Provident Living

Elder Hales in conference reports for the Mormon church spoke on Provident Living. This became my focus for the month of April. We had gotten our salary cut to 15% by HP. We were broke students @ BYU when we got married.,& we were happy .
Last year we took our govt' check to put food into storage & bought personal medical supplies our insurance doesn't cover personal grooming supplies. I even used food items we had in the house for our Easter dinner instead of buying extra items. We had put lentils,olive oil,grape seed oil chocolate & vanilla Rice Dream. I had to go on a gluten free diet this winter. In my hard core storage, I found quioa,millet & buckwheat packed away in Mylar bags. I fixed the quiona in 2 dishes & found no problems w/taste after 7 yrs stored away. Our cashews were stored in Tupper ware containers,Zip-loc bags in the frig. I was really surprised they haven't gone rancid here in the desert. I kept part of them by the a/c unit in L.Rm last summer. I made nut burgers, with them,grind ed them up for protein for squash soup.
I found my Indian seeds hidden in a corner from a M/E store in Arlington ,Tx yrs ago. I popped them up in the skillet to put in my millet. I was amazed at the strong taste that was still in the seeds. Allen ate the millet w/o complaining. I also used it in our Lentils,which really added a pzazz!!
I had 2 bottles of juice I rotated out of the c/board. I had Papaya,added some OJ to stretch it. Pomegranate-blue berry. I added apple juice in a pitcher.
I had shampoo & conditioner in my personal supply box to use.
I was able to keep a positive attitude about the salary cut knowing we would be watched over if I did what I could to economize.
The twin's 30th b-day is coming up in July. Jan didn't want me to spend money on her & to not give her a gift. I made a pact with her I would use my stash & creativity to come up w/ a gift. I used c/board cereal boxes for c/board b/grounds for her collage. I found a gold mine in old vacation photo books from 20 yrs ago. Patterned paper, tags I had stashed away came in handy for these gifts. I got out ols stamps reused the with new ideas. I got out all my old Stampin Up c/logs,card magazines etc to look for ideas for Heidi's card s. I am tickled to report she has 30 cards for her gift w/ no extra cost. I found some b/l lace envelopes w/ some cards hidden away s/one had given me that made some elegant Mother's Day & Oriental card
I managed to s/bk my 1st C-mas on my mission w/found objects. I had to make all of my tags since I'm out. I found some C-mas templates I used for journaling tags. I repainted some c/board letters for my title. Then I filled in w. stenciled letters for the ones missing. I cut all my mats . I really used my scrap paper file, my stamped image file on these projects. I used up old Halloween stickers for a Halloween party on the Indian reservation.
My 12x12 paper box is 1/2 gone,my c/stock is all gone.
Since I made candles in March, I found a buyer for my supplies. I sold the 3 boxes as a kit. I did a demo for my friend to show how to set them up. I used the money to buy c/stock &s/bk paper on a clearance sale from Paper Wishes.
HP has given back 10% of our salary this coming pay check. I know we made thru this month by using our food storage as we have been commanded to. Also to decide what is want vs need. To improvise,to think outside of the box. We pay our tithing faithfully. I made a commitment to not to go into the store to buy any supplies & use what I had in my room. I made a list of things I really needed for upcoming projects & let it sit around before I went shopping Sat.