When the Going Gets Tough …

The global economic meltdown is prompting many people to look for new ways to make ends meet. A recent Wall Street Journal article notes, for example, that when the going gets tough, the tough (or some of them, anyway) … um … sell hot dogs. Take Andrea and Ben Guajardo, who began moonlighting as hot-dog vendors last November, the Journal writes:

Ms. Guajardo is a grant administrator for a health-care system. Her husband, Ben, is a pipeline operator. Theirs is the first hot-dog stand in Bandera, pop. 957, that anybody here can remember.

“It’s a backup plan,” says Ms. Guajardo, a mother of four. “No one knows what’s going to happen with the economy, and I don’t want to have to scrounge for a minimum-wage job.”

Andrea and Ben Guajardo both work full-time, but began selling wieners with help from their four kids in November.

The Guajardo’s aren’t the only Americans supplementing their incomes by selling hot dogs, the Journal notes:

Facing pay cuts and weakened job security, more Americans are turning to this century-old, big-city trade in outposts like Bandera, where cowboys on horseback share the road with motorcyclists. Many of these vendors are working professionals with day jobs, ranging from real-estate agents to train operators.

Sales of carts, which start at about $2,000 new, have heated up in the past year. “Every model is…taking off,” says Joel Goetz, owner of American Dream Hot Dog Carts Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since January, he has sold about 25 carts a week, 15 more than usual.

Today’s cart buyers are generally older and have more white-collar work experience than was traditionally the case, says Will Hodgskiss, president and “top dog” at Willy Dog Ltd., a New York cart manufacturer. “People are either buying these carts in anticipation of a layoff or to supplement their incomes,” he says. Willy Dog’s sales are up 30% from March 2007.

Even academics, like Connie Means, are getting in on the action. Means, an ex-math professor, owns four hot-dog stands in Gadsden, Ala., and takes home about $42,000 a year working six days a week, the newspaper writes.

Meanwhile, the Guajardos, who “manage their two-wheeled stainless-steel hot-dog cart just on weekends, from about 11 a.m. to 2 p.m,” clear about “$1,150 in take-home earnings each weekend selling roughly 400 dogs, plus drinks, chips, and pickles.”

That’s not too shabby for a weekend gig. Ms. Guajardo hopes the money will one day go toward her kids’ education: “I tell them, ‘Your mom’s going to pay for your college education with hot dogs.’”

Tell us, what novel money-making strategies have you turned to in these troubled times to help you get by?