A penny saved and a penny borrowed???

There are as many ways to finance adoption as there are ways to adopt. But in today's world of the credit crunch, parents may have to be more creative. It's not so easy to get a signature loan or quick home equity line of credit. Credit card limits are shrinking and while expenses are increasing faster than our paychecks, in many cases. Hardly an ideal environment for heavy duty saving.

Parents are having to be more creative than ever before. The rest of the week I'm going to post ideas I've garnered from parents over the years. Some of them are really quite creative.

I used a variety of ways to raise the money. First, I saved like crazy. This might sound silly, but a penny here and a penny there add up faster than you think. Most vacations with airfare for two cost $2-3000 dollars. Most Americans spend a thousand dollars a year on clothes. Skip the ten dollar lunch only twice a week and you will save over two thousand dollars in a year. Doing just these three things will save a couple $9,000 in the course of one short year.

There are great internet resources for saving money such as http://www.101waystosavemoney.com/ and http://www.tightwad.com/.

I took out a home equity loan, used credit cards and borrowed from my 401K. I put the word out I was having a garage sale when I found out my 2nd was a boy and sold all of my "girly" baby gear. I was amazed, but it paid for my airline tickets. I sold collectibles on ebay and used books on Amazon.

Anyone else? How did you fund your adoptions?