strictlysupreme Chapter 477 Preparing for New Year’s Gifts
Chapter 477 Preparing for New Year’s Gifts
After the winter began this year, the Wen family’s meals were changed from three meals a day to two meals a day.
It’s not that the head of the Wen family is stingy, but everyone has eaten well this year and has enough food in their stomachs. That meal early in the morning cannot compare to the warmth in the bed.
Another reason is that the Zhao family built a new house, and they felt at ease. If nothing happened, Zhao Dong and the other three who were having dinner at the Wen family would not want to get up early at all.
But today is different. Yesterday when Gu Qingqing was eating, she said that there was something for everyone to do today and it would be best to come early.
Just after dawn, Zhao Dong came with Zhao Nan, Zhao Bei, Zhao Qin and Wu Fang.
"Qingqing, what's the matter? Why did you ask Brother Dong to call us?" Zhao Qin asked as soon as she entered the door.
Gu Qingqing smiled brightly and said to her, "I have something. I'll ask Brother Dong to drive the mule cart to take you to town to buy some things for me."
"Buying things? What do you want to buy that requires a mule cart? If it's not much, we can just walk." Wu Fang asked.
Gu Qingqing smiled at them again, "Of course there are a lot. I wanted to ask Xiaocao and the others to bring them back, but I was really worried that they would come back late and cause trouble, so I have to trouble you to make the trip."
"Hey, let's not talk about hard work or not. Just tell me if you have anything to say." Wu Fang said indifferently.
Gu Qingqing nodded, "You haven't eaten yet, right? It just so happens that we cooked new millet porridge this morning, and the cabbage and oil residue dumplings we made yesterday were pretty good."
"Hahaha, you're right, I really didn't eat. The children were still sleeping when I came out. I asked their father to cook in the evening." Zhao Qin said, and then helped out and had a breakfast here.
After breakfast, Zhao Dong took a piece of paper and silver from Wen Wuyan, hitched a mule cart, took Zhao Qin and Wu Fang and left Niutoushan Village.
The remaining Zhao Nan, Zhao Xi and a few others were sent by Gu Qingqing to the pigpen to catch a pig and kill it.
When the younger ones in the family heard that a pig was going to be slaughtered, after seeking Gu Qingqing's consent, they all went to watch.
"Boss, are you planning to take the meat out to the town to sell on the Little New Year's Eve tomorrow?" Zhao Nan asked curiously.
Gu Qingqing gave him a mysterious smile, "Didn't I say before that we don't sell the pork at home? You can just kill it, it's a good thing."
Gu Qingqing refused to say anything more.
But after she took two steps, she said, "Brother Nan, after you kill the pork, just move it to the inner courtyard. Don't call me specifically. I have other things to do."
"Okay, Boss, just focus on your own business. We can still do this job well."
After Gu Qingqing finished her instructions, she went to the study.
Wen Wuyan will take part in the college entrance examination in the spring of next year, and is currently reviewing his lessons in the study.
Seeing Gu Qingqing coming in, he raised his hand and pointed at the book on the desk and said, "Wen Xin just brought it over and said you wanted to read it."
"Yeah, I asked her to take it."
After that, the couple stopped talking. Wen Wuyan was reviewing his lessons while Gu Qingqing was carefully looking through the accounts that Wen Xin had recorded over the past six months, taking stock of the profitability of each shop.
The first book was about the braised meat shop in the town. Gu Qingqing didn't rush to read it, but put it aside, intending to read it last, because this one didn't belong to her family, and it contained the dividends of Meihua and Xiaocao.
The first thing I looked at was the cooperation with Manager Chai of Xinzhou Prefecture. The accounts recorded it very clearly. The monthly soap sales were around 2,000 yuan, and there were 20 jars of shampoo weighing 20 kilograms each, with a total gross profit of more than 70 taels of silver.
Excluding the costs, she would make a net profit of more than 40 taels of silver per month just from cooperating with them.
This is the profit for the last two months. In the past, due to supply restrictions, it was not this much.
Another thing is that they cooperate with the Shen family to stock soap and shampoo in the shops in the town, Shangyang County, and Xinzhou Prefecture. Even though they cooperate with many shops, they don't earn much more than Manager Chai.
First, we must give concessions to the Shen family.
Secondly, because of her shop, there is still some conflict with the Shen family’s business in the town.
I followed her to see her flower and herb shop, which earned about ten taels of silver every month. Combined with the other two, she had been able to bring in one hundred taels of silver every month in the past two months.
Next is papermaking. Even though there is only nine taels of silver in the account at present, that is because the cycle of this thing is too long, and she has not produced it on a large scale before.
It was only after she received the imperial archway that she began to let go.
The real money making will have to wait until next year.
This year she still sold the sauerkraut to Zhiweilou. The profit was really not much. She only earned a little over eleven taels of silver in half a winter.
Finally, Gu Qingqing looked at the braised meat shop. Because roast duck was on the market in August, it brought a lot of business. The monthly gross profit could be as high as about 40 taels, and the net profit was about 30 taels, of which braised meat accounted for about 22 taels and roast duck accounted for 8 taels.
The braised meat shop is still dominated by Meihua and Xiaocao, while the roast duck is calculated separately between her and Zhuangzhuang, and they split it 50-50.
The reason why it's a 50-50 split is because the roast duck is entirely supported by Gu Zhuangzhuang's craftsmanship, and he's her own brother, so what's wrong with taking care of him a little?
As for the charcoal and lime burning in the village, there were more than ten taels of silver this year, but these were not recorded in the accounts and were used by her as pocket money for the household.
Gu Qingqing roughly flipped through the account book, straightened her aching waist slightly, then looked outside, only to see that it was already noon.
As soon as she moved, Wen Wuyan put down the book in his hand and walked towards her, "Are you tired of sitting? I'll help you get up and walk around."
Gu Qingqing smiled at him, her smile looking like she was enjoying a peaceful life. "I am a little tired, so it's a good opportunity for you to come and help me look around. This is our annual income. Of course, we don't have that much cash at home, probably only about eight hundred taels. We could have saved more, but we spent a lot on building bridges and hiring people. Tomorrow is the Little New Year, and except for Uncle Li and his family who have only been here for three months, they have worked hard with us for a year. I want to give them some extra dividends today. If they want to buy anything, they can take advantage of tomorrow's Little New Year's Day shift to go on duty, so that everyone can have a prosperous new year."
There have been a lot of changes in the family in the past few months, mainly because the emperor gave them 200 acres of land, which they could not cultivate at all, so they went to a pawnshop and hired a family of four to mainly take care of the 100 acres of land.
It would definitely be too late if we rely on just them, and we would have to coordinate Zhao Dong and others to help.
At the same time, she rented out a few acres of land in Shangyang Village to the old man who sold her the land. The rent was still 40% to 60%, but this time she got 60% and the other party got 40%.
In this way, her fields will be mainly concentrated in Niutoushan Village, and she won't have to worry about that side.
According to their family tradition, the eldest daughter and the second daughter both have some land and real estate in the town under their names. Now that the family has more land, it is natural for the third daughter to have some too.
Considering that the shop in the town owned by the second daughter was valuable, the couple allocated another 50 acres to the eldest daughter, adding to the 60 acres she already had in her name.
Sixty acres were directly allocated to the third daughter in her name, and the second daughter was given ten acres symbolically. As for the eighty acres, they were reserved for the baby in her belly and for her and Wen Wuyan.
In their attitude towards their three daughters, she and Wen Wuyan tried their best to treat them equally.