For A Rainy Day

At church we had a visitor from our Stake High Council, Brother Don Dowling, who brought up the blessing of saving for emergencies. It is always smart to have some $ tucked away in a savings account should a need arise. But I felt truly validated when he brought up the ever humble money jar.
At our house I have three such "jars". Two of them are actually very nice looking wine bottles that Celeste saved for me from Red Robin where she is a manager. I put nickles and dimes in one of them and quarters in the other. For the pennies I currently use a gallon apple cider jug because pennies are far less frequented by the "needy". Brother Dowling said that he had a jar such as this and when the time arose to make an unscheduled trip, he was able to put new tires on his car. I want to also sing the praises of keeping this kind of savings.
When Suzanne had Jacob she lived in Georgia. I never thought I could ever make a trip like that, but she wanted me to come and be with her when he was born, (and so did I ;) so I dumped out my jar and started counting. I had well over $300! This was almost enough to cover the entire air fare, so I flew to Georgia. It was a first in setting the precedent for me to travel to the births of my grandchildren, and I have been there for most of them. (Garret - a C-Section - and Mollie were born 6 days apart so I missed Mollie's. Thank goodness for Celeste's wonderful mother-in-law who was able to be there. And then Kamryn - another C-section - was a week after Isabel and Suzanne's mother-in-law flew to Hawaii to save the day; Jared was still on his way home from Iraq for R and R.)
But the change from those jars has bought a few fresh things from the grocer at the end of a month, provided gifts, gas for the car, clothing, and object lessons and treats for Seminary, and these are only the things we remember! (I had to ask David for a memory jog). Anyway, I am a FIRM believer in spending only dollar bills so that I can add the change to the kitty. Repeatedly, this has very much paid off.