I’ve spent a lot of time watching the news lately, all news channels including Fox News, CNN, CNBC, ABC News, Bloomberg, Euronews, and WSJ for the Wall Street Journal. Within those news channels, I’ve been listening to different economists and business professionals talk about reopening the economy and I can finally see that there is a light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel.
Working for an essential business I have been going to work throughout the stay-at-home directive. But my friends and family have not, and they are suffering in terms of income. How do you pay a mortgage or rent or buy groceries, diapers, and medicine that requires a co-pay if you have no income?
While I am grateful to have had the children at home, and we certainly played more games and watched more movies than we ever have, I am a person who sees the need for the economy to open up when it’s safe. Too many people are suffering and for those of us that have been able to continue to work and earn an income, now is the time to make a donation to your local food bank in whatever denomination you can. Even more so, if you are able, now is the time to help a neighbor, a friend, a family member who lost their ability to work and have not been able to earn an income. Now is the time to buy them a bag of groceries, or maybe they have small children and you can buy them a box of diapers! Consider that $15 is enough to buy a large jar of peanut butter and a large jar of jelly, plus a loaf of bread, and a family can get about ten sandwiches out of that $15!
I want to also remind everyone that there are plenty of choices you can make at the grocery store to make a meal with very little money. Go to www.socalMOMents.com and read some of the recipes that we have posted for feeding your family on a budget. Think about ingredients like cheese, eggs, pasta, potatoes and oatmeal and the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches referenced above! Yes, you can feed a family on $40 a day, but you have to be smart about what you buy – and look for ingredients that don’t cost a lot in the first place!
Living in the United States of America gives us a lot to be grateful for. We live in a country where food is still available whereas other countries are challenged with that simple requirement. If you watch international news you’ll see that in other countries people are fighting for food here we have the ability to go to a food bank, or a local drive and we can get the basics for free, that’s the beauty and the gift, of living in this wonderful country that is the United States of America!
I’m looking forward to writing more about this light at the end of the tunnel. For now let’s try to stay in the positive and remember that countries like my beloved Italia are starting to open, and it will happen here too!
By Rosemaria Altieri
Follow Rosemaria on Instagram @RosemariaBeauty