Selling a Single Boxwood for 4,180 Yuan to Make Up the Cement Money for House Renovation: Brother Yang Had No Choice

Short on cement money for house renovation, he sold a boxwood for 4,180 yuan. Brother Yang: It was truly a last resort!

Brother Yang is a hardworking man in our group. Though he only had a few years of schooling, through his own diligence and ability to endure hardship, he learned bricklaying, plastering and carpentry. So a few years ago, he and his wife both worked in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, and over a year they could earn tens of thousands.

So this year they planned to build a house at home. First, because his parents are already over 70 and still live in the tile-roofed house built years ago, and being away from home all year round he worried about their health and safety. Building a new house would let the two elderly people live in it. Second, his first child is about to start primary school, and he still planned to have the child attend school in their rural hometown.

With things like building a house, you don't know until you do it - everything costs money to buy. For the house they built, just getting the framework done used up the savings the couple had accumulated over the past few years, and they even borrowed some from relatives and friends to make up the difference, barely managing to finish. But in the end, even doing the plastering themselves, they were still short by several thousand yuan, and borrowing from others again felt embarrassing.

Just when he was in a real bind, a friend introduced him, saying that the boxwood stumps he had cultivated could be sold for money. He thought it over and decided to sell one of the pots. In the end, he sold one pot for 4,180 yuan, which was finally enough to buy some cement for the wall plastering.

It turned out that when he was young, he loved flowers, plants and tree stumps. Whenever he saw that a household had something like a boxwood, he would shamelessly ask for one or two, or take the larger branches that others had pruned off their boxwoods and didn't want, and use them for cuttings himself. Once they grew a bit, he would wire and shape the branches himself. Because he didn't pay much attention to such things, when he was young it was just a hobby, and he never imagined it would have such a result today.

Although he sold this pot of boxwood stump, he still felt a bit reluctant to part with it. He said this was truly a last resort! Once the new house is renovated, he still has to go out and work hard for a few more years. First, to earn money to pay back relatives and friends - as the saying goes, borrow well and repay well, and borrowing again won't be hard; there is great sense in this. Second, to earn a bit to buy some food and clothing for the elderly - after all, it wasn't easy for them to raise him. Truly, only when you run a household do you know how expensive salt and rice are, and only when you raise a child do you know your parents' grace. Yes, having such thoughts is absolutely right. As long as you are hardworking and don't spend money recklessly, life will get better and better. Don't you all agree?