Monday Message

"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 so many people are on fragile finances, living right on the edge. It's a very stressful thing indeed. There are as many reasons as there are people. Not always are things in our control. My mother-in-law used to always say, "one step forward, two steps back," and so often this is how it feels.

So how do we offset life's challenges? We do what we can and we make do with what we have. I follow a podcast and her family had a huge plumbing expense so she made her menu using what she had in her house. She picked up only three items at the store with a total cost of under four dollars.

Could you do this with what you have in house? Would you think to do this when you had stress?

Learning to make do is something we can do to offset the unexpected expense.

One thing we can try is to do as much as we can on our own. This helps to offset the things we have to have done. Like house repairs we can do. We also search to learn what we don't know how to do... this helps us as well.
https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/repair/5-home-repairs-you-should-do-yourself5.htm 

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/52-diy-fixes-annoying-home-ailments  

Things may seem harder than they actually are.

Lets face it though, there will always be stuff we can't do but every little thing adds up.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. We should use this to live by. How exactly to do this?? 

Mend your clothes...

http://www.makeitcoats.com/us/sewing-life-skills-mending-101/ 

If we make do by mending and repairs we will stretch our budget.

Use it up.....how much do we throw out??

Celery leaves, for example. Did you know you can dry them on a plate if you do not have a dehydrator?

Save your own orange rind. Also. those last grapes no one will eat -dry them into raisins.

Vacuum sealing is a small expense to what it will save you.

Raisins, for example, can be put in a canning jar. Yes, they will last a while but breakdown into a sugary form of themselves if you take the jar of raisins and vac seal it when you get them. One lady said a jar of raisins got shoved out of place and she found it twenty years later and they were still good.

Here is a LINK to my post on step by step vacuum sealing.

Use up your leftovers. Don't toss them out. They always taste better the next day. We can have planned overs like fixing a roast and making beef and noodles out of leftovers, bbq beef, stew...you get the idea.

I think rotating our storage keeps you from doing without as well.

Also, to go with all this is being content. If you are not content you will be miserable wanting things you cannot have. Instead be happy with what you do have and be grateful.