I have spent a lot of time on the adoption forums and message boards over these last 8 months. I can tell you that I have learned so much and met some incredible people. The most frequent post I see is How do I raise enough money to pay for an adoption? I thought I would take a few minutes and share some things that we have done over the past 8 months.
My husband and I live a comfortable life. We have always been able to get what we need and what our children need. Of course when looking at adoption and the adoption fees we knew that we would have to watch what we spend and complete a few fundraisers in order to pay for our adoption. We are very careful and cautious with our money, we do not like debt and except for our house of course have been able to live debt free throughout our marriage. Knowing that about us we knew that we would not be comfortable taking out loans or emptying out any retirement accounts. We were going to do this the old fashion way!
When we started the adoption process we immediately set our budget knowing that over time that budget would increase as we continued to cut back and complete fundraisers. The first thing we did was a yard sale. Many adoptive parents start here. I do reccomend it as it went very well. I had posted on some of my local mom's boards that we were having a yard sale and if anyone was trying to get rid of stuff let me know I would be happy to take it off their hands as long as they didnt mind we sold it for our adoption. We had a few people donate some items and the rest was just stuff from our basement that we hadnt taken the time to clean out. It went very well.
From their I knew I needed to cut back on our grocery shopping. We averaged about $500 a month in groceries and I knew I could bring that down. I sat down every 3 weeks and organized my shopping list- I planned out my meals for each week and knew exactly what I needed. I then got on http://www.mygrocerylist.com/, I could enter everything I needed and it would tell me what stores near me had each item on sale. It was great. Now granted this would take a little bit more time because I would be having to shop at 3 different stores, but I didnt mind and it really wasnt that bad. I bought my meat and chicken at Costco along with cleaning supplies. I also took the Sunday paper and clipped coupons. Before I entered the store I went through the coupons. I also took advantage of Giant's 10 for $10 sales. If it was 5 for $5 or 10 for $10 I bought it! I was able to lower our monthly grocery bill to about $300 a month. This helped a great deal.
Also looking on a great website: www.mommysavers.com helped tremendously. Great tips and tricks on saving money everyday!
We also completed a fundraiser through Antiquities Portrait Fundraiser. We sold 60 tickets at $10 a peice for people to get their pictures taken. The pictures turned out great! These are the pictures above of my boys.
We also did two online Tastefully Simple fundraisers. We sent out an evite to all family and friends and was able to get 30% of the total sales toward our adoption.
We continued to save every penny- we tried not to go out to eat as much unless we had cash to pay for the meal. We used to just put it on the credit card and pay it off each month but now we were going cash only!
I am lucky to stay home with my boys. I love to take them places and keep them active. The best thing has been my mom's group. We have about 50 members and there is an activity to pick almost everyday of the week. The best part is most of these events are in people's homes. We got to get out of the house, have fun at no cost, I could have adult interaction, and the kids could make great friends. As our group became more active our playgroups became more craft oriented as well- now you can pick from tie die playdates, to play-doh playdates, to park playdates. It is great entertainment!
A big fundraiser for us is Hope For Reagan. I started this small fundraiser in honor of our future daughter Reagan. I custom make tutus for children and adults. I saw a tutu online and thought to myself, why cant I do that myself. So I researched how to make them and there you go! I was making tutus for people left and right! With my dance background I know how young girls love to dress up and pretend to be a princess so I knew little girls would love this!
Find a special talent that you have and run with it! The possibilities are endless.
We were also very lucky to have people donate money toward our adoption. We will never forget the generosity of those people! We started a chipin event on our website that people use to donate.
I tell you I still think in amazement that we were able to raise and save as much money toward our adoption as we have. We know that we can do anything we set our minds to. The people that participated in our fundraisers have been amazing! I will always be greatful!
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