Down to the Last $12

Annette and I moved to Tallahassee, Florida in August 1994 to attend graduate school at Florida State University. We had been married for just over four years. For those four years, we were students at BYU living from paycheck to paycheck. When we arrived in Tallahassee, we filled the car with gasoline. This left us with $12.00 to our name. The $12 needed to last us until I would receive scholarship money from Florida State University (about ten days or so).

We drove to the grocery store (Publix) and purchased 1 package of diapers for Jamie, 1 package of diapers for Tanner, 1 gallon of milk, 1 loaf of bread, and 1 dozen eggs. In four years of married life in Utah, we had accumulated a meager food storage that we moved to Tallahassee. So we had a collection of dry goods  (e.g., flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, oatmeal, noodles, etc.) and canned goods (e.g., tuna, green beans, spaghetti sauce, etc). We felt like we could stretch these food items until I received the money from the university.

The morning after spending our last dollar to purchase the few necessities we could, Annette opened the refrigerator door to get the milk. As she did so, the bar in the door that held the eggs fell off and the egg carton fell to the floor. All of the eggs broke. None were salvageable.

We did make it through the week until I received my scholarship money.

I know our survival that week is one of the blessings we received as a direct result of our faithfulness in paying our tithing.