"She watches over the ways of her household."

I've been looking at Proverbs 31 a little lately, (about the virtuous wife) and one verse has really been sticking out to me. "She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness."

To me, at this moment in my life, it is speaking about financial stuff. Wes asked me before we were even married if I would manage our finances. That was one thing that really stressed him out, and he didn't think he could handle it. I agreed to do it, but I haven't always been very consistent.

For instance, we're pretty tight on money right now, and have been for a while, though some times are a little less tight than others. I've tried a few times to put us on a cash system - it's so much easier to know how much you have and how much you're spending when you can actually SEE it! Cards make it hard to keep track of - at least for us. We're more likely to go over on spending if we're using cards, because it's convenient and you can't tell when you're running out.

Anyway, I never was consistent enough with making withdrawals and keeping track of income and outflow to see how much we could spend and how much we could save... so we've had some trouble putting any money back for savings. This is something I would really like to get better at, and after reading that verse, I'm happy to say that I have added "check on finances" to my weekly list in my homemaking organization notebook. Every Monday, along with my other tasks, I will now be checking on our bank account and looking at our income and outflow, making sure things are on track and calculating how much money I can withdraw for us to use for groceries and spending.

To me, it's a way that I can "watch over the ways of my household." It's also a way that I can honor my husband, by doing what he requested of me to the best of my ability and by not being inconsistent with it (which would show that his requests are not a priority to me like they should be).