Well, here it is March 1. I haven't been to this board since Jan. 3. I started posting here sometime in 1997. I was fairly happy when nothing catastrophic happened. And now that Feb has passed we can completely relax, I feel, at least in relation to Y2K.

Fortunately, we have not yet become tired of eating the stored food. I got enough ideas before this yr for being creative to ward off boredom with all the canned and stored food....the upside is that I now spend about $75 a MONTH on perishables for us, a family of three. We haven't spent that little on groceries since it was just the two of us, newly married, me in college, and couldn't AFFORD to spend more than that! So we are saving a bundle on groceries...

For the downside, both my husband and I cashed out some things in 1999, convinced that they wouldn't be there this year....well, it's time to pay the piper now, in the form of the 1040 that's been haunting me since the beginning of the year. We owe a total of almost $1700 to Uncle Sugar for taking out that moula last year. Ah, well. Glad we didn't touch our daughter's huge college fund!

Preparing at Home --not preparing anymore, just LIVING!!!!

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), March 01, 2000

Answers

I did some cashing out myself and owe this year $875 (ouch!). But my peace of mind was worth it. My motto now for preps is maintain and refine. Which I am doing, replacing what is used either with the same or something equivalent that I have found I like better. It is so nice now to have the time to do this. The world just seems to go from one crisis to another so being prepared is something I am prepared to do for a lifetime along with learning all the new self-sustaining skills I can manage in my poor old brain ;^)

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), March 02, 2000.

This year is a mixed bag for us. We used Y2K as a deadline and acquired some equipment that would have otherwise waited until this year or even into 2001. We didn't cash anything out but the purchases did slow our long-term project of improving our financial status so that we can purchase the kind of house and land that we want but it's now back on track and we lost only about six months progress, maybe less.

So far as the IRS is concerned this year our preparedness is actually getting us out of the hole. We ran badly afoul of the "marriage penalty" last year and ended up owing the Eternal Revenue Service but thanks to kicking off one of our long-term preparedness projects, the birth of my daughter Katie (now 6 months old), we're not only out of the hole but they owe us money.

Some sliding backwards and some progress. On the whole I think we're ahead. If the economy will kindly refrain from going down the crapper this year we're going to come out of it quite nicely. If it does tank, I think we can prevent actually losing anything but we won't make much progress either. Cie la vie.

.........Alan.

The Prudent Food Storage FAQ, v3.5

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), March 02, 2000.