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Welcome to Day 13 of our series, From Chaos to Calm: 15 Weeks to a Happy Home. Today we’re talking about being faithful with your finances and the resources you’ve been blessed with.

Be sure to download my free printable savings tracker at the bottom of the post!

So, how’s the challenge going for you? We’re halfway through week three! Let me know what’s going on in your life and if you have any questions below in the comments!

From Chaos to Calm: Day Thirteen

Money Matters

Scripture Memory: “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.” Proverbs 31:11

Yesterday we discussed being dependable and trustworthy. Today, I want to focus on the second portion of the verse above.

In some families, the wife takes care of the majority of the finances. In others, the husband is the one who makes the decisions. Regardless of who pays the bills or manages the budget, it is up to you to be faithful with the money that you and your husband have coming in.

Most men, at least in the beginning, want to please their wives with nice things. It can be demoralizing for a man if he feels his wife is not pleased with the number of material possessions he is able to provide given his talents and career.

It’s important that you use money wisely and with discretion. Money is one of the top reasons couples get divorced. It can be a huge issue! It’s so important to see yourselves as a team as you approach your spending and saving. How can you work together to reach your financial and lifestyle goals without creating resentment and discontentment?

Have you ever felt guilty after a purchase or kept a purchase secret because you felt guilty about it? It’s never a good idea to hide your spending from your husband. Show him that you are capable of making wise financial choices and he is more likely to give you greater freedom in spending money.

One of the easiest methods of controlling spending is by using the cash envelope system. Determine the amount of income you have. Allot monies toward bills and other regular spending categories such as tithing, groceries, rent, insurance, and gasoline.

Place the allotted money in a marked envelope for each month. When the money is gone, do your best not to take money from another envelope/spending category, you have reached your limit. This method can be helpful for both the husband and wife. If your budget allows, give each spouse a practical amount of money that is for his or her own enjoyment and that you do not have to be held accountable to the other spouse.

related: Learn How to Use the Cash Envelope System

The Proverbs 31 woman’s husband did not have to worry about his wife’s spending habits because he knew she was sought out the best value for her money. Whatever your financial situation, ask God to hold you accountable and help you to be content.

Some of my favorite resources:

Actions Steps to Take Today

  1. Pray and ask God to show you where your heart needs pricking. If money is an issue in your marriage, ask Him to help you and your husband work on creating a budget together that you can both be happy with.
  2. Set financial goals together and determine make financial decisions together as a team.
  3. Wrtite down any attitude changes you need or concerns you have in your prayer journal and commit to praying about them!

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My name is Melissa Ringstaff and I've been blogging here at A Virtuous Woman since 2001. I'm a pastor's wife and homeschooling mom living in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains of Southeastern KY. I believe in finding freedom from perfection and living life with purpose and I want to help you do exactly that.

I'm so glad you've stopped by to visit with me. I hope we can be friends!

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26 Comments

  1. Hi Melissa!! I'm enjoying the Chaos to Calm series. In today's podcast, you mentioned "salvage grocery stores". I live not far from from you in Barbourville, Ky. Can you tell me where the one is where you shop please? I'd love to go there. Thanks!
    Reply
    1. Selina, Hi! I am so glad you stopped by today. That's so neat that you live so close. We drive thru Barbourville all the time! I don't know if there are any salvage stores in Corbin or Barbourville, but the ones I shop at are: UGO (United Grocery Outlet) in Tazewell, TN - just past Middlesboro toward Knoxville on 25E about 15 minutes or so. There's also a UGO in Hazard, KY. And two in Kingsport, TN. Mcoy's Salvage and Bird Bath Salvage. When we're in Corbin, we love to shop at Aldi's - they have super deals there. We are on the road a lot, and take advantage of stores in the area we are in. For instance, yesterday my daughter had to see a doctor in Kingsport, TN which is about an hour and a half/ two hours from Harlan. So, we stopped at the salvage stores while we were there. We also like to shop at Asian markets, which is completely different, but we buy a lot of our "healthy" foods in those places. I hope this helps you! Come back again, let's get to know each other. :)
      Reply
  2. Melissa, Charlotte saw a gastroen. last month. We still haven't nailed down the cause of her stomach cramps. Hope Sarah is feeling well. Leigh I'm the mommy of a teenager, Amanda is 13 today
    Reply
    1. Thanks Leigh, my daughter Sarah is 18 now. She's had trouble with her gut her whole life, but she's been doing better the last couple of years or so. We have suspected Chron's for a few years now. She has had bleeding ulcers and terrible pain, but the miracle cure for the gut is fresh cabbage juice. We are very careful about what she eats. If you want more info, let me know! Is Charlotte really sick?
      Reply
  3. Melissa, Life got hectic and it took a while to respond. Charlotte has complained that her tummy hurts since she was a toddler. We've tried probiotics, tested for celiac, IBS diet, dairy free, and I'm actually calling the dr. today to sat the Axid did not work. The stomach pain is intermittent and not always severe. Charlotte is pretty petite and thin, other than that it doesn't seem to be impacting her health. I just want her to be pain free!
    Reply
    1. Leigh, that sounds a lot like my daughter. We've had her tested for all sorts of things... celiac and more. She eats a mostly vegan and gluten free diet now. She has improved. Fresh Cabbage juice is the very best medicine for a ulcerated gut and that has helped Sarah tremendously. You might want to try it. Initially three years ago, I juiced a quart of cabbage juice a day (for several weeks) and now we juice less often, though she would probably benefit from more frequent juicing. She's had gut pain her whole life - almost on a daily basis - and often quite severe. She didn't grow like her sisters and she's very small for her age (18) - of course, she has quit growing. She'll never reach 5 feet tall, but she is so cute! We believe she has Chron's Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. But with her good healthy diet and the juicing she's done much better the last couple of years (once we stopped the dairy and gluten. She's even put on some healthy weight, because before she seemed so frail.
      Reply
  4. We are starting a new medicine tomorrow. We have to stop at a lab this week to get some more work done. I may stop gluten too, just to see how she does. I'll have to read up on Chron's. Charlotte is little, too. She is the smallest in her class, and she was fussing the other day because you can see her ribs. Thanks for the tips and glad Sarah is better. Now, where is my juicer? :)
    Reply
  5. I hope both your daughters are doing better. My daughter, Faith, suffered from stomached problems all her life too. We tested her for celiac, allergies. For years she suffered from anxiety and fear of food making her sick. Until she finally went to a Children's hospital and she was tested for Fructose Malabsortion. She tested positive and we found out she cannot properly digest foods that contain fructose (which is in so many things even fruits and veggies). Google the symptoms and see if your daughters might have this too. She has improved so much. As soon as she started staying away from certain foods, her skin regained color and she started feeling better. Praise God! i just wanted to share, just in case your daughter might have the same problem. I did research on it and very few doctors test for it, yet many people have this problem. God bless
    Reply
  6. My husband and I recently started a class called Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. He is a phenomenal guy and this class has really helped us. We are on a budget, we don't fuss about finances nearly as much and we even have money saved. My only difficulty is staying within a $200 grocery budget for a family of 5. We live in NJ and its expensive to live here. Do you have any resources as to what a SAHM could do to help bring more money into the home?
    Reply
    1. Hi Lisa! I love Dave Ramsey and listen to him on the radio a lot. I'm so proud of you for doing is class! Very exciting. I don't have a lot of personal experience making money from home, but I'll share what I have done as well as a few other ideas I haven't tried. 1. Blogging. I don't make a ton of money, but the little bit I bring in does help to pay for ice skating lessons as well as extra things. I have to say thought that blogging is not a quick source of income - it can take 2 - 3 years before you start earning anything. 2. Babysitting. Years ago I watched a baby in the mornings while her mother worked. It worked well because at the time I had a baby of my own and I just put them on the same schedule. 3. Selling products online. Little known fact: Back during the years of 2000 - 2003 or so I had a little online shop where I sold homemade cloth diapers and other baby items that I sewed. Etsy is a great place nowadays to sell things... you can even produce digital products and sell them which means no shipping. Or you could sell handmade items or really neat vintage finds {if you like to scour yard sales and flea markets for that sort of thing}. 4. If you like to bake bread, you could sell homemade loves for $5 - $6.00 a loaf. I did this for a little while. 5. My husband and I used to sell books on Half.com and one year we made $5,000 doing it. We would look at thrift stores for books we thought would bring a good price and sell them. We were shipping a LOT of books everyday back then. These days my husband lists a few a week and it's just a little cash because we don't have time anymore to do it like we were. 6. Look for ways to save more money. I know this isn't the same as earning money, but in a way it is. If you can cut your electric bill by $10.00 a month or your water bill, it helps! In the winter we keep our house at 60 - 62 degrees. We have a fire place in the basement we use, but the rest of the house is pretty chilly. We can't afford to run the furnace more than that. In the summer the house temp stays around 78. 7. Make your trips to town count. Try to get all your errands done in the same day to save on gas. 8. If you like to write, there are places online that will pay you to write for them. Or you could do freelance work. I've done some of that. You could also work on writing a book - not a quick source of income, but could pay off in the long run. 9. You could sell Tupperware, Essential Oils, Mary & Martha, etc. I have not done this. 10. You could do VA {Virtual Assistant} work - either by doing jobs for bloggers or working from home for a company that lets you telecommute. Lots of companies have service reps that work from home. {even Amazon.com is hiring work at home reps right now.} I hope these ideas help! You've inspired me to write a blog post on this... so be on the look out! :)
      Reply
  7. I know you might not see this for a while however I wanted to Thank you so much for the insight on the salvage stores. Your podcasts have blessed me and my marriage so much. I could see such a difference in 5 days. I found you by way of Amy at Raising Arrows. I am looking forward to the cleaning part of the series. I was just asking God to lead me to some salvage stores in TN and you answered the question in your first comment. Thank you for taking the time to use one of your God given talents and blessing perfect strangers.
    Reply
  8. I am so glad the dog was found! I truly am appreciating this series and am so glad I stumbled upon your blog!
    Reply
  9. Hi Melissa, I am doing good with the challenge, even during weekend I have woken up and did the prayer and wrote my journal. I just couldn´t go to bed and wake up early. I will pray to be able to accomplish this. Regarding to finances, I’m earning the double amount my husband earns for almost a year now. I was worried this new job would create problems with his ego and how I spend money, but I was able to maintain the spending as normal and to continue caring for our savings, and he seems to admire me because of that and this is making me proud of myself too!. Regarding encouraging him and not criticizing (him or myself), I am not doing that well and I need to really focus my prayers on. Sometimes I feel sooo bored of just working so much, doing the house duties, reflecting how to improve my life and taking care of my health... I just feel I need fun or relaxation time. But then I come back to this challenge or go to yoga, and I find an encouraging person or thought, and I realize that my marriage, my work, my life are there to make me grow in holiness. So, I´m in those ups and downs moments of exhausted and bored, and completely grateful and happy for being where I am. So, thanks for helping that those grace moments be more frequent :)!!
    Reply
    1. Sounds like you're keeping a good perspective! Sometimes we do need a break - vacations from life can be good! But it is important to keep our chins up and enjoy life even in the mundane. God bless you!
      Reply
  10. Thank you. Praise the LORD you found the dog. Money...well we have issues with this because the adult sons think they can demand money and we have to give it to them. The disrespectful ways are very trying. We are in the middle of the 38year olds temper tantrum about his needing $1500 and he is going to kill himself if he doesn't get it. SIGH. GOD is in control and we took it there. The LORD gave us a back door blessing with an over drawn checking account. Since I have vission issues my husband does the money. I like that budget idea. We both have PTSD and memory issues. I have TBI which is traumatic brain injury. Head to mouth doesnt always work for me and my forgetter works on the how to do things. So we thought the overdraw was us. It was an issue of the other person(company) taking out money before the checks were deposited. That cost us money. PTL. So the temper tantrum of the 38 yr old was we dont have money. He left and then he came back in without saying a word to his Father. He used to drive truck. He had an injury while driving and "-----------'" this lack of his perspective about future employment and surgeries has him doing nothing. We have asked but yesterday was an interesting day. He wants us to pay his back child support, his fines and car repairs and.... So PRAISE THE LORD for overdraws. I dont like shopping except at farmers markets, yard sales and flea markets. My Husband loves to shop. Lol. I grocery shop and thats about it. Im trying to sort and get rid of stuff. We had to move health issues...from over 2000 sq ft to under 1200 and one closet. Lol. Thank you for the series. Its a bright spot for me.
    Reply
  11. Thanks for this Melissa. My husband and I got married when I was 19 and he was 20 and neither of us really knew how to pay bills or keep track of money and it has been a constant struggle. Only now, seven years later, are we starting to finally figure it out (though today I have to make some dreaded phone calls concerning our insurance) I hope we can keep learning together and get better at this "adulting" thing.
    Reply
    1. You'll get there, Alek! Learn with each mistake so you don't repeat them. :) I love listening to Dave Ramsey's radio broadcast - you should look it up or listen online if you haven't been: https://www.daveramsey.com/show/radio/ God bless you!
      Reply
  12. I liked the talking. I'm going to check out the grocery stores that are salvaged stores. For some reason my email steamed to not work. I am enjoying this series. Thank you.
    Reply
  13. Hubby and I have found the monthly budget "meeting" a real pleasure. It's not just a time to talk about bills and money, we also talk about our plans and goals. We work together on projects that require saving. I also ask Hubby if I see something over $50 that's not in our budget. Often it's something we've planned on purchasing and is on sale. Most of the time he agrees with the purchase. There are also times when the wait between seeing the item and asking Hubby decreases the "need" for that item.
    Reply

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