Ya. About that. Pretty much stuck is the short answer.
My husband is very OCD (which if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time you know!). His shirts are hung in groupings, he can't go to bed with dishes in the sink, and money... it's a huge deal for him.
Before I married him, I would go to the gas station and fill up so that I had $.43 left in my account... now, if we get under a certain number in our bank account (well above what a month worth of income is for us), we are 'almost broke' and 'have to watch our spending'....
Ya, its sometimes annoying. Really Annoying. BUT- I'm grateful, because I'm a spend-a-holic, and he is a save-a-holic. Without him penny pinching me, we would have never have paid off what we have in the last two years. Several credit cards, furniture, a computer, my car (well- that was a present from my parents), and my student loan. We've really kicked some ass when it comes to paying off debt. Right now, besides our monthly payments for utilities, cable, phone, stuff like that, all we owe on is his truck, and our house.
Pretty dang good.
But, we've been working at being 'debt free' for so long I've hit my wall. I think. Actually-I'm pretty sure.
So, back to the 'building our family' thing.... my
So... for now, I just have baby feaver, and I'm saving our money. I've talked about the couponing that I do, and stuff like that, so they way we have set up our budget, any extra money left over in certain categories will be directly transferred to the truck as 'principal only' payment...
It seems like an insurmountable task, so I've decided to keep a running tally on the side of our page, how much I've 'saved' from smart shopping (coupons, buy one get one, etc), and how much we are able to actually transfer to the truck... So far, the biggest chunk was $2,000 from our taxes, and just a little bit here and there...
So. That's the plan for now.
BUT- when you really think about it.... we think the adoption is about $18k, give or take, with the $13k for the tax credit, and the military's $2k they give us...that sure is looking a lot like $3,000 for the adoption, of total out of pocket costs... granted we would have to pay the payments on the HELOC/loan/credit card/insurance policy cash value however we would pay for it, until we get the tax return. But really. We could do it... now- just to convince him.
WIth the adoption I'm in the process of, we pay in chunks: application, home study, match, placement, post-placement/finalization, so that helps make it more manageable.
ReplyDeleteJust something to consider, since you don't have to have all of it at once. Once you are home study approved, it could be a long or short time until you are matched and things move forward. I'd go talk to the agency to get all the info so you can make decisions based on that. If I looked at the "sticker price" alone, the "sticker shock" makes it seem unattainable. Good luck with your decisionmaking!