And baby makes 7
Prepper Outreach Contest Submission
I’m a mom to 6 boys (ranging from 14 down to 20 months) and a baby girl on the way. I am married to an awesome husband that takes great responsibility in taking care of us. Together we work towards preparing physically and spiritually for today and the future. God has blessed us with a big family which we are eternally grateful for, but of course with a big family comes big responsibility. We feel it is important to be self reliant and able to take care of our children.
One way that has helped us to become self reliant and to be prepared is by couponing, deal hunting, and stocking up while the deals are good.
I have had the great blessing of being a mom that doesn’t have to work outside of the home so that I can focus raising my children. However, to help offset the fact that we don’t have extra income coming from me working outside the home, I have found that by couponing and living in a budget we are able to save more money (and even make money) instead of having to put the kids in day care. You might be surprised how much money can be saved by things as simple as eating at home, preparing food from scratch, not having to pay for day care. There are often times I even make money couponing.
I have been couponing for over 15 years now which has blessed us in so many ways. A testimony of this just happened again recently. When I became pregnant with number 7, it was a bit of a surprise. I tend to become very sick while I am pregnant and even simple tasks become very hard to do. Because baby 7 was a surprise, we didn’t have much time to prepare for the time when I would be sick. Needless to say, for about 5 months I was unable to go shopping or hardly look at a coupon let alone use one. You would think that after 5 months that we would be starving and in trouble, but because of the fact that I stock up while the deals are good we were completely fine. I had two kids in diapers. However, I had a supply of diapers that I accumulated over time on good deals and I never had to buy a package of diapers in that entire time (and even had more to spare). You can imagine with 8 people in the house we go through toilet paper like it is water, yet I never had to worry about buying toilet paper because I had storage of it. We have spent time and money buying food and food storage on good deals, so we had a stock of food to feed our big family. Plus, we have taught our boys how to cook, so most days my older boys (and husband) would make dinner since I was too sick.
I stock up on shoes and clothes when they are cheap. Even when I have a child come to me and tell me just as we are walking out the door that his shoes are way too tight and have been for months, I don’t have to stress out. I don’t have to go run to the store and pay a lot of money and worry about getting shoes right at that moment for them. I just have them go into the storage of shoes and get the next size.
I know what you might be thinking….”well I don’t have that kind of storage space”. We don’t really either. Our dream would be one day to buy a lot of land, build a house from ground up learning all the skills as we go and enjoy space, but for now we don’t have that. We live in a 1200 sq foot home with 8 people (and 9 on the way). Five of my boys sleep in one little room. We make do. We store things in every nook and cranny we can find. We have also worked on many other storage spaces that you might not think about. We make do and feel grateful for the extra storage we are able to have.
By couponing and budgeting (and with God’s help), we have been able to prepare financially, physically, and spiritually for the future. By couponing, deal hunting, and budgeting, we have been able to get a supply of food storage to provide for our big family. We have been able to put 72 hour kits (bug out bags) together relatively inexpensively in case a big disaster happens and we have to take our big family elsewhere. We have been able to purchase and prepare for a great disaster should it happen one day.
However, prepping doesn’t always mean that you have to prepare for the world’s financial collapse, a nuclear bomb going off, or a huge natural disaster; it can simply be prepping for a rainy day which tends to come to all of us at one time or the other. Preparing for today’s needs and wants and for the future has given us great peace of mind. Of course there is always something more we can do, but that too has been a great learning experience. The more learning we do, the more we are at peace. If we never use the skills that we learn or the emergency preparedness items for disasters or emergencies then great! I would love that! But should we have to use those skills, learning experiences, and emergency preparedness items, we are better off.
Start small! Save a little here. Save a little there. Prepare a little here. Prepare a little there. You don’t have to go in debt or be completely stressed out. The more you do, the better off you are and you are better than you were before. If you are prepared, you shall not fear!
K.G. UT.
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