Read Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times for Free Online Page B

is one case where spending a little saves a lot
.
    Aside from the hint about girdle maintenance, this booklet is as relevant for my life today as it was to Nana’s over sixty years ago.
    My family eventually lived off the fruits and vegetables from the atomically fertile soil in their garden, but Mom tells me that during their first winter in Saratoga, she, Nana, and Grandpa just barely got by on his paycheck from the plant. Nothing could be grown in the winter, and the animals were expensive to feed and keep warm in the barns. Fortunately, the chickens could be eaten after several weeks. “And we ate a lot of chicken,” Mom says. “A
looooooot
of chicken.”
    Even when Grandpa started selling milk, butter, and eggs to the local distributor, it didn’t bring in as much as it cost to run the farm. “Our neighbor, Truman, sold his butter and eggs as specialty items to the hotels in town, so he got more money for them,” Mom remembers. “He’d been farming longer, so he had more crops. And in addition to that, he bred collies to make extra money. Your grandpa just didn’t know how to do these things, and it was rough up there. Nana had to figure out every way she could to save money.”
    Lately, I’ve had to come up with a few of my own hints to help beat the high cost of living. I think they’re a little too unorthodox to have made it into Nana’s booklet, but she would have understood them.
    • • •
    #1: Need more money for food and bills? Offer to walk your neighbor’s potentially vicious dog
.
    Arthur lives downstairs from us. He was an adorable bull terrier puppy when his owners saw him in a pet shop about a year ago. The proprietor said Arthur’s freshness date was just about up—he was getting too old to sell and was headed back to the puppy mill, and an uncertain fate, if someone didn’t buy him soon. It was a great sales pitch, and Arthur was a bargain at seven hundred dollars, marked down from fifteen hundred.
    When Arthur started teething, his puppy bites were cute and harmless. Then he got bigger. One night on the way home from work, I ran into Arthur and one of his mommies. “Hey, Arthur, you handsome boy, how aaaa
AAAAARGH!
”
    “Arthur, stop that!” his owner said as she pulled on the leash, which made Arthur dig his teeth into my hand a little deeper so he wouldn’t lose his grip. “He’s just really excited to see you.” So excited, in fact, that in addition to trying to eat my hand, Arthur was simultaneously peeing on my suede boots.
    “How was work?” Nathan asked when I got upstairs.
    “Only slightly less dangerous than home,” I said as I wiped off my boot with my dented hand.
    That was last year. A week ago we ran into one of Arthur’s mommies in the neighborhood, and she mentioned that they were interviewing dog walkers. “How much do they charge?” Nathan asked.
    “Twenty-four dollars per forty-five-minute walk,” she said. “And we need a walker twice a week for when we work late.”
    I did a quick calculation in my head—forty-eight extra dollars a week, cash. “I’ll do it!” I said, almost peeing with excitement on Arthur.
    • • •
    #2: There’s extra cash in your closet—auction off your aerobic shoes!
    “I want you to eBay my sneakers.”
    Nathan looks up from the computer. “You want me to
what
?”
    “Put my sneakers on eBay.”
    He gives me the Mr. Spock raised eyebrow, his logical Vulcan mind once again fascinated by this human he’s living with. “What’s so special about these sneakers that would make someone want to buy them?”
    “They’re tush-tightening sneakers,” I explain. “And I paid two hundred and fifty dollars for them.”
    Now both eyebrows are raised. “Okay, let’s get these magic tushie sneakers on eBay and see if anyone wants them.”
    Three days later, we are a week’s worth of groceries richer. It’s just a shame that we had to sacrifice one bottom line to raise another.
    • • •
    #3: Why buy pricey water when