Recession Recipes .Net

Winter is a hard time for many who are poor or on a fixed income.  The middle of summer may seem like a strange time to start preparing, but it’s the best time.  Certain things that you know you’re going to need in winter are cheaper now, or in season and fresh.

If you dry, can, or have a deep freezer, this is the time to start buying fruits, vegetables, and herbs for storage.  You can get information on canning and other food preservation methods at the National Center for Home Food Preservation website.

Buy dried beans, pasta, rice, and other dry foods when they’re on sale.  Stock up when you can afford to.  Remember to keep them in the freezer for a week at first to kill any grain bugs or moths that may be in them, then store them in an air tight container.  To keep bugs out, I usually put the food in a bag, and put the bag in a container sprinkled with a good dose of rock salt and cracked black pepper.  If anything gets in there, the pepper will irritate them, and the salt will dry them out.

If you, like me, eat a lot of bean soup in the winter, then this is a good time to stock up on full logs of salami for hanging.  The summer heat and dryness gives them time to get nice and hard without as much risk of the bad kind of molds or infestation.  You can later chop the salami into cubes and use them to flavor your soups.

Space heaters, blankets, and winter clothes are cheaper this time of year.  Check your things to see if they need replacing now, so you won’t be in a rush and have to pay more during the winter.  This is also a good time to stock up on candles, and make sure your reading lights are all in working order.  It’s nice to be ready in case of power outages, and to offset some of the cost of heating by not using the main house lights so often.

One thing many people neglect to prepare for in the winter is the effect wearing clothes all the time has on one’s skin.  Get foot fungus treatments as well as extra strength (actually extra greasy) lotions and creams when they’re on sale, to stock up for winter.  Shea butter is one of the best all around protective emollients.  It gets very hard in winter though.  So take some time to mix about a pound of shea butter with a liter of olive oil in your blender or food processor.  Put it in bottles, and you have some of the best lotion on Earth.

If you tend to have nipple pain in cold weather stock up on scraps of silk to insert into your bra or sew together into a body wrap.  If you start now, you’ll have plenty of time to make lots of them.

For spot treatment of chafing due to clothes rubbing against your skin, set aside 5 ounces of your shea butter and olive oil mixture, and blend in a tablespoon of aloe vera gel, and a teaspoon of oblipicha (sea buckthorn) oil.  It is very soothing, and the oblipicha helps to heal it faster.

Feel free to add your winter preparation tips in the comments.