Top 12 reasons not to have food storage... And paper towels.

I'm still here. When we switched internet providers, The internet was out for a few days. Comcast is terrible, and has quite possibly the worst customer service ever.
Any how, life is good. Life is busy, stressful and chaotic, but wonderful. We are making progress in our housing situation, nothing in stone yet. but getting closer. however, It has become real to me that in a short while, we are going to have to come up with a good bit of money for a down payment, and furniture, and all the little things that add up and that you forget to account for. And so the purse strings have been really tight. And by tight I mean, no money was being spent. I was starting to go a bit crazy, There's still something inside of me that loves the thrill of spending money, I was starting to miss it...
We got our tax return last week and so I felt like splurging just a bit... I went to Costco and bought toilet paper and paper towels. {we've been out of paper towels for 2 weeks and I'm too cheap to take any money out of the bank to buy paper towels} I had miscalculated how many packs we would go through before my next Costco trip, So we did without. Who would have thought that paper towels are a luxury item? Not the old me that's for sure.
I also bought the kids much needed new clothes, and cringed at the thought of spending the money. My mom had to talk me into buying my son new shorts. He has one pair. And a pair of jeans with holes. He needed them. But it didn't make it any easier to spend the money.
Well, All of this brings me to my point. While we have been in no spending mode, We have been eating almost exclusively from our 3 month supply. Rice, beans, wheat, pasta, etc.
I was reading the ensign, and came across this article.
I love this line "We made an effort to live on less. We separated our wants and needs by determining if items were essential or simply nice to have." 
Paper towels, are just nice to have, not a necessity, A regular dish towel does the job, it just means a bit more laundry for me, But shoot, whats a few more towels in that massive pile anyways? 
Because we have our food supply in order, it has allowed us to save the money that we are going to need instead of having to buy so many groceries. 
A 3 month storage of food and an adequate savings emergency fund, is not going to build itself. We are responsible for making it a priority. And we are responsible for making sure the needs of our children are provided for should hardships arise. I will go without a new pair of shoes, a big tv, new purses, and whatever else, Just to make sure my children will always be provided for. I've been in the situation where we had little more than condiments in our fridge, and didn't have any clue how we were going to pay to keep the heat on in the middle of winter. Those situations easily could have been avoided had we prepared ourselves adequately. That situation was the consequence of US not preparing ourselves. NOT the Lord allowing us to suffer. He had given us council that had we followed, could have prepared us to have sufficient for our needs. But we had ignored the council. The Lord was extremely generous to slothful servants as ourselves. We never went hungry and always had a roof over our heads. He very well could have said, "You should have listened my child, I want to help you, But you have to face the consequences of your choices. Now you will go hungry." 

Now, a bit of humor. Thank you Brian Larkin for finding this...

Top 12 Reasons Not to Have Food Storage

by Country Survival on April 9, 2011 · 4 Comments · in Editorial, Food Storage, Self-Sufficiency

Most people do not have a year’s supply of food storage. I hear it all the time….my neighbors will help me, the Church will provide for me, the government will give me food. Sorry, but you can not put your family’s temporal salvation in the hands of other people. No one else is going to store food for you. You have to do it yourself.
Here are the Top 12 Excuses I Hear for not having a food storage:

12. My neighbors have a TWO year supply! I seriously doubt it. As a emergency preparedness coordinator in a previous stake, I created an extensive emergency preparedness survey. The results were that 94% of our stake did NOT have a year supply, and 82% had no food storage at all. If your idea is to beg for food from someone else, well, that’s a really bad plan.

11. I’m moving in with my parents (or my children). Really? There’s a bright idea. Guess what, they don’t have food storage either.

10. I’ve paid tithing for 20 years, the church should be able to give me some food. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Tithing is “fire insurance” (see D&C 64:23), not “food insurance.” In fact, the church storehouses and welfare farms would feed less than 5% of the members of the Church. The prophets have been telling you to have a food storage for over 75 years. Have you followed the prophet’s commandment?

9. I have a gun! I have seen on several forums and websites that people say that don’t store food because they have a gun and they know where the nearest Mormon is located. Guess what! You idiot, most Mormons have guns too. If you don’t already have self-defense options as part of your year supply, you should.

8. We pay taxes; If something does happen, the government will take care of us. Some might even say, “they have to help us; our taxes pay their salary; if we die, they will have to take a pay cut.” Government aid worked out so well for people in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, right? With most all states in a severe budget crisis, and the federal government with a $14 TRILLION debt, the government will not be able to help. In fact, the government has been urging people to store food, water, medicine, etc. Check out http://www.ready.gov

7. Wide-spread national catastrophe will never happen. You might think that nothing happened with Y2K, but every prophecy given by the Lord will be fulfilled, and probably when you least expect it.

6. I have a 2 year supply of wheat; that should be sufficient. You need much more than just wheat. Unless you are eating that wheat on a daily basis and your body is accustomed to it, it will literally tear up your digestive system. You need to store of food items to go along with the wheat.

5. It takes up too much space!. This is utter nonsense. It doesn’t matter where you live, you can find space if you want to. I put a full year supply of food storage for 2 adults and 4 children in the closet under my stairs. I was able to store over 650 of the #10 cans with easy access to any of it at any given time. Check out Where to Put Your Food Storage.

4. It doesn’t taste good and you can’t make adequate meals. Having a food storage means that you have to cook rather than go out to a restaurant or visiting the frozen food isle of the grocery store. Find the right recipes, and you can make your food storage into a delicious and nutritious meal.

3. I’ll store up gold and silver to trade for food. So, are you planning on eating those gold and silver coins? If you were starving, and you had a choice between a bag of gold coins and your neighbor’s cat, which would you choose? When people are starving, they are not going to trade away their valuable food for gold or silver. If they do, you will be buying the most expensive bowl of soup you ever ate.

2. I can’t afford food storage. The average food storage for an adult can cost as little as a dollar a day. We live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world. If you do not have food storage, it is because you have your priorities reversed. If you choose to purchase expensive cars, an extra large house, LCD televisions, computers, vacations, etc. before getting food storage, then you need to re-evaluate your priorities. Are those items more important than food storage?

1. A year supply??? I thought I only needed 72 hours! The recovery period for emergencies and natural disasters is much more than 72 hours. I lived in Houston when Hurricane Ike hit in 2008. Yes, a 72-hour kit helped…for the first 72 hours! Then we were left with the damage to recover from. There was no electricity for 3 weeks! Many places didn’t have running water (or sewage) for several days. Most all grocery stores were closed; the ones that could be open did not have anything to sell. Large pine trees blockaded roads and downed power lines. There was no cell phone reception; the towers were knocked down or destroyed.
Simply put, getting your year supply of food storage is a commandment of God through his living prophets. We need to be obedient to the commandments of God, including the commandment of food storage.