"Today, I emphasize a most basic principle: home production and storage. Have you ever paused to realize what would happen to your community or nation if transportation were paralyzed or if we had a war or depression? How would you and your neighbors obtain food? How long would the corner grocery store—or supermarket—sustain the needs of the community?" (President Ezra Taft Benson)
I have been thinking this week about all this weather we have been having. What affect will it have on food prices? Will the farmers with flooded fields even be able to plant this year? We need to think more about these things and think about those people in Venezuela, we may never have it that extreme but what if something did happen? We shouldn't get complacent.
Also, we need to keep learning ever learning. Make a list of basic skills and honestly check off what you can do well. And on the skills you don't know all that well make a circle around that skill and start a plan on how to learn them. Attack the most helpful ones first. Some you can learn several at a time, some you will have to learn by itself.
SKILLS
- Budgeting
- Menu planning
- Frugal grocery shopping
- Cooking from scratch
- Making do
- Being content with what you have
- Buying used
- How to stretch what you have
- How to fix your furniture
- How to mend
- How to sew
- How to sew when fabric is so high priced
- Do you have a sewing machine? Do you know how to clean and oil it?
- Do you have thread, needles (hand and machine) and other sewing stuff?
- Do you know how to knit? If you don't, it will be hard to fix a sweater with a hole
- Do you know how to crochet?
- Do you have supplies for any of these things? I can tell you having stored used supplies I have found over the years has proved to be a real blessing.
- How to do car maintenance
- How to garden
- How to can how to dehydrate
I think you can extend this list for there is so much more we could add.
When things have been hard we have had to learn how to replace brakes, even an engine once. We had to do all this with no experience too. I look back and shudder but we did it. We can do more things than we think. When we are young we don't think about what it will be like when we get older. Things get harder, things get more costly, taxes keep going up, income gets less, bodies wear out...these are a certainty.
Learn to live on way less than you make. Is it hard? Yes. Do you NEED the next newest thing that comes out? Nope. Putting all these things together can help you to do what you can and get by when things go up and down and bumpy, because they will.
Keep learning and working on storage
My husband and I talk about skills all the time. My gparents (and his parents) were born between 1910 & 1920. They learned to do EVERYTHING. It seems like that generation taught their children all of it, so the Boomers were very good at DIY. But then, modern conveniences came in and it seems like everyone just stopped teaching and learning. My husband's father didn't teach him because he said that he wanted my husband to strive for better. Better IS knowing how to do everything. It can change everything. My brother was lucky in that my dad had back problems and taught my brother everything so he could keep up repairs. Consequently, my brother is probably one of the few Gen X men that has an astounding amount of DIY knowledge. I missed out on a lot because my mom went to work full time and all the housekeeping knowledge went with her. I pretty much had to teach myself. Thank goodness I learned budgeting & such from The Tightwad Gazette! That book should be required reading for all high school students lol!
ReplyDeleteI am worried about food costs. Our milk price for a gallon just went up by 60 cents in the past week. Our Kroger had canned vegetables for .49 ea. so I bought a couple dozen to store. We're on a tight budget so I'm always trying to buy at the lowest price and stock up until the next sale. We're on our last two jars of peanut butter (out of 36) and I'm praying for a sale in the next two weeks!!
I was wondering what you have on top of the dry spaghetti in your jars. You prep lots of jars with mixes! How long do they last?
Type one pot spaghetti into the search box on the right that is what I was making they last quite a few months cause no chemicals scroll down to the one pot spaghetti the recipe is there and other recipes too we like this one the bread mixes we use sooner then later as it has the yeast in it. I don't make these mixes for storage just convenience and because I store the ingredients to make them so can't get more basic I say I know being tight makes it hard to get any ahead we too are tight just get a few here and there as I can.
DeleteMy Stop & Shop is being remodeled. I have been stopping in every few days to see what is on the clearance rack. I brought my daughter with me yesterday. All of the makeup was marked down 90% off. She got over $100 worth. She was very happy. She works part time and make up is very expensive.
ReplyDeleteI scored 24 canned Campbell's soups for 47¢ each. I also got 4 packs of Tazo tea for 99¢ each and a few single items. I stock up when I get low prices. I have been known to buy 40 boxes of pasta when it goes on sale or 20 bags of sugar around the holidays. I am hoping to get some hams this week marked down.
Great job
DeleteI continue to improve what ever skills I have and pray I don't need them.
ReplyDeleteYes knowing how is everything
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