If you are a regular friend of mine, you will have picked up on how frustrated I am with dealing constantly with the runaway inflation that is on Cambodia. I understand that things are getting tighter and tighter in the US as well. We do have not only our own family to feed, but we have the children’s home as well. But for the purpose of this blog post, I will deal with just our personal family needs and not the ministry budget because that might make some friends faint. At present in the home are Mark and I, two teenage daughters, and 5 “Littles” as we call them. The Littles range in ages 2 years to 9. So that is a total of 9 of us.
I believe that no matter what the worldwide economy may be doing, My God WILL supply all our needs… So what provision has come in, HAS to be enough to supply our needs. I have been trying to find frugal cost cutting ideas on missionary forums, websites, and other blogs on the internet. Hopefully, someone else would have thought of something that will ease our strain here.
Today I stumbled upon a website that spoke of the cost of food in the US. It had the most recent numbers for the month of November 2008 and it was broken down by thrifty plan/low cost/moderate cost/and finally the Liberal plan.
Since I wasn’t being too successful in finding cost cutting ideas, and my self-imposed internet time limit of 45 minutes was almost gone, I thought that I’d finish up by figuring the cost of our family eating in America. Of course, I figured the THRIFTY plan numbers.
OMIGOSH!!!! I had to do it two times! On the thrifty plan, our 9 family members would be estimated to spend around $1670 for the month of November. But then I saw that for a family of 7 or more you subtract 10%. Still OMIGOSH! That is a whopping $1500!
Even if my 45 minutes didn’t yield me any good ideas of cutting our expenses, it did finish up by showing me that even with our large budget each month, we should give thanks because it could be much higher.
Breathing in, Breathing out,
Rhonda
PS if you would like to have a “shock” yourself, the website is
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2008/CostofFoodNov08.pdf
January 26, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Unfortunately its no shock to me. We have been spending SO much more on groceries we’ve fallen behind on other bills. Its cost a fortune in this freezing climate to heat the house.Good thing the gas has gone down for now since Brian drives over an hour each way to work. Its been really tough. Luckily the older girls have recently moved out although Krissy may be back for a couple of months before summer. I cant imagine how larger families manage such as Linda, etc.Esp people that have been laid off. Good luck with everything there!!!
~Kathy
January 27, 2009 at 12:22 am
I bet you are glad that gas prices have gone down again. It would have been a double whammy to have high gas prices AND these really low temps!
January 27, 2009 at 2:01 am
It would have made things harder but we have already spent over $1000 on fuel oil plus we have electric heat in the bedroom- UGH! We need some warmer weather soon.
Take it easy there and feel better soon.