DEAR HELOISE: Using rolling suitcases to store and save your photos won't help if you have a tornado. Digitize them! Scan and save your pictures to a computer (with backup off-site or online).
Invest time and money in getting film put on DVD. Send duplicate DVDs to family members so that if disaster strikes, there will be extra copies.
-- Sherry G., Cecil, Ala.
DEAR READER: If you're going to go through all that trouble, then you also should consider digitizing your important documents, like certificates and licenses.
DEAR HELOISE: When we travel, I bring "color-absorbing" sheets. When we need to stop to do some laundry, it can all be thrown in together in just one load.
-- Ellie K., Fort Worth
DEAR READER: With long vacations, mounds of laundry can be daunting for some, so getting a jump on laundry can relieve some of that. Research shows that these color-absorbing sheets are supposed to catch any "loose colors" floating around in the wash cycle, protecting your other clothes from changing colors.
DEAR HELOISE: My recipe for Cuban rum cake uses an 18.5-ounce cake mix as one ingredient. However, the cake mixes now are only 15.25 ounces. Do I add flour, decrease liquid or what?
-- D. Larson, via email
DEAR READER: You have a couple of options. You can purchase another box of cake mix, especially if it's something other than white, and add the extra 3.25 ounces of mix to your recipe. A reader wrote in with the same problem, and she purchases a box of white mix for all her recipes that call for more than the amount on the box. What to do with the extra mix? With the holiday season upon us, better to have too much than not enough.
DEAR HELOISE: As the parent of a newborn, I know how frustrating it can be when you're out and no matter how many diapers you take, it's never enough. I could purchase more, but we stock plenty at home.
So, my truck's glove box sports an owners manual, a few extra diapers and a travel pack of baby wipes. I'd be embarrassed if one of my buddies looked in my glove box, but that doesn't compare with how I felt when my child had to go without a clean diaper.
-- Frank in Houston
Send a money- or time-saving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000; fax to (210) 435-6473; or email
Heloise@Heloise.com
MovieStyle on 09/16/2016