Costs/Fees

The average cost for our international adoption is going to be fairly higher than our domestic adoption was going to be. Texas Baptist Home was in the low $20s which is one of the lowest for similar domestic programs, which tended to average about $30K when we were looking. International programs are not necessarily more but the program fee Korea charges happens to be about $10K higher than most countries, second only to Haiti. A brief summary of Holt's schedule of fees is below:

Item Avg Cost Application Fee 300 Adoption Study Fee (Home Study) 3,000 U.S Processing Fee 3,500 Adoption Program Fee (Korea) 22,500 Korea Travel Fee 600 Post-Placement report Fees 2,000 USCIS application 1,028 Adoption Education classes 300 Dossier Preparation 550 Travel Expenses 9,000 Adoption Finalization 1,000 Total  $  43,778 Several of the items above have a wide range of possibilities, so I just recorded the average cost. Thus the total can range from $34K to $54K. The largest wildcard, however, is travel expenses, ranging from $3K to $15K. We are trying to subsidize this cost as much as possible by purchasing airfare with miles earned on reward cards. It seems like there are always offers out there for 50,000 miles after spending $3,000 in 3 months, which is pretty easy to do just paying for basic necessities. Just don't tell Dave! So, obviously based on the numbers above, our fundraiser puzzle is still active! We saved enough for the last adoption but there's a big gap to fund this one completely. Another thing to look forward to though, is last time I checked, the adoption tax credit (~$13K) was still being given. Hopefully they continue this!