On being without..

My fiance and I have recently found ourselves unemployed...at the same time. This provides itself more than just one added stress to the typical american-stress proned existence. Not only do we not have money coming in at the moment, but we now have to venture out into the dismal, murky waters of job hunting. Oh yippee. But i'm a firm believer that where there's a will, there's a way. So until we come across our next job offers, we will have to do without. Something i'm already very familiar with.

Growing up in a single-income family, we were never without a short of money. One area that always seemed to suffer was our diet. We would have to succumb to eating frozen dinners (isn't it sad that it's cheaper to eat convenience food sometimes than cooking a meal from scratch?) or ramen noodles to get by. As a child, and even to this day as an adult, it isn't uncommon to hear my mother proclaim how there is no food in the house, nothing to eat. As an adult, and as someone who is a nurturer, you could imagine the pain I felt in thinking that my family was not eating, starving at that. It broke my heart. It wasn't until recently (so sad) that I realized the lie.

Upon visiting my family one day, I realized that despite hearing those heartbreaking words about no food, my family's cabinets were filled to the brim with food, albeit all canned, boxed, dry goods, but still food. I asked my mom "What about all this food in the cabinet"? "Oh, the kids don't want to eat that" or It's not a meal" were the responses to my question. Well then, GET RID OF IT! What's the sense of having food you aren't going to eat???

Then, I realized this has trickled into my own life. I was guilty of the SAME THING! How my entire pantry will be full of food but yet I will go to the grocery store every week, as most of us have been taught to do, to "stock up". So, off I head to the grocery store to purchase my much-needed-to-survive food items (which also inevitably leads to bringing home some items I didn't realize I needed had it not been for grocery store marketing (i.e. buy one get one sales, those people who so generously hand out food samples, etc.)). Checkout & come home only to find that I have nowhere to put anything (from the last time I "stocked up"..a mere 7 days {or less} ago). It's taken a long time to get here, but i'm tired of it. Who needs 15 cans of soup "just in case"? If your like me, those 15 cans of soup from last year are still sitting in your cabinets "just in case" and why eat them if the expiration date is still valid? Save them for when we will reaaaaaalllllly need them.

So, since money coming in is so much slower than money going out, all this post has been was to say that from now until the end of the month (or until we run out) we will not be purchasing any food. Eating from the stock-pile to save where we can. At the end of the time it takes us to eat the food, I plan take a look at our last few grocery bills to see, on average, what we have saved and will share my findings.

Just thinking about how much money I can save if I stop "stocking up" gets me excited!

So I challenge you~take a look at your own pantry, are you stock piling unnecessary items? Eat them, or get rid of them.