I mentioned a life-changing decision that me and boyfriend were discussing on Saturday.
Well here it is.
We are not engaged. We're not pregnant.
We are, however adopting a child. His child.
Nothing is signed on paper yet, but this little one is going to be in our custody. We will be her primary guardians, and have her from Monday to Friday, while her mother has her on the weekends.
While this is a good thing, it has a lot of scary aspects to it. Yes, I am going to talk money.
One tough factor in our decision was boyfriend's work schedule. He does shift work - so any day of the week, and any hours between 10am and 10pm. The shifts all vary. I work Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm. She will need to be in daycare through the week, and I will be the one responsible for both her and Chloe after daycare when boyfriend is at work. That right there is a ton of responsibility.
The biggest factor in our decision was money. I would say that we're somewhere in the lower middle-class. I joke that we're poor, but we get by. We have a lot of debt, and we have okay paying jobs. Just okay. We both need to work full weeks to get by.
Madi is an expensive child - she is still in diapers, and she has a lot of dietary restrictions: gluten, soy, dairy are all things she can't have at this time. Paying for more diapers, and food to fit her needs will be a bit more than we're used to paying.
And daycare. Since we're low income, some of our child care is covered through the government (Thank YOU Canada). Chloe's child care was fully covered, but now taking boyfriend's income into play, so we have to pay a lot more out of our pockets for child care.
We are making money off of her though - we will no longer pay child support, and we will get a small amount of support from her mother.
We will survive, but things will be tough. We've always kept our money separate, but we are now going to be working off a joint budget, and it will be a tight one.
I am planning on becoming a big believer of menu planning, budgeting, and money saving tricks. I've already been researching a lot, and Blissful and Domestic blog has taught me quite a few pointers. I'll be sure to share what I'm learning along the way.
So here's to taking on a new child, and becoming frugal. Wish us luck. Somedays me and Chloe go a little crazy on our own. This will certainly be a tough adventure to get used to.
