Are you feeling the pinch of paying for your fertility journey?

With expenses like online and/or print resources e.g. books, supplements, higher quality food like grass-fed meat and organic produce, lifestyle changes, and, of course, fertility treatments, they all add up fast.

Most people just don’t have that kind of cash lying around.

They often pay for the expenditures in one of the following ways:

• using health insurance
• withdrawing from savings
• cashing investments
• charging to a credit card
• financing through the fertility clinic
• borrowing against their home
• asking for help from family and friends

Those aren’t the only options though.  Below are some alternative ways for consideration…

• Getting fertility treatments?
  • Ask your doctor for donated medications from patients who no longer need them.  My friend did this and saved $3000!
  • Shop pharmacies, including online pharmacies.  Use a spreadsheet to keep track since you might not get the best deal for everything you need at one shop.  Tip: Buy meds as you need them.  Do NOT (I repeat, do NOT) purchase them all at once. If for some reason, you don’t need them, you can’t get a refund.  The slight inconvenience of having to run to the pharmacy last minute for a refill is far outweighed by potentially spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on unneeded medications.
  • Ask your fertility doctor or acupuncturist if they need help.  They can give you a discount on your treatments in exchange for temporary office help.
  • Search online for IVF grants.
  • Choose a clinic that offers the best packages or even possibly refunds.
• Choose a health insurance plan that offers the best coverage for fertility treatments and/or acupuncture.
• FSA (Flexible Savings Account) and HSA (Health Savings Account)
  • These options are nice because having an amount automatically deducted from your salary is often less painful than having it show up in your checking account and flowing right back out.
  • Many of my clients use their FSA to cover their acupuncture cost.
  • Less common is the HSA but this might be preferred because any remaining balance can be rolled over to the next year, unlike the FSA where you must use it all by the end of the year or lose it.
  • Talk to your HR or insurance company about your options.  Here’s a nice article that explains them.
• GoFundMe
  • Asking for money is awkward.  Consider creating a GoFundMe page that you can share with your friends and family.  Instead of gifts for various occasions including wedding, birthday, Christmas, they can contribute financially.
  • Your loved ones want to help but they may not know how and this is one way to ask.  It requires that you open up about your journey though.
• Sell used items on Craiglist or Ebay or have a garage sale
  • This may not give you a windfall of cash but it sure is helpful to get rid of that clutter as an extra benefit.
  • A fertility tip is to clear out your junk to physically and energetically make space for a baby.
• Work for companies that offer health insurance with fertility coverage
  • This is a killer option especially if you want to make a change or if you’re looking for something part-time.
  • If you’re one of those women who have way too much time on your hands and spend hours researching how to improve your fertility, consider a part-time job to distract you.  Staying mired in a situation that you do not want to be in i.e. not pregnant only inhibits your progress.  You think you’re looking for solutions but you’re staying stuck on the problem.  Quickest way out is to do other things.
  • Check out this list of companies that offer fertility benefits here.  I’m really digging Starbucks because it offers part-timers fertility coverage after only 1 month on the job.
• Become an entrepeneur!
  • Fiverr is buzzing hub of freelancers from all over the world selling their services.  They usually start at $5 (thus the name) but a seller can include upgrades for more earnings e.g shorter delivery time.
  • If you have a marketable skill, consider joining Fiverr as a seller to make some extra cash.  I think everyone  has a skill to monetize.  There are gigs like doing research (who doesn’t know how to research online?), writing, editing, graphic design, animation.  The list is endless…  Added bonus is that as an entrepeneur, you can write off a lot of stuff.  For example, part of your home is a business expense since you’re working in it.  Talk to your accountant about that.
  • The other site known for freelancers is Upwork.  Sellers usually charge more but it’s good for more involved jobs.
  • If you’re crafty, you can sell your home-made items on Etsy.com.
  • Can’t think of a service to offer?  Scour Craigslist.com for free stuff that you know people want and resell on Craigslist or Ebay.  Love garage sales or flea markets?  Same thing – buy them for cheap and resell.  The fancy term for buying low and selling high is arbitrage.

Hopefully these suggestions helped spark some ideas to get more money flowing into your life.  There is no shortage of money.  It’s everywhere.  You just have to figure out how to create your own pipeline to all the wealth that surrounds us. .

We live in a world of abundance.  Of money.  And of babies.  As long as you think there’s enough for you, then there will be.