Before I get too deep in the post, the possibility of fundraising should excite you, if you are someone who is trying to find a way to afford an adoption. The possibility should convince you that YES, you can afford to adopt. I really think this was one of the things that tipped the scales in favour of our adoption. Will we actually do it? A whole other question!
On affording adoption
The most important thing we learned (okay, it was me... the hubs is mostly just an easy going soundboard) is that you do not have to have a large amount of money saved before your adoption.
Full disclosure, we had very little in savings when we started a few months ago, and if you were to count the savings against our line of credit from our home renovations, I believe we would have been south of $0 :S
Investigate what country you want to adopt from (including domestically.)
Find an agency that works with your country. Not to bog you down in details, but because of the province we live in, we actually have to hire an agency for the homestudy and another one to coordinate the country side. A little odd, and definitely makes things more expensive.
Investigate the fee schedules for the agency you like! They should be very up front with the costs. If they aren't I probably wouldn't use them.
Our adoption will never cost us more than $2,000 at one time, except for one big 5,000 euro payment right in the middle. $2,000 is about what we swallow when we renew our insurance, not that bad in the grand scheme.
You may have heard it before, but in general your expenses will be nickel and dimed away. It sounds a little depressing, but we knew we were spending money in small amounts on things we didn't really need. We could do better!
How to save the money
The method that helped us kickstart our nest egg for the first application fees and homestudy payment was all in my banking app. Every time I wanted to buy something and didn't for the sake of our future baby, I transferred that amount to a separate savings account. It didn't seem like a lot, but it added up fast!
We also went back to using our money jars like Gail Vaz Oxlade loves! We had kind of stopped because the hubby hated it and it was a little clunky to get out the cash, but boy does it work! I switched it up a bit this time by making the budget on paper and then tracking it with a budget app that uses an "envelope" system. Then I just keep the cash in an envelope in my purse, instead of needing to be home to grab cash from the jars. This works better for us, and the app allows you to quickly enter all of your purchases.
Grocery shop smarter. This is hard. Sometimes really really hard. Sometimes I just don't want to grocery shop this week. Family homes, this probably doesn't fly... two people houses can live on McDonalds and pickles. We need to grocery shop people. Its a sad reality but it does wonders for your budget. I read the flyers (sometimes we don't even get them, so I really like the Flipp app) plan my meals to be heavy on produce (better for the ol' waistline anyways) and use points wherever I can. We can get by on $45 - $60 per week, and we eat well.
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Sorry everybody! This is taking longer than I thought. Stay tuned for part 2. I am going to catch some zZZ
