Financing has been on my mind a lot lately. We moved to our new house last September, but as of today, we haven’t sold our old house. So, seven months of two mortgages has made financing a huge deal.

Truthfully, we’re doing fine. My husband is a financial analyst and we rarely make decisions that we know we can’t handle, but we haven’t been able to save anything. If everything works out, we are closing on a sale on Thursday. I am cautiously optimistic. We’ve already had two offers fall through and this is the third. The optimistic part stems from the fact that we’ve never gotten this far before. Cross your fingers for me.

We have plans to adopt another child from Korea within the next few years. However, this whole house fiasco has really thrown us for a loop. Not only have we missed out on seven months worth of saving, we are also going to be pretty much emptying our savings because we’re accepting a loss on our old house just to get rid of it.

My husband is fundamentally against debt (which I agree with) so the thought of financing the whole adoption with loans isn’t even an option. Most likely, we will be “power saving” which means all the money we would have been using to pay the old house’s mortgage and taxes will go toward the “kid fund.” Depending on what happens in our lives, we might have to take out a small home equity line of credit. We ended up doing that with our son because he came earlier than we expected. For our son, the total adoption expense was around $21,000 so we are planning for that cost to have increased by the time we're ready to start the process for the second.

Anyhow, here are some ideas for raising the money that some people have shared with me:

• Saving, Saving and More Saving – Create a budget and stick to it. You’d be surprised how much you can save by cutting out some simple things. Eat at home more often, skip the morning fancy coffee on the way to work, pack your lunch, minimize your movie outings…
• Home Equity Line of Credit – We used this to finance the last part of the adoption costs. We found it cheaper than the traditional loan and we were able to deduct the interest on our taxes.
• Borrowing From Retirement – Some people choose to borrow from their 401(k) accounts. (As a 401(k) plan administrator, I tend to wince at this one. However, it is definitely doable.)
• Borrowing From Family Members – If you have someone who can lend you the money, this is generally a low interest or no interest way to do it. However, I would make sure that you can really afford to pay them back in a timely fashion. Otherwise, you have bad feelings within your family.
• General Purpose Loans or Refinancing Homes – I’ve not done this so I can’t comment.
• Fundraisers – Some people have told me that they have fundraisers (selling items, bake sales…). I cringe at the thought because I hate doing things like this. It’s a personal thing, but you have to do whatever you are comfortable with and if it gets results…
• Adoption Grants/Help – There are groups out there that will help you. Ask your agency about them. They should have a list.
• Work Adoption Programs – Some companies are now offering assistance for employees who are adopting.

We will most likely choose the saving option. This should be fine because we really need to wait until our son is a little older. Two children in daycare would be too costly (even with a discount).