ADOPTION: YOU CAN DO IT! Blog post #18, Chapter 13 – Finances, Subsidies, and Monthly Budgets

Posted December 23, 2016

I’ve been on vacation and missed posting the last 3 weeks, so am catching up today. My publisher has the book typeset, is finalizing the cover, with softcover print ready sometime next month, if all goes well! I hope you’ll read, enjoy, and share this excerpt from ADOPTION: YOU CAN DO IT! A Husband-Wife Guide for Successfully Raising Adopted Children in the Christian Home.

And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Luke 12:29-31

We are not to be anxious for our needs, but we are to seek the Lord’s wisdom in planning for our family’s needs. Many adoptive parents should embrace living frugally if they are going to enlarge their family. Because most adopted children need more time with their forever parents than even biological children do, increasing ones’ work hours outside the home to ‘afford’ adoption is not really an option. Family budgets need to be stretched, sometimes painfully, and adoptive families should get used to these stretching exercises as a way of life. Even if money doesn’t run in short supply in your home, saving and investing for your children’s future should be something that you do as well, so it is still wise to tighten your ‘budget belt.’

My late husband and I have been self-employed in home-based businesses most of our married life. He also taught college part-time during those 25 years. We had a budget that we attempted to stay within every month, and the good Lord bailed us out a time or two when circumstances sideswiped our efforts. It seemed He liked to give us blessings in the form of a monetary gift, a tax refund, or a bonus from something. If we had not decided to homeschool our children, our kids would have always qualified for free or reduced lunch at the local school due to our family’s large size and limited income. We lived modestly by owning a small home, shopping at thrift stores, buying used cars for cash, growing a vegetable garden, and volunteering to pick up the weekly load of groceries for our church’s food bank ministry thereby always had adequate food to eat.

When we decided to adopt, we prayed over how our monthly budget would accommodate more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. This meant that we would have to cut back by at least 10% in every area of expenditure, forego adding money to our savings for a few years, as well as eliminate any extras in our budget like couple’s dates, vacations, etc. We were willing to sacrifice financially for ourselves, in order to bless the children who would come to us through adoption. I’m not saying that to get your applause, just to share the information with you as fact.

We adopted through our state’s child welfare system so our adoption expenses were very modest: only a few hundred dollars for fees at the final adoption declaration in court. When signing all the paperwork with our case supervisor, we were offered Medicaid for our children, as our state provides that benefit for all foster and adopted children until the age of 18 or high school graduation (at that time we were medically uninsured ourselves, trusting in the Lord for our medical needs, but now we are a part of Samaritan Ministries medical sharing). Adoptive parents could turn it down if they wanted, but we humbly and wisely accepted it. The supervisor also told us that we qualified for a monthly subsidy because of our modest income, and that because our new children were labeled special needs, it would be more than the minimum. When everything was said and done, we were able to keep our monthly expenditures, per person, at the same level as we had before, and didn’t need to cut back as we had planned. God was really good to bless us in this way. We felt He called us to adopt, so we trusted Him in all aspects of proceeding with the adoption, including planning to sacrifice our time and resources. He is indeed good and gracious all the time to those who trust in Him. We don’t believe in a ‘prosperity gospel’ but do believe He will always provide exceedingly and abundantly beyond what we imagined.

sharimcminn

Shari Howard McMinn is an author, editor, farmer, writer, and most importantly Mom to 11 children. Widowed very unexpectedly on June 2, 2013, Shari continued the direction of her life built with her late husband, Cary, and launched her public speaking and writing business which he had often encouraged her to do. Drawing from her 'over the top' life, she writes non-fiction and presents PowerPoint talks on issues related to family life, including adoption, childhood nutrition, family economics, homeschooling, and proactive parenting. She is available for broadcast interviews and presentations in Colorado and surrounding states, as well as Florida and Georgia. A dynamic speaker, Shari engages the audience with her true-life storytelling and practical advice based on experience and biblical wisdom.