HOW MUCH DO FOSTER PARENTS GET PAID?💰FOSTER TO ADOPT #fostercare #fostertoadopt #usadoption

today we're going to be talking about foster care finances or foster adoption finances if that's what you're here for there's a lot of questions about how all this works so stay tuned and come on to my office with me so you want to know how much foster parents make well actually let's talk about this a little bit for foster parents don't make any money if they're doing it correctly I'm about to go into detail on tell you exactly how that works if you're considering doing foster care or adopting through foster care as a form of income then you're in the wrong place however if you're considering doing foster care or adopting through foster care and you're just not sure exactly how you can afford it then this is the right video for you because I'm about to explain all the details and the financial things you need to know about the foster care system so one of the first things I'd like to go over is how we get paid first off if you don't get paid like a paycheck the money that you get every month for your foster child or your adoptive child is meant to be a subsidy to reimburse you for the money that you've spent on them throughout the month and that's in place from the state to encourage people who may not otherwise be able to afford to take care of an extra one or two or three or four kids in their home but this is a way to help them be able to afford to do foster care or to adopt a child from the foster care system now the amount of this subsidy can differ from one state to another and from one child to another you get a subsidy check for each child that you have in your home and also that depends on the age of the child the amount of care that child needs and by that I mean if they have disabilities or any kind of special needs that may make them a higher point of care typically the older a child is the more the subsidy will be because they feel like those kids require more financial resources so another thing to consider in this is you can get reimbursed for mileage and I've heard different foster parents say different things about this but for my personal experience I love all of my mouth knowledge for my foster child's court dates for her any medical needs or doctor's appointments I logged mileage and they reimburse me for those and if you have a child in your home that qualifies for the age range for WIC they automatically qualify for a week as a foster child so that definitely helps out with formula with babies and just some other foods to supplement with older children as well also every foster child qualifies for Medicaid so their insurance is already taken care of they do not go on your personal insurance they have their own insurance through the state that should take care of almost all of their medical needs another part of the finances that you need to know as a foster parent is taxes now the way taxes work is you can claim a child on your taxes as a dependent if you have had them for most of the year so that is defined I believe at six months and one day or if you got them as a newborn most of their lives so if you've got if they were born you know the last three months of the year and you had them those last three months then you would claim them on your taxes so that gets a little tricky if two people are trying to claim the same child which has happened many times before so you just have to submit some paperwork and work that out and eventually get it corrected but yes if you've had the child for most of the year you can claim them on your taxes now you are able to look up how much your state subsidy is and the age range of the child on the internet simply look up foster care subsidy state by state and you should be able to easily find that information but if you just want to know kind of a roundabout number from this video I will tell you guys as an example what our subsidy is later on in this video now moving right along to adoption adoption from the foster care system is a little different than private adoption as far as the finances go that's because the state pays for your lawyer and all your adoption fees there may be a few document fees or different things or travel that you may have to pay for but for the most part the actual adoption is paid for by the state so that takes a huge burden off of people that aren't able to adopt privately because of expenses also something a lot of people don't actually know is that if you adopt a child from foster care typically you get to keep that subsidy until they're 18 I believe now they do have to qualify for this they do have to check a couple of boxes one of them being if they are part of a sibling group they will qualify for that I believe if they are above a certain age I think it might be three don't quote me on that and they are a minority I think they qualify for that and if they have any kind of health problems and those don't necessarily have to be significant health problems but something that's a chronic issue and I'm not sure every state does it differently there are certain states where every foster child automatically qualifies when they get adopted to keep that subsidy but that's not the case in every state so just know that up front most kids will qualify but not all kids if you have a perfectly healthy one-year-old that is white and not part of a sibling group they may actually not qualify depending on your state so something to keep in mind that's there once again because the state wants to encourage people who may not otherwise be able to afford to take on another child or two in their life but with the subsidy they're able to afford those extra expenses having kids now after adoption from the foster care system those children also get to keep their Medicaid insurance that's very helpful as far as our case goes we've plan on after adoption keeping our child on her Medicaid and also on our insurance one of them being the secondary insurance just for extra coverage you never know when you're going to need that what kind of catastrophe god forbid is going to happen in life so that's very helpful also and as far as taxes go after adoption there is an adoption tax credit and I believe I just googled it and the last amount that I could find was fourteen thousand eighty dollars per child now that tax credit doesn't mean you're going to get cash of fourteen thousand dollars when you do your taxes a year after adoption that's a liability credit and what that means is if you end up owing in on your taxes at the end of the year you can use that up to $14,000 to put you out of balance of zero meaning you won't owe anything on your federal taxes you can also spread this out over a five-year span so that's really nice our goal actually this year next year since we'll be adopting this year is to go in on our taxes so that we can really utilize that adoption credit so just something else to know about how you're gonna do your taxes after adoption I hope this video was helpful to you guys wondering exactly how much do foster parents make we don't make anything but if you're thinking about doing foster care or adopting through the foster care system and just aren't sure if you can afford to take that on just know there is help out there you get subsidies you get reimbursed for things so please take that into consideration when making your decision definitely don't do it for that reason but if that's holding you back from doing this please don't let it please know that those things are going to be taken care of for the most part as usual if you're getting any value out of this video please click the like button and consider subscribing to my channel for now anyway at this point in life I plan on doing at least one-third of my videos on foster care or adoption through the foster care system so if that's something you're interested in I promise at least in the first part of my youtube journey that is going to be quite a few videos on that so stick around to this channel and click the subscribe button almost forgot I promised you guys I was going to give you an example of our subsidy so we live in a state that has a lower cost of living plus we have a very young foster child so our subsidies probably on the low end of what you'll get but it'll kind of give you a ballpark number right now we're currently getting five hundred and thirty dollars a month a subsidy to reimburse us for the needs of our foster child we don't yet know for sure because of some things we've got going on with our child if we're gonna get to keep that after adoption so we will hopefully know that in a few months but that can kind of give you an idea of what you're looking at if you live in a state with a higher cost of living it might be higher than that if you have children that are older or if they have higher medical needs it will also probably be higher than that number but just give you a ballpark range of what you can expect all if you're new at this foster parent gig just know that you probably do need a little bit saved up for your first placement or when you get a placement for the first time I should say because you're not going to get that subsidy immediately in fact it may take a couple of months for you to actually get paid now you'll get paid from starting on day one of your placement but you might not actually see that money and those kids are gonna need things when you first get them so have $1,000 or so saved up in a savings account so that you can buy them things like bedding and clothes and food and school supplies and whatever else they may need because unfortunately often times foster kids come to their first placement with only the clothes on their bag as sad as that is that's how this works so just know that you're gonna be getting a brand new child you're gonna be needing to supply all of their needs right up front with a little warning so please have some savings there to start your journey but just know you don't have to continue paying all of that money every month you will get a subsidy eventually [Music]

Channel: Mousy Leigh

Views: 40,850

Keywords: fostercare, adoption, fostertoadopt, adoptionfromfostercare, fosterparentspay, adoptioncost, costofadoption, fosterparent

Id: 7T_5fk_2EKs

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020