Happy Thanksgiving

MOPS @ FUMCO wishes you and your families a veryHappy Thanksgiving.

While listening to Z88 a few days ago, I heard a story about a mother who is facing the same challenge I am dealing with: Teaching her young children the importance of being thankful. I thought her idea of how to get them thinking about it was worth passing along. Each night she has her children reflect on the day and asks them what they are most thankful for that day. I've been doing it with my kids (ages 6 and 4) for about a week now. Tonight I was thrilled to hear their answers finally seem though-filled. My daughter was thankful for "searching for sharks teeth on Venice Beach" and my son was thankful for "fishing on the pier". I felt teary eyed that those were memorable moments for them too.

Each holiday season our children are inundated with ideas for "things" to ask Santa to bring them. My family has a tradition of picking names off the giving tree at Chick-fil-A or at our church and buying gifts for a less fortunate family. Unfortunately, that seems to slip out of mind during the rest of the year. Maybe this mother's idea, if used somewhat regularly, can help our children realize what wonderful things they already have instead of getting caught up in the toy isle of wonder!

God Bless

Creative Budgeting

What a great meeting tonight. We shared ideas on saving money in our households. Below are some links to some of the sites we discussed that help save money.

The Grocery Game: for a minimal fee you can get a list of the best deals in town to match up with the Sunday paper coupons. Visit the site for a trial and get more details.
www.TheGroceryGame.com

Share Florida is a non-profit organization where you can get groceries at 50% off or more. It looks easy, one of our Moms has used it for a few months and has been pleased. Check it out.
www.ShareFlorida.org

Trying to go on vacation or need to book your plans to visit the family. Try this site, we've heard good things about it.
www.TravelZoo.comm or www.AAA.com

Some other great tips shared:

• meal plan by type of meal you want. For example: Monday/Mexican, Tuesday/Italian. It is easier than trying to plan based on the main food ingredient.
• opt out of "point" programs on your credit cards and tell them you want cash back instead.
• shop thrift stores, a great place to find children's clothes and most Goodwills carry return items from Target, often still in packages never used.
• Costco pharmacy is available to non-members and they have the lowest price on prescriptions
• use Quicken or Quickbooks to track your spending, you can take a quick glance at a pie chart or detail every penny

If you have any you would like to share, please do so.

MOPS Night Out

Ladies come and join us for an evening of girl time, girl talk and maybe some vino...

Thursday November 13th 7:00 pm

Infusion Tea Room in Urban Think at Thornton Park
625 East Central Blvd.
Orlando 32801
http://www.urbanthinkorlando.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp
http://www.infusionorlando.com/
For questions or concerns contact Barbara Shortal @ 407.256.3326