When I was in college, I made the financial mistake of not having any expensive hobbies. If I had been the type of guy who went out and spent $2000 on a ski weekend in Vale or $1200 on a new flat-screen TV or $1500 on new parts to turbo-boost my carburetor, I think I would have ended up having a lot more money at the end of the day. Big chunks of money like that would have been sufficiently painful to the point where I would have to budget for it, and only spend the money when I could really afford to.
Instead, I spent my money in a constant flow. A typical Saturday in college would see me rolling into the local coffee shop at 10am for a latte and scone, heading down to a music store for a few more CDs, eating lunch out, going to see a movie simply because the smell of popcorn was so great when I walked by the theater, going back to the coffee shop to see if any of my friends where there and buying another coffee, browsing for used books or clothes, going out to dinner, and then out bowling with friends. It was not unusual for me to blow through $100 in a day without even really noticing it had left my pocket. By the time I left college and was trying to make it on my own, I had accumulated more than my fair share of credit card bills and was screening my calls against the collections people calling me.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Betsy was living in a small house with her best friend and a random guy who was renting out the rooms. There was very little/no insulation and electricity is expensive, so she slept in a sleeping bag every night and woke up seeing her breath. The owner of the house kept the front unfinished to keep street appraisals from raising the property taxes. Every meal was homemade, or was brought in from home when she was out working at one of her two jobs. She paid for her college and living expenses without any loans, and made it out of college with money in her savings.
Living together has been an adjustment for both of us.
We’ve been together for about 6 years now, and we’ve spent a lot of time getting acclimated to each other’s spending habits. I have simplified my life significantly – I’m much more conscious of the amount of money I spend on food and coffee, I do my best to limit music purchases (if you consider 3-4 CDs per month limited, which is about half of what I used to buy), I’ve paid off all of my creditors, and I’ve developed a new love for simple pleasures like walking in the park, checking out books from the library or spending time in my friends’ homes rather than going out. I’ve also pulled Betsy a bit from her asceticism, convincing her to go out from time to time and (in an ongoing battle still raging to this day) to occasionally turn on the heat in the house above 60 degrees. Overall, I’d say that I’ve moved 70% of the way towards her, she’s moved 20% of the way towards me, and the last 10% gets to be our part of the standard money issues all couples get to figure out together.
It’s a lot easier to compromise, though, when we’re a pair of DINKs and the money we’re saving is the difference between a large savings account and a larger one. Over the next few months/years, things are about to get a lot more interesting as far as money goes.
1) Adoption costs. I’ve alluded a couple of times to the cost of adoption being rather high. I don’t want to get too specific in this blog about costs, even though the information is pretty public – it wouldn’t take a lot of research to find the numbers, if you were interested in getting a ballpark figure. Still, money is one of those things that can be sensitive to talk about, and I’m going to keep things pretty vague.
When we first started on this process, I figured that it would be somewhat expensive, but I had never really put a lot of thought into it. I imagined that it would be somewhere in the high 4-digits – tough, but well-worth it in the long run. When we first attended an informational meeting, though, and we finally got to look at an actual schedule of fees, my head was buzzing – it was considerably more expensive than expected. The price was roughly equivalent to a new car, and a fairly nice, fully loaded car at that. And while we had reserved significant amounts of money for these purposes, it became apparent that we wouldn’t be able to pay cash outright for everything. After having just finished signing up for several hundred thousand dollars worth of house debt just a few months ago, I was not looking forward to adding even more to my obligations.
For the first few months after we began the process, that was the constant hole in my stomach – I knew I wanted to adopt, and I knew that I would gladly sell off anything I owned for the chance at fatherhood, but just because I was willing, didn’t mean I was thrilled about it. Furthermore, it’s expensive already to raise a child, especially with the plans Betsy and I have (which I’ll write about below), and I was not excited to start with our bank accounts drained and monthly payments on debts due. I was waking up early in the morning if my thoughts drifted over to that topic, and I was trying to figure out the math that would make it all work.
And here’s some more of the vagueness I promised earlier. I started thinking about the possibility of my parents helping out in some way – a small sum to help us stretch out to the finish line, at lower rates than what a bank would charge us. We spent an evening talking about it with my parents, and they ended up making an offer that was more generous than we were going to be asking for. We’ll keep the specific terms between us and them, but we’re feeling more comfortable now after that discussion.
2) Raising a child. Unfortunately, the costs don’t stop at taking care of the fees related to bringing a child home – far from it. One of the ironies of adoption is that oftentimes the birthmother chooses an adoption plan because she does not have the resources to provide for the child in the way she wants it be provided for. After paying all of the adoption fees, it’s hard for us to imagine being in much better situation. (I’m mostly being tongue-in-cheek when I say that, as I recognize that proper resources goes far beyond simple “cash in hand”, but still, it does feel that way sometimes.)
Betsy and I are pretty firm believers in the idea of having a stay-at-home parent for the child. Neither of our mothers worked outside the home for the bulk of our childhood, and we count ourselves blessed for it. And since I’m the one who currently brings home a larger salary, and I have generally more marketable skills, it’s been decided that Betsy would be the one to stay home.
Over the last few months, we’ve started to try to imagine what the future might look like. Moving from a dual-income household to a single income. Feeding three mouths instead of two. Medical insurance and other bills. Diapers. Cribs. Strollers. Blankets. Toys. Books. The list of expenses seems nearly endless.
And we’ve barely gotten over the sticker shock of paying for our first baby, the 900 sq ft wood-and-cement whiner that always seems to want something else new. Every month since we’ve moved in, it’s been either a couple hundred dollars for insulation, or a few hundred more spent at Ikea, countless $10-20 trips to Home Depot or McLendon’s, or any number of other small costs and dings at the checking account that one wouldn’t expect.
We ended up having a long talk yesterday morning about how this was going to work. We have very different backgrounds when it comes to money, and consequently, this new challenge is being seen through different lenses. Betsy is uncomfortable spending money and likes to have a “cushion” available to her, and the thought of all of the expenses in the future are a huge point of stress. I, on the other hand, have no problem at all spending money, and I’ve lived in times where I was paycheck-to-paycheck and scraping by on luck, good looks and charm (okay, mostly luck), and I’m more comfortable considering the lilies of the field and trusting that God and our families will see to it that our basic needs are taken care of. Of course, when we get to that point, Betsy will be the one who our family will lean on for financial discipline and planning, whereas I’ll be semi-useless as far as that goes.
I think that the concerns about money end up showing again why I’m so happy to be raising a child with Betsy as my partner. We complement each other in a lot of ways like this. I’ll have some wisdom or confidence to share about one issue, and she’ll come back with the skills to implement it. Or she’ll have an idea or motivation to start living our life in a certain way, and I’ll come along to offer suggestions and my own experiences. Or I’ll have the stupid jokes about bodily functions that entertain our friends and each other, and she’ll have the good sense to keep me quiet in church. We fit together very well.
Money is not going to be easy, but it never is for any parents. If we decide that carrying a mortgage and having a single source of income for three people isn’t feasible, we’re ready to make the move back to an apartment if needed. But as I was telling Betsy the other day, “as long as we got each other, we got the world spinning right in our hands. Baby, rain or shine, all the time, we got each other, sharing the laughter and love.”