Ok so more than a year before we left for Ontario
I became seriously obsessed with provident living and food storage.
Remember these posts???
Well along with these I was neck deep in meal planning, food storage,
crock pots and a myriad of other projects regarding food storage.
Including becoming involved in THRIVE a yummy line of freeze dried foods.
I had no idea how much this knowledge
would bless our family so much later.
Soon after Shane dropped the news he was now unemployed
I started thinking about things that I could do
to soften our expenses and stretch our pennies.
As a mom of course the first thing that came
to my mind was kids and kitchen.
Suddenly I had the opportunity to apply some of
the knowledge that I had acquired.
There were two things that I immediately
thought of in regards to the kids.
#1 I suddenly needed to make sure Ms. E was Potty trained
(pull ups are convenient but expensive).
#2 I also decided we could go ahead and move
Mr. T from formula to whole milk.
(Again formula being convenient but expensive).
Mr. T was a trooper and took the transition with ease.
Ms. E on the other hand lingered and lingered and lingered
(we are still lingering some days).
In the kitchen there were a number of things that were helpful.
I made a list of groceries that I was currently purchasing
that were simply not essential.
Of course I discussed the list with my husband,
which turned into more than one discussion.
Particularly Pickles - our kids love pickles,
they would eat a jar of pickles a week!!
HOLY PICKLED CHILDREN!!
I was certain Pickles were definitely not essential.
Shane however was not.
Another was Kraft Dinner,
Shane would happily receive this for his birthday.
He had NO idea that it cost almost 2 dollars for
a box of noodles when it was not on sale.
He enjoyed it so much we would cook 3 boxes
at a time to feed our family.
This quickly became a non essential.
Shane did not pout for long.
Next I made a list of the dinners I could cook with food already in the house.
I had moved 1000's of pounds of food across the country as our food storage.
While Shane was working I was adding to that storage by purchasing extras of foods
I regularly used while they were a good price.
Cans of soup, flats of Asian noodles, extra bottles of BBQ sauce and ketchup,
cooking oil, cake mix and a myriad of other items that I regularly used in cooking.
This store was building up and now the time was upon us to use it.
There was some transition - not all of it easy.
Freeze dried foods that I had purchased came with a bit of a learning curve,
the kids had become used to having a discussion about what supper should be
(I love cooking - just hate deciding).
Suddenly THIS is what is for supper, if you do not want to eat it
you may have bread and peanut butter.
Good thing that Shane and I both agreed that Peanut Butter was
DEFINITELY a staple we should not do without!!
I readily admit that I was in denial about how much food
we had in our house while Shane was working.
I did not realize how much food we actually had until it began disappearing,
and the shelves in the kitchen became more and more bare.
Shane had a similar experience, he eventually confided in me that
the empty fridge at the end of the week depressed him very much.
I was glad I had a simple answer for him.
That empty fridge meant that we were doing things right.
We were using every item we had on hand.
An empty fridge at the end
of the grocery week was not a sign we were failing,
because we had resources to fill it every week.
I definietly do not pretend that we did this alone.
We were incredibly blessed during harvest by friends who would gladly
share potatoes, squash and even fresh eggs.
At Thanksgiving Shanes family brought us dinner
and we had leftovers for weeks!!
I do believe that I was inspired along the way
as to how I could conserve food,
stretch food, and be more grateful for what we had.
It was not just a coincidence to me when I would find diapers on sale
for $19.99 instead of $26.99 and pullups for $7.99 instead of $14.99.
I know that the Lord was looking out for this little family,
helping me find those things our family needed.
When things were really tight I would stick to only essentials at the grocery store.
Bread, milk, eggs, cheese, yogurt, fresh fruit like apples, pears, and bananas
and some fresh veggies like broccoli and carrots.
For more than a month I fed my family on less than $80/week.
I realize now that some of this is phrased in the past,
I want it plainly known that we are still in the thick of things.
In April we started receiving assistance from the church
as even $80/week was looking scary.
We truly reached the bottom of our barrel, Shane heading off to Alberta
for training and work stretches us in different ways than just monetarily,
it stretches us emotionally, mentally, and for me even physically.
Next I'll be sharing our discovery of hidden pride
that we did not even realize we carried with us.
