensive)...

[amyfk]

HI,

I certainly understand your anxieties about the money thing. We own a home and took out a home equity line of credit. I dont think we paid all of it back.
We were a bit older at adoption too. My husband is now 46(he was 44 at adoption) so he had many more years of working and building up funds rather than say, a 27 year old in process.
I hope you can work it out. I feel badly that adoption costs as much as it does. And I dont honestly see why folks have to log in three trips now. Best of luck to you.
Amy K, NJ

[MamaChinch]

You can also look into any programs your employer may have available. I also re-financed my house, got cash out, plus a HELOC. There are a few webites out there that have some fundraising ideas, like garage sales, etc.

[proudmommyof 2]

We''re all lottery winners!

Just kidding!


Affording Adoption ...helping to make adoption an affordable option for every family! This site will give you specifics about grants, loans, etc.

For our first adoption, we lived in a house that was run-down, we bought it cheap, and fixed it up. We were able to borrow on the house.

For the second adoption, we had moved into a 100 year old house that was run-down, bought it cheap, and fixed it up. We were able to remortgage that house (our current and final house), too.

For our third adoption, the expenses were about a third of our second adoption. It was an older child (in Korea) with special needs, so there were grants, waivers, etc.

Still, all in all, we incurred close to $90K in fees in 5 years. We've paid off about $30-40K of that. The rest of it is tied up in mortgages, credit cards, home equity lines of credit. I'm not really proud of our debt, but we have the rest of our lives to work on paying it off. We started younger ( I was 24 when we started domestic adoption, 26 when Dennis was born), so I'm hoping that we'll still be able to retire in good shape.

Best of luck!

[Jessi_76]

Hi Jsp,

Welcome! I think just about everyone here can relate to your fear, and my comments and experience will be much the same as the PPs. You do what you have to do in order to have the family that your heart aches for. This is so much easier said than done, and yes, going to extremes, and employing every length possible to make it happen is sometimes not enough, sadly.

When I begin to think of how badly I have it, I try to realign my thinking to realize that some people don't even have the option at all. They are forced to live a childless life because of the exorbitant fees.

Let me share a little of our story with you:

Like the PP, I agree. You have NO idea how much it is going to truly cost until you get into it. For instance, like she said, not all agencies include estiamtes of all of the smaller costs, like apostilling. I thought I was aware of all of the little extras so I added them in myself. However, I couldn't have been more wrong. I added in $500 for apostilling. I was WAY off! It ended up costing more than $2,000. We had no idea going into it, that we needed a CPA, who cost us $1200, or a psychiatrist, that ended up costing us $1500+. There are SO many unexpected fees and it all adds up to more than you can ever imagine.

We estimated that for the two children we are adopting, it would cost $65,000 max. Oh my gosh...we were SO gravely off-base there that it wasn't even funny!! Our estimated total, at this time is $82,242. How in the world can we afford that, you ask???!!!! We can't!!! Plain and simple. Like PPs have said. We simply cannot. You imply any tactic you can possibly think up...that's what you do. I stress over the expenses of the adoption every single day.

I just applied for two grants, of which I am fairly certain we will not receive. Unfortunately, our annual income and value of our home will probably exclude us. The problem is though, we are living month-to-month so although it looks like we have a nice home and a steady, good income, we have zero discretionary spending left. We cannot take another loan! We have taken one HE loan to pay off debt from our fertility treatments which we had put on credit cards, and to pay for the beginning stages of the adoption. We have since used the entire $60,000 loan, as well as wiped out most of our savings. We were also given a gift from my parents, of $25,000, of which they totally cannot afford. They are trying to save for retirement, and had to take on a home equity loan of their own to do this for us. We didn't want to accept it, but we had no choice and they had already had the funds disbursed into a treasury check made payable to us.

To this day, as we prepare to leave for Russia in 10 days, we are $40,000 short of what we need to complete our adoptions. And, we probably have two or three months to come up with it. We have an open $50,000 home equity line of credit, which was offered to us when we took the loan.

Basically, unless a miracle happens and we are awarded a grant (which keep in mind, most grants exclude a large portion of the population due to race, religion, or HH income), we will have to tap into the HELOC and/or our credit cards, neither of which we will be able to pay back without great struggle. One last thought about grants is that unfortunately, you can't apply first to see if you'd get them, in turn know you'd be able to afford to adopt. You have to begin the adoption process, and complete your homestudy before applying. It's a leap of faith for people who must get the grant to afford it.

We are leaning toward using credit cards at this point, as they are unsecured and we won't be risking putting our home on the line. This is key! We will pray that with the induction of a new president this year, that the Adoption Tax Credit is not abolished before 2009. This affords adoptive families a tax break of around $11,000 per child adopted. Hopefully we can pay off the credit cards at that time.

I have been looking for little freelance gigs I can do from home for extra money, and we've talked about trying to start up some Web sites where we can hopefully earn at least a little money from Google PPC ads. We haven't done this yet, and honestly, it's just a thought...we probably won't ever get around to it with the chaos of travel.

None of the matching contribution programs which you will learn about on the Web were right for us. They basically require that you ask your church and/or friends/family members to pitch in. We do not feel comfortable asking others for money, or discussing the financial aspects of adoption with anyone outside of the adoption community.

Good luck to you! And, as tough as it is, don't let finances discourage you from your dream. I think if most of us here let money stand in the way, we wouldn't have children.

It is my greatest dream, when we have completed and emerged from our own adoptions, that we are able to help others by providing spiritual and emotional counsel to other families going through the journey of adoption.

Best Wishes,
Jessi

[cathvash]

Welcome jsp! Yes, it is daunting (but worth it)! If you use the search function (use the one in the gray box - not the one up top in the purple section) you will see a number of related threads from before. Some folks had some very creative strategies!

I have done this now twice on a single income. I financed the first with savings, and had to borrow (home equity) for the second. The total cost for the one last year was ~37,000 paid over around a year and a half. Most agencies do space out the fees pretty well.

You may or may not know that most people are eligible for an adoption credit from Uncle Sam that is around 11 thousand dollars. This means that for example, if you spend $37,000, you will get 11 grand BACK, so the actual final cost is only $26,000. Makes it a little easier to swallow... I put all my travel on credit cards, but paid it off in full when I got the tax credit to avoid those incredible finance charges.

Other ideas:

Some agencies include apostilling fees and orphanage donations in their fees. If cost is a big consideration, ask about total costs and what is/is not included.

Find a free notary service! My employer provides this for employees. Some banks provide this service as well. Some people have even paid the fee to have "Aunt Jane" become a Notary for a while.

Shop around for travel and hotels. My first agency tried to put me in a $600.00/night hotel room in Moscow, and I was able to find a much nicer room myself online for under $200.00. Many people save big by renting apartments while in Moscow (very safe and easy to do). Look at alternate air routing. You can find big differences in flight costs if you are willing to travel Aeroflot (which I have done - not too bad!) or make more stops. Keep luggage to a bare minimun to avoid overage charges. DO take some dried foods and buy groceries to eat in your room instead of planning to eat out. Restaurants in Russia are often quite expensive.

I have heard of some folks who borrowed money from family, and others who sold a car and downsized to one family car or to a "junker". A few people have made items to sell on ebay or to other adoptive parents (Russian music disks, Russian-themed quilts etc).

Check to see if your employer offers any adoption benefits as well... Not unheard of these days.

Good luck! Once you get past the money issues, things will fall into place!!

[TweetyMom04]

I sent you a PM.