My sister's in town, so this post is kind of nostalgic I guess.

Our family didn't have a lot of money when Courtenay and I were growing up. We lived in this sketchy old house in the middle of an ailing neighborhood (the house next store to us was abandoned, then set on fire by squatters ... across the street lived a crack dealer ... that sort of thing). For awhile, we couldn't afford groceries and we got our food through hand-outs from the church.

Luckily, my family is almost perversely creative. Each week, Mom would unpack the church bags and realize there was nothing "fun" for us to eat (fruit roll-ups, candy bars, etc.). So she would take a really small Tupperware and add, say, a spoonful of brown sugar with a pat of butter, a marshmallow and some chocolate chips. Then she heated it in the microwave for just a few seconds and we would eat it with these tiny little plastic spoons that we'd kept out of a Sweet and Low box. This family favorite was called Candy Bar Soup. (We also used to scoop up snow from outside, drizzle it with syrup and eat it like ice cream ... but I think that's more of a winter snow tradition than a cost-cutting idea.)

Then there's the Enchanted Alley. Our dad used to take us on bike rides to the park, and if we were lucky we'd get to go down this magical alley on the way. The place had all these amazing things in it: mattresses, old toilet seats, bags of tin cans. My dad used to make up stories about the Enchanted Alley. He made sure we knew that we could only go into the Enchanted Alley with a guide (him), and that we were never to let our feet touch the ground (get off our bikes) or stop ... so that the magic would stay in tact, of course. It wasn't until years later that I figured out that the so-called Enchanted Alley was an abandoned street where a bunch of people came to throw their trash.

I can think of very few childhood memories that include spending money. Instead, they all center on being creative. I don't know if Cheap Women is extreme or long enough for me to totally reclaim that magic of childhood, when I cared so much about stories and family, not about electric bills and grocery budgets. But with luck (or enchantment), I may stumble on a new cheap tradition that actually endures, like the Enchanted Alley or Candy Bar Soup.