Friday, April 3, 2009

Pasta pasta pasta....and God

Most everyone who reads this knows that I'm quite obsessed with food storage and home production skills.  If you didn't know, you'll for sure know after this post. :)

I have six children and a husband.  That's eight people to feed on a regular basis.  One of the things I've noticed is that the older they get, the more they eat.  HA! So, I am having to adjust my food storage accordingly.  We eat at least three pounds of spaghetti noodles when having spaghetti.  We'll eat usually two pounds of other types of noodles.  This will very little leftovers.

Pasta has become increasingly more expensive over the years.  But, usually I have been able to get Barilla pasta for about .09/box with coupons.  This only happens about once every two years or so.  The last time I got pasta was about 1 1/2 years ago.  I got over 100 boxes of pasta for .09/box using coupons. I still actually have a couple boxes of orzo and pastina from that pasta run.

But, for the last few months I've been having to buy pasta like everyone else...full price or a minimal sale.  

I realized about a week ago that in order to have a three month's supply of pasta I would need to have at minimum 36 boxes of pasta.  That really isn't enough but it would get us through if I were careful.  So, I decided that I needed to go ahead and just bite the bullet and start buying pasta a little at a time to work up to the 36 boxes.  I had a few at home but not like the 100 boxes from earlier.

In this process, I said a little prayer asking the Lord to please bless me with good sales on pasta.  I checked the sales circulars with hope and faith (really), but nothing.  No worries, maybe next week.

Upon opening the coupon inserts this last weekend, I found a coupon for .50/1 Barilla pasta.  Do you know what that means here in NJ?  That means that with double coupons that coupon would double to $1/1 box of Barilla pasta.  Oh my.  It was if the flood gates opened on me.

I've never really had a hard time finding coupons online in the past.  But, this time seemed to be a bit more challenging.  I had to work with my limited amount of patience, but yesterday it all paid off.  

I found a coupon clipping "business" and ordered 30 of these coupons (max order) and 10 of the inserts in which these coupons were found plus an extra coupon off the whole wheat kind of pasta.  That's 50 coupons total.

Yesterday these coupons arrived.  I went over to Pathmark and found that they had a sale on it for 4/$5.  Making each box after coupon .25.  Not bad.  I can only use 4 like coupons at a time at the Pathmark.  

I needed to run to ACME for some other stuff.  Once there I picked up their sales flyer and just about peed myself.  I had forgotten that they had Barilla pasta 10/$10.  Do you know that that means?  I got 46 boxes of pasta for FREE.  

For the day, I got $262 worth of groceries for $35.  Oh my goodness.

I am overwhelmed and quite unable to express my awe at God.  Most will say that it was just coincidence that this all happened.  That's fine.  But, I KNOW, that our loving Father did it.  He knew that I would work hard to find the coupons and to go every day if need be to gather those boxes of pasta.  He trusted me.  And I trusted Him.  I knew He would bless me with the sales I needed to add to my food storage.  That really doesn't express my true feelings.  I don't even know how to do it justice.  I was willing to pay for the pasta and only asked for decent sales.  But, He went beyond that and gave me more than what I asked for.  I am so thankful.

BTW, I got a raincheck for 20 more boxes of FREE pasta.  I have 76 more coupons headed my direction as well.  Within the next week or so, I'll have a year's supply of pasta.  How great is that?

2 comments:

Sarah said...

ummm... please do share the sites you are getting coupons from. with my big and growing family now i could use all the help i can get. pasta for 0.25 is crazy. i NEED some now.

Sunshine said...

I'm astounded!