Monday Message

"Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to ‘prepare every needful thing’ (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors, and support bishops as they care for others." (All is Safely Gathered In pamphlet)

We have been told this will get worse before it gets better. What can we do till then? Wear masks, wash our hands, and keep social distancing.

I think wearing masks will be with us for quite a while...

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-make-cloth-face-covering.html - this is the easiest pattern to make but there are others, just search, but this is a good start.

Missy says we need to tighten our belts!

The stimulus will help but we will still need to tighten our belts and some don't have any belts left so we will need to tighten up our budgets. This means now isn't the time for those extras. I know some will say, what extras? It has been none of those for a long time now. I mention this to help you to stretch what you have.

Those who need to use food pantries, use them and get things that will stretch further foods like the basics, canned fruits & veggies, beans, rice, peanut butter and jelly, etc.

You get the idea. There are some restrictions and not a lot of choices so make what you do get stretch the furthest and if you get food stamps make those items go the furthest as well. Like you may want soda but think what could I get for that money? More meals. Use some to get basic items flour, yeast, shortening, salt, baking soda, sugar, brown sugar and baking powder… This way when the bread runs out at your house you could make more and you could make cookies instead of buying ready made ones freeing up more funds for other needed items...oatmeal instead of cold cereal or rice with sugar and cinnamon, pancake mix complete - if you run out of eggs and milk you only need to add water. Make sure you have eggs for protein… I think you get the idea, it is all about the basics. Storing those will make it so you can stretch the rest.

This will help with other bills.

Collect recipes that don't take a lot of ingredients. Groceries are going up in price.

Did you know you can use pasta sauce for pizza sauce as well as lasagna and for spaghetti, so purchase pasta sauce and drop pizza sauce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbr6uYIjL4M - this will help you make a great no-knead bread that you could have with soup. She even uses it for pizza crust. Sometimes it is better to watch how then to just read how, she is great.

Get some great and easy homemade bread machine recipes in my friend Liza's cookbook, check it out in this post - http://frugalmeasures.blogspot.com/2019/08/monday-message.html

We had a blizzard here this week so I thought we needed a nice green picture to remind us spring will come.

I also wanted to remind you that we should be thinking and planning our gardens.

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/extension_curall/119/ - I wanted to include this once again. I  keep a jar of this on the counter at all times, it is the best ever. It takes as long to make as it does to cook a can of soup. Yes, I did time it. It’s much cheaper and you know what is in it.

https://chickensintheroad.com/?s=Hamburger+helper - this is less expensive and yummy.

These are my two favorite sites. I have both recipes printed and have them in a binder.

Gus says to keep working hard at being safe!