Interesting Week

It has been an interesting week. Normally our business is seasonal, with summer being horrible. But usually spring is good enough we can pay taxes, get caught up on clothes, etc.and put aside money for summer. Well, not this year.

The recession started for us in December 2007. The first year sales were down 40% (revenues were down further thanks to advertising costing us significantly more). The second year, sales were down an additional 30% with advertising again costing a significant amount more than previously. People are shopping around more, clicking on our ads more, and purchasing less often.

Financially, we've been barely keeping our heads above water. We've been living off of food storage for over a year (pushing a year an a half) with me just supplementing with what cash we had. Most of the bills were paid, but not always on time. Then the bottom dropped out of our market. I guess with school ending and the economy worsening, sales dropped early and fast.

Our new Bishop got an update awhile ago and asked us to keep him informed. We had some hard decisions to make, so I came up with a plan, prayed about it, got a blessing for confirmation, and we are working on that plan. So we met with the Bishop, told him what we were planning, and asked for his advice.

Basically, we're selling the red van and Peter's SUV, and putting the money aside in a separate checking account to pay the first mortgage through the summer. The mortgage company gave us a deal and dropped our payment to something closer to what we could afford. We're going to try to convince the second mortgage company to keep holding on until Fall (they haven't been paid in awhile). We closed our checking account to stop all of the automatic withdrawals, and opened a new one that no one has permission to take money from. We planted (and are planting) the biggest garden we can to try and produce as much food as we can. The Bishop was fine with our plan, and also encouraged us to look into CHIP (as we're having to cancel our health insurance), free and reduced lunches, and also other government programs.

He asked how the kids were holding out food wise and I told him they were getting sick of the same 14 meals (actually, it's closer to 7 at this point). He told us he's going to give us food, no arguing, take what you need and don't worry about it. He gave me some good advice. We felt the spirit very strongly confirming that we're supposed to do this. He also told us to keep him posted and as things get worse through the summer he can help us even more. I guess God is trying to eradicate my pride!

We left feeling so relieved. It's been tough trying to figure out how to feed the kids. Our food storage ran out of the "good stuff" awhile ago and we're almost out of the canned meats, etc. We have tons of beans, rice, wheat, and baking supplies on hand, but not much else. We were contemplating getting chickens so we could at least give the kids eggs through the summer, but we didn't have the money to get set up with them.

It's so nice to have some sense of security. That is something we haven't had in almost 2 1/2 years! Thank goodness for the Church and for God's spirit.