First off, I have to say THANK YOU to those of you who have stopped by and commented! I didn't even know anyone knew this blog existed. The kind words of strength and support from you have buoyed me up on more than one occasion, so thank you for taking the time to visit me here and empathize with us.
Yesterday, we got to meet with a financial advisor. I was NOT in a good mood about it. I had had a long day at work and was not interested in going to meet with a guy who was only interested in selling us something we didn't need, or hadn't done enough research on to decide if we needed it or not. Boy, was I wrong! We got into the elevator and took it to the 3rd floor. I was still angry. Mr. likes making out in elevators. I normally like it too. Yesterday, I wasn't interested. I didn't want to be there.
We met the advisor at the door and he walked us back to a conference room. After some short introductions, we dove right in to our plans for the next 40 years. We covered the basics, and then we dropped the infertility bomb. Because of our situation, we need to be keeping a lot more in savings. We probably won't be buying a home when all of our peers are buying homes. We probably will need to have a serious plan for saving up for missions or education for our children. But the advisor took it all in stride. He treated our unique financial situation like just one more thing to think about when making our overall plan.
And then it struck me, this is just a thing. Our infertility gives us a few different cards to play with, but they're our cards. It's the hand we've been dealt and it's nothing a little extra planning can't fix. (the financial side of things anyway. The emotional side of things is a completely other story!) I've been moping around because we will be living in apartments for what seems like forever. We probably won't be able to buy a car, even though we really need one. We will be scrimping and saving for a long, long while. But if we are smart now, we can plan for our future just like everyone else. We are starting earlier than most. $100 to us now is so much more valuable as an investment than it is in our pocket.
We talked for 90 minutes and not once was there a sales pitch. He asked us what we would like to cover next week and told us up front that he is paid on commission, but that he would not be selling us products. I loved that he wasn't sneaky about things. It was completely transparent. Completely different than any other firm I've met with. He was empathetic to our dream of starting a family, he got all jazzed right along with us when he started putting pieces together to make the financial side of things a huge possibility. He took into account our need for a car, how my benefits at work will be of greatest value to us, how to cover ourselves and maintain our financial independence while still being able to meet the $25K requirement for in-vitro. This man loves his job. And he has figured out that the money side of things will come if he just takes care of his clients.
Some of you will probably think we got schmoozed, but not one cent left our wallets. And he assured us that our money would probably stay in our wallets during our next meeting too. And the value of our discussion was much, much more than we could have imagined. We are on the same page, financially, our plans are in motion. We are completely empowered.
It's amazing what one little meeting with one dedicated and passionate man can do for a couple who once considered themselves hopeless from a financial standpoint.
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