They had more than 25.000 dram, but they had also two small children and old parents. On the way to the market they were giving the money to each other, calculating and deciding what to buy. First of all they decided to keep 10.000 dram as savings for unexpected expenses. Then they decided to buy 5 kilos of beef, pork and chicken.
“At least our children will be able to eat well”, said the lady and continued calculating the money.
Four bottles of vodka, ten lemonades and abut ten kiloes of fruit. They decided to buy Armenian fruit, because those were cheaper then the imported ones. They also decided to buy a half kilo of nuts and one kilo of sweets. When it was already the turn for other sweets and cakes, they realized that their money would not be enough for that. The husband looked at his wife in confusion. His wife found a solution: she decided to buy less meat. One kilo of pork price was about 2000-2300 dram, and beef – about 1500-2000 dram. By doing this they saved about 5000 dram and thus solved the problem of cookies. They had to also buy olive, butter, cheese, curds products, etc. The husband decided to buy small bottles of vodka and thus saving some money solved this problem too. Then the wife reminded his husband that children had taken out their old Christmas tree and had asked them to buy some toys for it. Of course toys are not something intended for eating or wearing, but they couldn’t go back and explain to their children that they didn’t have enough money for that. Because this holiday comes once a year and children get happy. They decided to buy the nuts and candies for cheaper prices and save money for these toys too. Then the wife decided that their children were expecting to get presents from Santa. Their daughter had asked for shoes and the boy – for a hat. They kept silence for a while and looked at each other. How could they say hat Santa didn’t like their children? So they decided to buy less meat and drinks. They still had some compotes remaining.
“We will make “Dolma” with rice, so we will save somehow”, said the wife and they decided to buy the presents by all means.
But they had to buy some sweets to take with them when visiting their relatives. They kept silence again, but the wife said that they had a box of chocolates at home so they could take that one. But they need a couple of more ones. They decided that one box was enough for them, besides that their other relatives might bring sweets so they could take those ones with them too.
Then the wife said jokingly: “If we cut our expenses down we will not leave anything in our list”.
They stopped near a meat store. There were another rich couple there too, the fat husband bought 30 kilos of meat, but the wife complained that it was not enough for them. Then the seller turned to our heroes and asked how much meat they wanted to buy and put a big piece of pork on the table.
“By four kilos from each one”, said the husband in confusion, and the wife looked at him surprisingly but didn’t say anything.
“Oh, again three, five kilos… Buy ten or more kilos so we can get some profit”, complained the seller. He was complaining that his business was bad that year, because he had taken credit and couldn’t cover it. People had started to buy meat less, because the national currency was not stabile and the income of people had been cut down. His only hope was the trade before the New Year time, but his expectations didn’t come true this time either.
And later, I don’t know by chance or purposely, our heroes were following those fat couple. It seemed to me that they didn’t come there to buy food, but to enjoy what the other ones were buying. But this didn’t help our heroes, because by following the other couple they were spending all their money, even their savings, but they hadn’t bought the presents of Santa for their children. The husband looked at his wife sadly. But the wife smiled smartly and said that she had secretly saved more than 10000 dram.