This month Molly’s Digest focuses on love. What on earth does a money-saving digest have to do with love? Well, just think of all the times you wanted to do something loving and ended up blowing your budget, running out of time, or exhausting yourself. After each such episode, I’d think, “There must be a better way!” and, of course, there is.
This February Digest is about exactly that: ‘simple ways to “share the love” without running ourselves ragged or straining the budget.’
It features fun and simple ways to show love to your husband, children, extended family, and friends. It also includes a link to The Five Love Languages website where you can take a test to help you understand your own and other’s love languages.
Showing love often involves gifts, and there’s an article about keeping your eyes open for perfect presents, buying them when they are affordable, and storing them in a gift cupboard. My mom has always had a gift box in her clothing cupboard. I have two of them—in my clothing closet, of course, just like my mom—but I haven’t been stocking them very diligently.
Showing love to little ones includes helping them survive cabin fever. There are some good suggestions here, but my little ones are no longer that little anymore, and what I really liked was the reminder to take pictures of everyday life as well as of special events.
Of course, moms also can struggle with cabin fever, and there’s an article on free things you can do to spruce up your ‘cabin’. Making the home more pleasant and peaceful shows love to everyone in the family.
For us moms, showing love also involves cooking. This month’s Digest features potato recipes. I read the recipes on Saturday, and on Monday I bought 100 pounds of potatoes! Normally that would be a month’s supply for us, but I’m not sure how much will be left after we’ve tried the Seasoned Oven Fries a few times. Oh well, that is OK. Potatoes are healthy and inexpensive, and I’m sure that those fries, as well as the Potato Latkes, will be a hit. For our gluten-free family, it’s good to have a few extra potato recipes, and I think it will be easy to replace the wheat flour in the latkes with a mixture of gluten-free flours. We’ll save the tempting recipes that involve sour cream for special occasions.
If you are interested in a fuss-free week of special meals, you can try Molly’s 5-day menu, complete with shopping list. The recipes look good. I’m planning to try the slow cooker pepper steak as well as a gluten-free version of the fruit pizza. The final meal, bacon and tomato pasta with garlic bread and salad, will be sure to please my family. (I bought the bacon for it yesterday, when I picked up all those potatoes.) These menus are not the most frugal, involving corn on the cob in February, for example, but you could easily substitute if necessary. The recipes also are not always supremely healthy, but they all look delicious. And using Molly’s menus and shopping list certainly beats eating out just because you haven’t had a chance to throw a meal together.
I love reading stories of moms who went through tough times and survived. This month’s inspiring story tells of major financial troubles and the peace God gave. Here is a lesson the author learned, “I could choose to either focus on my circumstances and be grumpy and grouchy, or I could embrace that time period and make the best out of a grim situation.” That is such a wise and godly response to what God sends! After all, He loves us and does what is best for each of us; occasionally we just have to trust that and humbly accept what He sends even when we don’t like it. At all.
The Kids’ Corner discusses basic finance terms and, for older children, bank matters such as deposit slips and bank statements.
As usual, forms (including a gift closet inventory as well as a birthday calendar), links, February’s special dates, a list of what’s on sale this month, and even more round out the Digest.
Here’s my favourite inspiring tidbit from this month’s Digest. “The enjoyment of life does not depend on the amount of possessions or the measure of worldly success, but upon the disposition to receive everything with thankfulness, and give everything with love.”
You can download the February issue of Molly’s Money-Saving Digest here for $4.95 US. Great free tips and hints are available at Molly’s site Econobusters throughout the week, each week.
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Disclosure Policy: I received the February issue of Molly’s Money-Saving Digest for free so that I could review it. I considered becoming a Molly affiliate, but decided not to get my reviewing mixed up with money-making. This way it’s much easier for me to remain objective, and I’ll concentrate on money-saving instead, using Molly’s tips.
Dial-Up Friendly Policy: For the sake of my dial-up readers, this blog avoids visuals.
There is a lot of wisdom there. I really should subscribe to the Molly Digests. I love money saving tips.
I'm also thinking AGAIN that I need to meal plan better. I never, ever, ever go out to eat due to lack of planning. It is one of those things I refuse to do … we'll have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead. But I do find myself reaching for frozen fish sticks sometimes when I haven't planned well. I just seem to have a mental block about doing it, but most things can be done with a little planning.
Potatoes don't work for me due to blood sugar issues, but everyone else can have them. Actually, we still have sweet potatoes from October and we need to eat those up… so for now, I'm not buying potatoes.
We also don't go out due to lack of planning, but sometimes I wish we could. 🙂 It really helps to have a well-stocked pantry so there's always something available to eat.
I love money saving tips, too, and what I like about Molly's Digests is that the tips come a bit every month so there's time to try them out before the next month's tips come.
Annie Kate