It all started in 4th Grade…

I’m Melissa and have been married to my husband, Ryan, for eight years.  Ryan and I have known each other almost our whole lives.  We were in the same fourth grade classroom and were square dance partners in our music class!   We had a very short-lived “romance” of a few days and after it ended we remained friends. At the start of our senior year of high school we started dating again, and we’ve been together ever since.  It’s hard to believe it’s been 16 years!

When we married in 2001, we looked forward to starting a family together.  After a long time of trying to conceive naturally, we discovered that our chances of pregnancy were slim to none.  We decided to explore numerous options for adoption, and in 2008 we decided to adopt a baby (or twin babies!) from Colombia.  We were originally told that our wait time would be fairly short, 8-12 months, but unfortunately the wait time has increased to 2-3 years.  We’ve already knocked out 1 year of the wait time.

We’ve decided to use this unexpected 1-2 years for the better.  We’ve always hoped that I would be a stay-at-home mom, but never made a real, concrete plan to make that a reality.  And so we decided to make a better financial plan. Our goal is to actively pay down our mortgage, save more, live frugally, and explore ways to bring in additional income. We know we‘ve got a lot to learn in this process. And we plan to share it with you as we go!