Category: Homemaking

How is your grocery budget doing lately? Straining at the seams? Mine has been growing inexplicably every month–and I don’t think it can all be ascribed to the kids eating more! After staring, dismayed, at last month’s figures, something definitely needed to change.

So, I decided to revisit my old grocery shopping tips and price book. Scratch that: those prices are outdated and just depressing when I compare them to the current tags in the grocery store. It was time to make a new price book. The way I shop for groceries has changed over the years, depending on where we are living, number of mouths to feed, budget, etc. I needed the new price book to reflect that, so I made a spreadsheet with room to compare prices from several different kinds of retailers.

In a typical month, I will buy groceries at a traditional grocery store, a bulk foods store or wholesale supplier, a natural foods co-op, and sometimes an online retailer or specialty shop.

The Secret to Finding the Best Deals on Groceries

Why would anyone want to make grocery shopping so complicated, you ask? I think of it as a kind of game, searching to find the best prices on grocery staples to fit my family and my budget. However, it’s hard to play this game without a good price reference. You may think, “Oh look: peanut butter is on sale. It’s a great deal!”

But is it really? To know the answer to that question, you would have to compare the sale price of peanut butter at store A to the regular and/or sale prices of peanut butter at stores B, C, and D.

To do that, you need a price book.

What is a price book?

A price book is a notebook or spreadsheet in which you log the prices of items you typically buy. Use one row or line for each item, and make sure there is space to write prices from several different stores. Bring it along with you to the grocery store and note down the prices of apples, milk, peanut butter, or whatever you typically buy. Or copy prices off your receipt once you get home. (This is a much easier option if your shopping trip involves young children!)

Next time you head to a different store, take your price book along again. It will give you a reference for prices at the other stores, so you won’t have to stand in front of the peanut butter display wondering whether this sale is actually worth it. And you won’t have to try to keep hundreds of grocery prices stored in your brain! Your price book will absolutely save you money, because you can quickly and easily compare prices across brands and stores.

Of course, comparing prices is even more difficult when comparing containers of different size. You may remember that a good price on natural peanut butter is $6.99 at Safeway. But if you shop at a different store, the brand might be different, and the container size might vary as well.

How do you compare the prices of a quart jar of peanut butter to a gallon pail? The key lies in comparing unit prices.

What are unit prices?

Unit prices are those little numbers on the corners of the price tags in the store, which tell you the item’s price per unit of measurement. Items are typically measured in pounds, ounces, and fluid ounces, though other units of measurement may be used. For example, if a quart jar of peanut butter (32 oz) costs $6.99, then the unit price will be 6.99/32= $0.22 per ounce.

Unit prices are useful when you are comparing across different brands and sizes of containers. They can help you determine whether or not the larger size container is actually a better deal. IT ISN’T ALWAYS! A smaller container of store brand peanut butter may actually be less expensive than a larger container of brand name peanut butter. Check those unit prices!

How do you compare the unit prices for two items if they use different units of measurement?

This is where it gets tricky. Thank goodness for smart phones with calculators! You could also bring a calculator with you to the store, or else make a note of the price and size of container, and add it to your price book at home.

Here’s what to do: if the unit price for a 32-oz. jar of peanut butter is $0.22 per ounce, and the unit price of a 9-lb. pail of peanut butter is $4.75 per pound, don’t panic! Remember, 16 ounces = 1 pound, so just convert the unit price of the pail of peanut butter to ounces: 4.75/16= $0.30 per ounce. Now you can see that the pail of peanut butter, while a larger size, is actually more expensive per ounce of peanut butter than the 32-ounce jar.

Here’s a quick tip for faster shopping excursions when you don’t have a calculator:

• A general rule when comparing one particular item across brands, in similar size containers, is that items measured in a larger unit will be less expensive. For example, if one brand of canned tomatoes is $1.19 per pound, and another brand is $0.14 per ounce, the can measured in ounces is probably more expensive than the can measured in pounds.

• Remember, this rule only holds when comparing items in similarly sized packages. In the peanut butter example above, the large pail of peanut butter turned out to be more expensive than the smaller jar.

How do price books help you save money?

You already know how price books help you compare unit prices across brands and stores, to help you determine which jar of peanut butter or tomatoes is the best deal. But is there anything else price books can tell you?

Yes! Price books can help you compare items which are not identical, but are used in similar ways. How many different ways can you buy green beans, for instance? Fresh, frozen, canned, and even pickled if you’re lucky. Now, you can use those beans in most of the same recipes (except the pickles, of course!) But do you always think about comparing the price of fresh vs. frozen beans? Your price book can show you right away what the difference is.

Another example is fats and oils used for cooking. Have you ever compared the prices of olive oil and coconut oil, for instance? What about butter? Price books make it easy to see at a glance which one is less expensive per pound or fluid ounce. Maybe you could adapt your recipes to use more of the cooking fat which is least expensive.

Price books can also help you spot a good sale a mile away! Once you get used to checking unit prices and learn which products are the best deal, you won’t be so quick to jump at a sale on the fancy Italian brand of canned tomatoes. However, you will notice right away when the summer produce prices drop below the cost of canned and frozen produce.

Price books can show you where you are spending your money, when it comes to brand names or organic items. Lately, I have been trying to balance buying some organic products when the prices are similar to non-organic, or if it is an item I think is more important to be free from pesticides. If you go the extra step of comparing organic and non-organic items in your price book, it can give you that much more information about your grocery expenditures. In a lean month, you might decide to opt for non-organic products instead of vaguely assuring yourself that it doesn’t make much of a difference to your budget.

Of course I’m not saying you always need to choose the least expensive option for every item you buy! The point of a price book is to give you information, not force your choice. An informed choice is the best one.

Price Books and Sales

Price books are useful for comparing unit prices for the same or similar items across brands and stores, but are they really any use when it comes to sales?

Actually, price books are your best friend when it comes to shopping sales. This is what you need to do to get the most out of sales:

Note down SALE PRICE, SALE DATE, and HOW OFTEN the item goes on sale. You can do this on a separate page of your price book if you want, or on the bottom of the page for each item.

This will allow you to not only buy items when they are on a great sale, but also stock up enough to last you through to the next sale (presuming the item is shelf stable, or you are able to preserve it). For example, condiments like ketchup and mustard typically go on sale before Memorial Day, July 4th, and sometimes Labor Day (in the United States). You won’t likely find them on sale before Thanksgiving, however; so make sure you buy enough during the summer sales to last you until next summer.

Fresh produce goes on sale in the summer, or when the produce is ripe on farms closest to you. Frozen fruits and vegetables often go on sale in the spring or early summer, as stores are trying to clear out last year’s stock to make room for the next batch.

How to Make Your Own Price Book

Enough about the whys, here’s the how to:

There are two different ways to make a price book: you can make a physical book using a notebook and pen, or you can make a spreadsheet on the computer and either print it off or just keep an electronic log of prices.

Making a Physical Price Book

To make a physical price book, you will need some kind of notebook. I like smallish spiral-bound notebooks with a lot of pages! Use a separate page for each item. We will use eggs as an example. On the first line, write the name of the store where you found the item: “Safeway.” Then write the unit price: “$2.60/dozen.” Next to the unit price, write the cost of the package: “$12.99/5 dozen.” Skip a line underneath, so you can write in sale prices. Go to the next line and write the name of another store where you can buy eggs: “Costco.” Continue with the unit prices and package price as above.

Is this starting to sound like a lot of work? Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to write down prices on every single item you buy all at once. I save my receipts and enter prices over the course of several weeks, whenever I have a few spare minutes. This project does take a while to complete, but it is well worthwhile in reducing grocery expenditures over the long term.

TIP

Does your grocery store have an app or website? Use this to check prices and enter them in your price book before you shop!

The one downside to a physical notebook is that you can’t add pages later. Whether you organize your price book alphabetically or by category (produce, meat & fish, etc.) there is always a chance you might miss an item. I suggest making a list of all the items you want to include in your price book on a separate sheet of paper and looking it over a few times before copying the items into your price book. You can always write in more entries at the end of the notebook, if all else fails.

Making a Digital Price Book

The second option is to make a spreadsheet on your computer. If you would like to go this route, I’ve already done most of the work for you! You can grab a copy of my Grocery Price Book Template, print it off, and simply write in the names of the stores you shop at and the prices of the items.

I tried to make my template thorough, but it does reflect the items I buy, and your list will most likely be different. I included several blank lines in each category for you to write in items not found on my list.

If you prefer to keep your spreadsheet in a digital format, or if my list is widely different than yours, I am happy to share my Grocery Price Book Digital Template with you. You will need to access Google Docs to open the document. Please SAVE A COPY to your own Google Drive before you edit anything! Otherwise you will be editing the master copy for everyone.

Get A Free Grocery Price Book Template

Click the button below the image to download a PDF of my blank Grocery Price Book Template.

For even more ways to save money on groceries, be sure to read Ultra Power Saving Mode for your Grocery Budget.

I hope you find these grocery price book resources helpful! As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

Happy Homemaking,

~Kimberly

Dear Homemaker,

Is your life not exactly what you envisioned when you began this homemaking endeavor? Did you begin with enthusiasm, only to lose your zest after a time? Have you fallen into some bad habits which hinder your efforts rather than helping them?

Maybe it’s time to review your habits of homemaking, and form some new good habits to replace those which really aren’t useful. Think of it as a ‘spring cleaning’ for your homemaking routine!

The perfect time for a reset

This time of year always gets to me. Early spring, when the weather is fickle, can be frustrating. Perhaps it reminds me of my own nature: one moment sunny and smiling, but the next grumpy and overcast because of some small mishap that I allowed to cloud my day. Whatever the cause, I feel restless and unsatisfied with myself this time of year. I can see all too clearly the bad habits that have crept in during the long winter, and I wish I could just jerk myself up and out of them.

But, of course, new habits are not formed in a day, and old ones are hard to break, so I usually just continue in my habitual ruts.

I also find myself comparing my own situation in life to others, and finding my own lot rather less exciting or inspiring or lovely than I would wish.

Now we all know that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but it might be worthwhile to remember the ideals we once had, and compare those to our current lives. Not to make ourselves miserable, but to give us fresh inspiration to begin again and work toward our goals. Of course, we might find that some of our old ideals no longer apply to our current lives; and that’s fine. If you find that is the case for you, it is the perfect time to take stock of where you are in life and where you hope to be. Even if your old goals still apply, perhaps you will decide to add a few new ones based on changes in yourself or your life.

Remembering why you began

Each of us must choose her own goals, but here are two examples:

Perhaps you began homemaking as a starry-eyed newlywed, excited to learn all the domestic arts, all at once! By and by, frustrated by many failed attempts at new skills and the extra demands of a baby or two, you find yourself going the rounds of your daily life with half-hearted efforts and mediocre results. You are no longer on fire with passion for motherhood or homemaking, and you don’t like the life you are leading or the person you are becoming.

Or maybe your life was your career for many years, and transitioning to a homemaker’s role wasn’t all sunbeams and roses. Perhaps you have caught yourself wishing for your old job, where people actually listened to you and took you seriously. You probably had some pretty idea of what a homemaker’s life would be like, but now you feel disillusioned and somewhat cheated.

If you can identify with any of these illustrations, I encourage you to find some quiet time and think seriously about what you want in life, what is best for you and your family, and how to get there.

Discerning what needs to change

When you experience a feeling of restlessness or frustration, it is natural to desire to change something in order to relieve that stress and feel happy again. But what exactly needs to change? The answer will vary for each of us; there is no one-size-fits-all solution here.

How do we discern what we need to change? In order to move from a vague feeling of frustration to a diagnosis of the particular problem and an action plan to improve it, we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.

This should go without saying, but when you do ask these questions, be completely honest in your answers. This isn’t a test, and it isn’t about what looks good to others. It’s about finding which areas in your life need improvement, and honesty is essential, even if it is painful to think about your own failings.

Here are some discernment questions to get you started:

Am I at peace in life? If not, is the unrest in my relationship with God, with myself, or with other people?

Spiritual

The problem might be spiritual if you think you have no time to pray, or if you merely go through the motions of your habitual prayers and devotions, or if you find yourself wondering whether any of this “religious stuff” really matters anyway. If this description fits you, consider blocking out half an hour every day to read Scripture, pray, or just dwell in the present moment with a spirit of gratitude. Quality time is the key to developing any relationship, and this is no exception.

Personal

Are you at peace with yourself? You might not be if you are frustrated by bad habits cropping up such as sleeping in, wasting time on media (social or not), leaving the house messy, feeling sorry for yourself, or half-hearted efforts at doing your duty. These types of faults are what may be called character flaws: laziness, lack of attention, and selfishness or self-centeredness can crop up under many different guises. Fixing them usually requires cultivating the opposite virtue: diligence, attention, and charity or love would be the opposite virtues for the examples above.

Relational

Finally, the problem might lie in your relationships with others if you find yourself gossiping, arguing or yelling at family members frequently, or comparing yourself to others and wishing for what someone else has. All of these habits may be mended by making a firm effort to see every person we meet as an amazing and unrepeatable creation, worthy of our respect and love. C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his most famous essays:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals we joke with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously–no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner–no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis

This passage is worth thinking over slowly, as it exposes as fallacies several ideas that our society takes for granted. These days, tolerance is touted as the greatest virtue, while human dignity is trampled underfoot. Lewis turns the picture right side up and shows us the relation between persons and civilizations from an eternal perspective. Have we also slipped into habits of thinking and acting as if they were true?

The will and habit

The remedy for any of these faults lies in your will. However, it is not enough to decide that you will never act this way again. Once a habit is formed, whether it is a bad one or good, it leaves a track in the brain. Just as it is easier to follow a path through a field or wood than to cut cross-country, so it is easier for your brain to run in the tracks laid down by habit.

Don’t be surprised if very soon after you make a decision to stop a bad habit, you slip into it again without thinking. This is the nature of habit, of course. It is like an “autopilot” setting on your brain which lets you carry out many actions, and even thoughts and feelings, without thinking.

Obviously this can be very helpful in the case of good habits, but it makes bad habits that much harder to break. For in order to break a bad habit, you will have to be very watchful. You will have to think about what you are doing more than you normally do, so that you can stop yourself from slipping into the bad habit unintentionally.

How can this be done? One way is to think of a good habit to replace the contrary bad habit you are trying to erase. Next, think of the situations where you are likely to slip into the bad habit. Then make a plan for what to do in those situations instead of the thing you normally do, which you are now trying to avoid.

An Illustration

Consider the example of a mother who is trying to stop wasting so much time on her phone. She knows that after a stressful day, when the kids are finally asleep, she often pulls out her phone to relax, and before she knows it, an hour or two has slipped by.

To prevent this from happening in the future, she needs to make a plan for when this situation presents itself. She sets out a book and some bath salts next to the chair where she usually relaxes with her phone so that when she collapses into the chair, tired out at the end of the day, she will see these items and remember to go take a bath and read instead of mindlessly scrolling her feed.

Formation of Habits

Numerous studies have established that habits take about two weeks of constant repetition to form, and months to solidify. Habits which are practiced for years without interruption become very hard to break indeed.

After the first few weeks, you will notice that much less effort of mind is required to follow the habit, although you do still have to be vigilant that you do not slip back into the previous habit, which will not be fully erased yet. This is one of the most dangerous points in the formation of a new habit, according to Charlotte Mason. She writes that the critical moment comes when a newly-formed habit has been practiced successfully perhaps twenty times in succession. She uses the example of a boy learning to shut the door after himself:

Some day Johnny is so taken up with some new delight that the habit, not yet fully formed, loses its hold, and he is half-way downstairs before he thinks of the door. Then he does think of it, with a little prick of conscience, strong enough, not to send him back, but to make him pause a moment to see if his mother will call him back. She has noticed the omission, and is saying to herself, ‘Oh, poor little fellow, he has been very good about it this long time; I’ll let him off this once.’ He, outside, fails to hear his mother’s call, says to himself–fatal sentence!–‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ and trots off.

Next time he leaves the door open, but it is not a ‘forget.’ His mother calls him back, in a rather feeble way. His quick ear catches the weakness of her tone, and, without coming back, he cries, ‘Oh, mother, I’m in such a hurry,’ and she says no more, but lets him off. Again he rushes in, leaving the door wide open. ‘Johnny!’–in a warning voice. ‘I’m going out again in just a minute, mother,’ and after ten minutes’ rummaging he does go out, and forgets to shut the door. The mother’s mis-timed easiness has lost for her every foot of the ground she has gained.

Home Education, Charlotte Mason

In this example, the mother was acting as the little boy’s conscience, in order to help his weak child’s will form a good habit. The same kind of dialogue takes place inside our own minds when we are tempted to abandon a young habit. “Oh, just this once won’t hurt.” “I’ve been so good lately, I deserve a break.” “I’m in too much of a hurry today.”

Will it really be a big deal to break your habit once? Perhaps not if it is fully formed; but in the first stages, such a lapse can render all your previous effort bootless.

Steps to form a habit

Whether you need to change something in your relationship with God, yourself, or other people, habits can help you turn your thoughts and change your actions. Here is how to start:

• Examine your life and determine which actions or thought patterns you would like to change.
• Write them down on one side of a piece of paper.
• Opposite each bad habit, write down a good habit which will replace it. If you have a long list, choose just one or two habits to work on at first.
• Make a plan by thinking of the situations which trigger the bad habits. Plan how you can intervene in those situations to prevent the bad habit from taking over.
• Give yourself a time frame. Pick a date about two weeks away and make a note on your calendar to review your progress in forming a new habit.
• Consider asking a friend to be your accountability partner, and check up on your progress. This is especially helpful if you are trying to correct a fault like gossiping, which is more of a problem in a group setting.

Try to be perfectly consistent in practicing your new habit. Do not consciously allow yourself to return to the bad habit, even in times of stress. If it should happen accidentally, though, don’t berate yourself unduly. Just resolve firmly to begin again. It may help to keep a record for the first few weeks of how many times you have succeeded in keeping the new habit, and how many times you reverted to the old habit.

I will end with Charlotte Mason’s encouragement to mothers who are overwhelmed by the number of habits they think they need to cultivate in their children. She reminds them to focus on one habit at a time, and remember that “the formation of habit itself becomes habit;” that is, once you have trained yourself or your child in a new habit, the process of forming a habit gets easier. It is easier to form the second habit than the first, simply because you have more practice in forming habits. Even if we find a long list of areas we need to improve, let’s flex our habit-forming muscles and dive in!

Happy homemaking!

-Kimberly

Are there virtues specific to homemaking? Perhaps not exclusively, but the vocation of homemaking provides opportunities to practice many, many virtues. This series explores how homemakers can cultivate the twelve Fruits of the Spirit in everyday life, through their ministry of home and family.

In the first part of this series, we covered charity, joy, peace, kindness, and gentleness. This time, let’s talk about the remaining Fruits of the Spirit. Some of them are words you might not be familiar with, as they’re not used or talked about much these days. But that’s all the more reason to learn about them, and how they can help us become better homemakers!

There are seven remaining virtues to make up the original twelve Fruits of the Spirit: patience, goodness, long-suffering, modesty, faith, continency, and chastity. Why twelve, when only eight are mentioned in some Scripture passages? The passage in the book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, refers to the Fruits of the Spirit thus: “On both sides of the river was the tree bearing twelve fruits” (Revelation 22:2). Also, if there’s a choice between eight or twelve ways to grow in holiness, wouldn’t you rather hear about all of them?

So without further ado, let’s examine these remaining virtues.

Patience

Patience isn’t one of those lesser-known virtues I was talking about. Opportunities for patience abound in home life, perhaps more than in any other area of life. This doesn’t make it any easier for most of us, unfortunately!

There are a lot of repetitive tasks in a homemaker’s daily life and routine. Preparing three meals a day, for example; or all the housecleaning chores that must be done again and again and yet again if we want to keep our homes in some semblance of order. Not everyone likes cooking, and even the ones who do get bored of it at times. I enjoy cooking for the most part, but there are many days when I would rather do just about anything than cook another meal. (Probably more often than not, during the third trimester and postpartum periods!)

Likewise with cleaning–which I don’t happen to enjoy nearly so much as cooking. It takes a healthy dose of patience to watch dirty feet run across my freshly cleaned floors without shouting or scolding. It takes patience to tackle the mountain of dishes without complaining, when my back hurts and nobody liked the meal anyways, even though I spent hours on it.

Yes, patience is a fundamental virtue for homemakers. We all need to work at it, no matter how patient we are by nature. I remember thinking that I was a rather patient person, as far as personalities went–back before I had children! It’s funny how living with a family shows you your faults in glaring detail. But remember, this is a good thing. If you feel like a complete failure at patience because you’re always yelling at your kids or frustrated with your husband, that’s the first step towards becoming a more patient person. Just think how impatient and selfish we all would be if left to ourselves, without any families to show us where we need to grow.

Since patience is so necessary for homemakers, there are almost unlimited opportunities to practice it throughout the day. As with any virtue, it’s best to start with small things instead of challenging yourself with heroism right at the start. Practice biting your tongue when a family member whines or complains, or even accuses you of something. There are times when a response is necessary, but it never hurts to take a minute to gather your thoughts and calm your temper before replying.

Goodness

How exactly is goodness different from kindness? Or in the older language, beneficence versus benignity? In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas defines beneficence as simply “doing good to someone” (Summa Theologiae, II-II:31.1) He regards it as an act of friendship, and therefore of charity. In another place, he differentiates beneficence from benignity by stating that beneficence is chiefly the “will to do good” to someone, whereas benignity is the actual carrying out of that willed kindness (Summa Theologiae, I-II:70.3) So, while there is probably some overlap between these virtues, goodness is the interior disposition and intention to do good to others, while kindness is goodness put into action.

How, then, do we practice goodness as homemakers? If goodness is chiefly an interior disposition, you might be confused as to how it’s also a virtue.

Remember how we said that the virtues of goodness and kindness fall under charity and friendship? Reflect, for a moment, on how you tend to view and think about your best friends. Do you carefully review every request that a friend makes, or do you usually agree to help right away? If you see your friend in trouble, do you wait and see if she asks for help, or do you jump into action immediately? We tend to look on our friends from a perspective of love and goodwill. We want what’s best for them, and we are eager to offer help when we can.

Now think about your attitude towards family members, neighbors, and others you meet in day-to-day life. Examine whether you are quick to offer help or comfort, or whether there is some interior reluctance keeping you from being as kind as you could be. You will probably find that there’s some room for growth in every relationship.

The key to growing in goodness is to look at every person with love and compassion. Oftentimes, we feel estranged from a person because they hold different beliefs, or come from a different background, or act differently than we do. This feeling of “strangeness” keeps us strangers at heart; but we are called to reach past those barriers–which might only exist in our minds–and to see that other person as a child of God.

Long-suffering

What is long-suffering, and why is it a fruit of the Spirit? Fruits are supposed to be positive things, yet suffering doesn’t sound very positive. Aquinas explains that “the fact of not being disturbed by painful things is something to delight in” (Summa Theologiae, I-II: 70.3). If you’re still skeptical, let’s explore this virtue further.

The Oxford Dictionary defines long-suffering as “having or showing patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people.” Merriam-Webster offers a slightly different definition: “patiently enduring lasting offence or hardship.”

So long-suffering is a type of patience: heroic patience. Patience that lasts more than an hour or a day, but for weeks, months, or years. Patience that the world cannot fathom, such as we see in the lives of people like Chiara Badano. She was diagnosed with an incurable tumor at the age of 17, and went from an active, athletic lifestyle to a life confined to bed. She died two years later, in the year 1990; but during those two years, she lived with such serenity and joy that everyone who met her marveled at her patience and hope. How, they asked, could a teenager with no possibility of recovery be so happy? She faced certain, painful death, yet she prepared for it “as if for a wedding” (chiarabadano.org).

What does long-suffering mean for homemakers? Perhaps it means accepting our crosses-big and small-with joy, just like Chiara Badano. It means being so solidly rooted and centered on God that worldly difficulties and afflictions don’t phase us.

Long-suffering doesn’t stand on its own as a virtue; it depends on many others: patience, hope, fortitude, and faith. If we want to live lives of radical joy, however, it will take radical, long-suffering patience.

Modesty

Modesty is a touchy subject, even for those who strive to dress modestly. Everyone seems to have different standards of modesty, and some even have different standards for different categories of people! I’ve heard the argument that men should just exercise better self-control instead of expecting women to dress a certain way. Then there’s the argument that modesty is just whatever a society defines it to be by the current fashions. Some people say that modesty is an artificial social restriction, and it doesn’t apply in “natural” societies such as those tribes found in parts of New Zealand.

All of these views seem to regard modesty as some sort of line between decency and indecency, particularly regarding women’s clothing choices. But that’s not the only approach to modesty. Virtues are not merely the “middle ground” between two vices; Aristotle calls them the “golden mean” which transcends the entire plane of natural acts, and takes one to a supernatural level. If we look at modesty in this light, as something positive in itself rather than negative, we can see that modesty is about giving proper respect to our bodies.

Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand wrote: “If little girls were made aware of the great mystery confided to them, their purity would be guaranteed. The very reverence which they would have toward their own bodies would inevitably be perceived by the other sex. Men are talented at reading women’s body language, and they are not likely to risk being humiliated when a refusal is certain. Perceiving women’s modesty, they would take their cue and, in return, approach the female sex with reverence” (The Privilege of Being a Woman). *This is an affiliate link; for my full disclosure regarding affiliate promotions, please read my disclosure statement.

Dr. von Hildebrand speaks of veiling as a sign of respect, which is particularly associated with woman. In this, she echoes Gertrud von le Fort’s great tribute to womanhood, The Eternal Woman. (This is an affiliate link; for my full disclosure regarding affiliate promotions, please read my disclosure statement.)

Veiling a woman’s body is not primarily about preventing men from lusting after her; rather, it preserves the mystery of her womanhood. The mysteries of the transmission of life, the hidden growth during pregnancy, and the process of birth are all entrusted to woman. They are hidden within her body. Every woman shines with this capacity for motherhood. The mystery of maternity is not to be taken lightly, and that is where modesty comes in.

Modesty is reverence for the human person as expressed bodily, physically. For women, this involves veiling their bodies to a greater degree than is necessary for men. Why? Gertrud von le Fort explains that when this veil is lifted, and woman’s body exposed (other than within the marriage covenant), the mystery of woman is destroyed. She is no longer respected as a person, as the bearer of life. Her body is denigrated to merely an object for sexual gratification, to be used and discarded at will.

By keeping the veil intact, modesty shows that a woman respects herself and expects others to respect her as well. A modest woman knows her own dignity and worth. She is not ashamed of her body, trying to hide something she deems unattractive; rather, she is protecting a precious jewel that has been entrusted to her as part of her womanhood.

Faith

Faith as a virtue pertains both to our relationship with God and our relationships with other people. Regarding the former, faith means that we subject our minds, hearts, and entire selves to God, believing and trusting in His words and commands. If we think about faith as it regards our neighbor, the virtue means fidelity: standing alongside our friends and neighbors through thick and thin (Summa Theologiae, I-II: 70.3).

Homemakers’ very lives are based on faith and fidelity: the faithful commitment of husbands to support their wives and children makes homemaking possible. Without faithful husbands who support the missions of their wives in the home, women have to devote much precious time to working outside of the home. While this is sometimes a necessity even with a supportive husband, it certainly makes homemaking harder.

Wives and homemakers have myriad opportunities to be faithful to their husbands and families: faithful in fulfilling their duties around the house and raising children, faithful in actively nurturing their marriages and showing love to their spouses through big and little actions, faithful in caring for friends and neighbors, faithful in upholding truth and virtue by word and example, faithful in guarding their families from negative influences and immoral social pressures, faithful in entrusting every care and concern to the Lord, faithful in walking along the straight and narrow path and encouraging their families to do the same.

I think faith is one of the most important virtues for homemakers to cultivate, and there’s no better way to do so than by daily prayer. Pray when you’re anxious; pray when you’re at peace. Pause in the middle of washing the dishes or sweeping the floor to breathe a few words of thanksgiving, praise, or petition. Cast every care on the Lord, and remember to thank Him for everyday miracles and blessings. Pray without ceasing, and your home will become a place of sanctuary.

Continency and Chastity

What is the difference between these two virtues? Chastity has a much broader definition, because it surrenders the entirety of our sexual instincts, desires, and acts to God’s will. This virtue can be practiced in different ways, however, without losing any of its value. Some people are called to live chastely as virgins, refraining from any and every sexual act. Others are called to marriage, where they are faithful to their spouses in thought, word, and action; and each sexual act in such a marriage becomes an act of virtue, as it is done in obedience to God’s plan for marriage and loving respect for the other person.

Continency, or continence, is the abstaining from sexual acts. Unmarried people, whether they are committed to a life of virginity or not, are called to practice continency until or unless they are called to marriage. But they are not the only ones who practice continence. Married spouses who use Natural Family Planning as a responsible way of growing their families also practice continency, during periods where the wife is fertile but a pregnancy would be unwise or harmful. For some couples, this can be quite a large part of their married life, if health problems or severe financial difficulties impede them from growing their family.

As homemakers, we practice these virtues as becomes our current state in life: married or unmarried. In either case, chastity should imbue us with a profound reverence for the gift of life and the value of each and every human person. Chastity teaches us that other people, of the same or opposite sex, may not be used for our own selfish desires, but they must be respected as children of God. We must always respond to them on the level of persons, not objects.

Chaste virginity, in our world today, is scorned and abused, or even seen as harmful to a person’s development. The example of a woman who chooses to live a life of virginity-whether temporarily, until marriage, or permanently-is a shining light of virtue in the midst of a corrupt society. The significance of virginity also affects marriage profoundly: single people who choose to live chastely show by their lives that marriage is something to be respected. On the contrary, single people who do not live chastely signify thereby their lack of respect for marriage and sexuality.

For more on the profound meaning of virginity, and womanhood in general, I suggest Gertrud von le Fort’s The Eternal Woman. It is a beautiful testimony to authentic womanhood, and the mission of all women as virgins or mothers. (This is an affiliate link; for my full disclosure regarding affiliate promotions, please read my disclosure statement.)

Chaste marriage, while not abused as much as virginity in our society, is generally regarded as a fairytale that rarely happens in real life. Wives who live chaste married lives are no less witnesses to virtue than their virgin sisters. Wives who are faithful to their husbands in thought, word, and deed build up marriage and family life. They proclaim by their actions that the marriage covenant is something to be deeply respected, and they show by their lives that fidelity to a spouse confers peace and blessings on a family.

In sum, chastity and continence are both positive virtues. They are not limitations to be ashamed of, but lifestyle choices to celebrate and live joyfully. The world needs more witnesses of chastity, and homemakers have a wonderful opportunity to show how a chaste life can bring peace, happiness, and fulfillment to women in particular.

Conclusion

This article turned out rather longer than I imagined, and there is so much more that could be said about these virtues! Much more has been written on them, and by better pens than mine.

Now, I am a homemaker, not a theologian; so if you happen to disagree with my definitions, that’s fine. My hope is to encourage you to live out these virtues through your life and mission as a homemaker. Your life is a witness, no matter how hidden and insignificant you feel. The things you do for your family every day really matter! Perhaps you will never see the fruits of your efforts in this life, but we have been promised that no effort at holiness is wasted. Cultivating the Fruits of the Spirit through your life as a homemaker will bear fruit of eternal worth.

Happy homemaking!

~Kimberly