Monday Message

"Preparedness, when properly pursued, is a way of life, not a sudden, spectacular program. We could refer to all the components of personal and family preparedness, not in relation to holocaust or disaster, but in cultivating a life-style that is on a day-to-day basis its own reward." (President Spencer W. Kimball)

Making preparedness a way of life is easier than you think. You probably do most of it without even thinking about it. Think about your everyday doings. You wake up with a list of things you will attempt to get done. Am I right so far?

That is preparing for your day. Take that further, do you prepare for your week ahead? Month ahead? Then think about things you use in that time frame. How many rolls of toilet paper and other paper products will you need? How much food will you need? Once you figure out these things you can get extra.

Sit down with your store flyers. Every week I sit down with the sale flyers even when I cannot get anything. I study them. My grocery stores are pretty close to each other but I am twenty minutes from them so I have to make very determined decisions. To go twenty minutes to save twenty cents is not cost effective. 

So look through your flyer and see what is for sale. Is there something your family uses? This week pasta was .69 but only for macaroni and spaghetti. Because I don't really have the funds for a real grocery shopping, just a small amount for a few items, I put those on hold and got ten packages of macaroni. I know this is an item that we use and it gets us ahead on that. This is how I do it. 

Now I don't often go to stores but if you do, pick up some item for your storage, even if it is a package of jello or a box of Band-Aids.  You would be surprised at how fast it adds up.

Of course, just getting the pasta is the first part to store it. You must take it out of those boxes. I dumped mine in a bucket and put two bay leaves on top. I put the lid on then labeled and dated it. If you leave it in the boxes you could get buggy pasta. So storing properly is just as important as getting it. I vacuum seal them in jars too but this time the bucket was easier.

So make choices to fit your budget, be flexible so you can put a few things up to stretch when you cannot get groceries worked into your budget.

Sometimes we can prepare less expensive meals to save the funds to stock up...

Develop those skills. Start with learning how to make bread and rolls.

This is how high I let my bread get before I bake it to give you an idea of what you are looking for. I use regular flour that I make into bread flour by adding one tsp of vital wheat gluten per one cup of flour. This bread has cooked wheat in it. So learn this skill and collect recipes in your binder.

Once you master that, learn to make jam. See how skills build on one another?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVb1Tfsdcr0 - enjoy!