Family Sunday and Money Stress (Adoption is EXPENSIVE)

It isn't even 130 yet and we have accomplished a TON today! While we had a lot that we needed/wanted to accomplish today, we've been doing it at a calm pace and together as a family, so it has been very enjoyable. I just keep wondering how many Sunday's we have left as a family of three.

Today I drove the mini-van to the grocery store for the first time. Opened up the sun roof and just smiled!!! It is ridiculously funny to me how a ten year old vehicle with nearly 140,000 miles can make me so happy, but it totally does.

Big thing on our minds right now with the adoption is the cost. Several factors are at play right now: we set our match budget with the agency and went slightly higher than average in order to get our profile out to more birth mom's. When we set that number though we had expected Squishy to have gotten his bonus from work, but now we won't get that money until sometime between late September and late November. As I mentioned in the last post, we are Dave Ramsey converts and so we do everything with cash. We could get a credit card to pay for some of the upfront fees so that we have more available cash (the only thing they accept for matches), but that just doesn't feel right. Besides, we've already accepted that fact that we might have to use credit for the travel portion of the adoption. So that leaves us with several options:

1) Lower our match budget. The amount of cash we have on hand right this second is exactly what the average adoption costs. While that is great, it means we won't be shown to birth mom's with higher expenses/needs, thus possibly increasing our wait time.

2) Delay activation until the bonus comes through.

3) Keep our match budget the same and ask family members for personal loans to help in the event we get matched before the bonus comes through. While the amount of money is relatively small and spread out over several parents and grandparents we think it would be manageable, we really hate to go this direction. We very much pride ourselves on our financial stability.

I've always been a stress ball about money. I'm starting to look into loan programs and the military will help us with some costs after the adoption is finalized. Plus we will get a nice tax break. But none of that helps us right now if we get the call before Squishy gets his bonus.

If it was just me, I would turn off the Internet, cancel my cell phone, and just live on ramen noodles. But that's not really want I want this experience to be about for any of us. Yes, I am desperate for another child, but I don't want my memories of getting Spud to be about deprivation. Instead, we are cutting back where we can (mainly going from 6 meals out a week to maybe 1) and just really budgeting carefully.

In the meantime, I am still busy selling stuff, so if anyone wants to purchase a beautiful size 12 wedding dress, treadmill, tv, or carpet cleaner, please let me know. ;)