With several things happening lately asking for large sums of money in the last month (the medicare story......we owed our 1/3 of my parents house sale which is 15,0000 and we only had 5,000 on hand.  My brother paid the other 10,000 for us and now we owe him that 10,000 back and plan to pay him in full over the next year and a half) plus the fact that my car needed new tires, and while they were working on it, they found out it had a bent tire iron as well.  That costs us a small chunk of our emergency cash to fix (thank goodness we had it to spend).  Matthew's car needs new tires SOON as well.

We spent about half of our tax incentive check on stocking up the pantry a few months ago, as well as stocking up on disposable diapers, toliet paper, light bulbs and other household goods.  Now that we are running tight, with very little in our emergency fund and looking at refinancing the house (the last time we tried this a few months ago, it was a no charge refinace, but our house appraised at TOO MUCH...........LOL and we did not get the refinancing.  How weird is that?? Most of the time, houses get appraised at too little to obtain a loan.  We bought a 60,000 house for 42,250, and now the house appraises for too much and we are having trouble refinancing.  We have a company that can help us, but we will have to pay a fee this time.) , we are thankful for the stocked pantry and the whole hog and other things in our large freezer.

We are trying to use our grocery budget to still stock up on items we know we need regularly and to stock up on grocery items that can be stored, or frozen easily.  And we are shopping from the pantry as much as possible right now.  I am so thankful that God placed it on our hearts months ago to stock up on items that are now going sky high (rice, grains, etc).  We were able to buy them just before the prices skyrocketed and have been careful to ration them out so they last the longest time possible.  I know some people thought we were crazy for "hoarding" as they call it, and when girlfriends see my pantry they are in shock and awe at all the stuff we have.  But I don't have to worry too much on groceries now because of it, and when a friend is in need, I have enough for our family, that I am able to help out.  We have helped one of Matthew's friends who was short on cash and didn't have any food in the house back in February with a car trunk full of food for his family.  And several times since then I have been able to help a few friends who were running a tight budget, or in between paychecks with bread, meats and milk, etc.

I am so glad we listened to God's urging for us to completely stock our pantry and freezers~!~