Buying a house can be expensive… Haha, that’s an obvious thing. The price gets higher and higher with every new appliance or furniture purchase, too. After buying the necessary refrigerator, washer and dryer, and a couch, you could say our savings is getting depleted! Even though we have the money for it, and are being responsible, it’s put us on a tight budget this month and next month, as we make sure we have enough money for all the living essentials and closing costs coming up. We want to have as much security as we can so we’ve decided to use our food storage this month :) I am feeling really good about this idea for many reasons.

Let’s save some money, eh?

The primary reason we are doing it is to cut back on as many expenses as we can. With having most of our meals coming from our already purchased stock of food, we’ll cut our grocery budget tremendously and save money! As I was planning out all the possible meals we could make with what we have, most of our meals won’t require further purchases of ingredients. There are a few meals that will need chicken or fresh fruits or vegetables so those are pretty much all I’ll be buying. The other great thing about this is the more food we eat, the less we have to pack and move with us! We seriously have so many canned vegetables or fruits and I can’t imagine how heavy those boxes would be. So I am glad we can try to get rid of some.

I am really hoping my meal planning can improve, because I’ve been really bad at it the past six months. I used to plan out our meals each week, but then I acquired so many food aversions that I wouldn’t know what I wanted to eat or what I could handle eating until the day of. So I started to only buy meal ingredients at the store that I for sure knew we would eat in the week, rather than waste money on food that might not get eaten. This pattern over the months has cost me multiple trips to the store each week, which can be bad. We all know that if we go into the store, only to get two needed items, we’ll most likely come out with ten. (Am I right?)  I don’t know which plan is better to do, I’m still figuring it out! But in having to use what we already have to make meals, I’m hoping it will help me discipline myself in my food choices. THe other problem is how often the fast food or eating out option is considered. Hopefully this month using food storage will help me learn to leave that option out more often.

This opportunity will also give us a chance to re-evaluate everything about our food storage. There’s a lot of various boxed foods we have stocked up on over the year, and we’ve already discovered that some of those foods weren’t working for us. Our likes and dislikes and health goals have all changed a little bit. We also found some smarter foods to stock up on. I’ll be analyzing our food storage system, and the foods a little more closely this month to see how well it really does work, and I will do an update of all the changes after we get settled into our home.

Having a “shelf reliance”

The thing I’m feeling the best about, however, is the increased gratitude I know I’ll have through using our food storage. This will be the first time we’ll actually experience the reliance on it. I’ve been blessed this past year with a piece of mind in my grocery shopping, in that I don’t feel too bad if I go over our budget for buying a few extra things, or not having to feel totally guilty if some green peppers went to waste. However, this month it all counts a little more than that. We don’t want to be reckless in our spending so much that we don’t have a dime after closing costs. Food Storage is not just for times when job loss or lack of income occurs. It’s not just for potential natural disasters. Food Storage is for providing a peace of mind in whatever financial circumstances. Though our situation is not of dire circumstances, it is still a worrisome circumstance, which is still a good reason to use your food storage, in my opinion.

JUST A SUGGESTION

I’m really happy that Trevor and I decided to start a food storage with the little bit of extra money we had when we first got married. I know not many young couples think about doing this, but it is proving its importance to me right now. For couples who just barely got married, I strongly suggest you use some of your wedding gift cards or money on the start of a food storage, even if it is small! That is how we were able to start ours, so I want to thank all our friends and family who made that possible for us! For newlyweds whose gift cards are long gone (haha), I strongly suggest using what savings you can spare to buy a small food storage. Whether you use it in five years, or within a year like us, I know it will come in handy at some point, and you’ll be glad you did it. You can get ideas of how to start one, by looking at what we did in our “Preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse” post. :)

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