How to Save on... Pet Supplies

As you may know, we have a bunch of furry friends and not so furry friends in our home.

Meet our "Zoo":

We have a 7 year-old red-nose pit bull named Hera. She was originally my husband's dog as he has had her since she was a puppy (long before I even met him). She's a lazy butt, but loves to roughhouse with daddy (my husband!). She is trained to know German commands and is a good listener most of the time.

Foo is my oldest cat. He's only 3. I adopted him the month before I graduated high school on a complete whim. He was only 8 weeks old and was the cutest little boy. He's a mama's boy for sure. He mozies around the house finding comfy places to nap. His favorites are our closet and the arm of the couch where he can watch the fish. He loves to cuddle but is scared around strangers. He brings us home dead birds! Yuck!

Our aquarium came next. We've only had it since Valentines Day. Yes, I wanted an aquarium for Valentines! Judge all you want ;) It's 20 gallons. We got everything for it from PetSmart and are very happy with it. We've gone through a few fish... I guess we're still learning.

Esther is the baby we adopted for Easter. She was a present to me from my husband. She's 5 months old now. She's a domesticated lynx mix we think... google it. She loves to cuddle and can't resist sleeping in bed with us (and how can we say no to her cute face!?)

 Baby feet! How could I resist adding a picture of that adorableness!

She loves to play and we know she would be an awesome mouser if we ever decide to let her outside.


That's all. Nothing too crazy. Although it would be easier to handle all the pets with more room. I can't wait until we buy a house in the fall!

Having so many pets can be expensive. Each month we buy dog food, cat food, cat litter, random cat toys if any have been destroyed, and fish supplies/new fish. We used to not have to buy litter because Foo won't use a little box and likes to go outside. The kitten poops like what feels like a million times a day so...


It adds up, but I've found a few ways to save some money on pet supplies!

How to Save on...

Pet Supplies

• Shop around to find out where the prices are generally the best - I get pet food at Walmart, along with litter, but fish supplies at PetSmart or Petco.
• Shopping at these cheaper stores, use coupons when possible - they do come out often.
• Grocery stores and specialty pet stores generally have higher prices.
• It's okay to spend a little extra money for better quality product.
• Example: 
•  My dog is on Iams Healthy Weight formula - it's around $20 for a 30lb. bag. She doesn't eat it too fast because it has large chunks (she used to eat too fast and make herself throw up...making for an unhappy mama!) and I think she gets fuller faster. - It's also not chock full of fillers, like corn.
• My adult cat is on Iams original cat food. He eats it the best and keeps him full - we don't go through as much, compared to cheaper kinds like Special Kitty.
• My kitten is on Iams Kitten Food - It's all real meat products and generally healthier for her. Since she's a kitten, we want to start her out on the healthy stuff.
• Cat litter - the cheap stuff is VERY dusty. It makes me sneeze like crazy and I can't imagine how it affects my cats - plus the baby is getting over a respiratory infection.
• Fish products are worth spending more money for high quality products! - Anything cheap we bought flat-out did not work!
• Dogs and cats seem to eat less food if it is higher quality that keeps them full! - Plus it makes them healthier.
• Canned food adds up to be much more expensive than dry. The benefits of each depends, but if you pet is okay with dry food, stick with that.
• Sometimes it's okay to give your pet a different kind of food, to match deals. If your pet can tolerate it, then there's no reason for an occasional change. Switching food regularly can cause digestive problems. 
• Do not overfeed! Not only will your pet be fat and sad, they will be unhealthy and you are wasting so much pet food and wasting your money. 
• Buy dry pet food in larger quantities. It comes out to be cheaper. The only exception to this is if your pet won't go through a large bag of food before expiration or it going stale. 
• Keep pet food in a cool and dry place, such as a tote. This keeps the food from going bad and also keeps other animals out, along with keeping pets from scratching through the food bags. 
• Sometimes buying items online is cheaper! -I have found cheap but high quality live aquarium plants online, other aquarium products, cat supplies - scratching posts, litter boxes
• You pet does not need top of the line products... The electronic mouse? Oh please. 

*Remember to use your smarts when it comes to caring for your pets! You should know your pet well enough to be able to care for them successfully. Some people might be against Iams, but this is what works for us and is a reasonable price. Remember that just because sometime is cheap, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the safest for your pet.

Thanks for stopping by!

Do you have anything to add to the list?

How do you save on pet supplies?

Other comments?      

Would you guys like to see a post on my reviews about pet products I love? Let me know!

DIY Disposal Deodorizers

I don't know about your disposal, but mine gets pretty darn nasty smelling fast! I found this very clever trick somewhere on Pinterest. I never went to the link, but just decided to wing it.

This is also an awesome way to use up overripe lemons!

What you need:

1 lemon
cutting board

ice cube tray

knife

water
tinfoil (optional)

1. Using a sharp knife, carefully slice the lemon into rounds.

Cut each round like a pizza, making tidbits. Do not remove the rind.

Place 3-4 tidbits into each ice cube space. Pour excess juice into cubes slots.

2. Fill tray with water.

3. Cover with tinfoil tightly. (optional)

4. Place in freezer until frozen.

To use:

1. Drop one ice cube into disposal. 

2. Turn on water.

3. Turn on disposal.

4. Turn off disposal once ice is ground.

5. Repeat as necessary. 

6. Enjoy the fresh scent of lemon!

This works amazingly well! I am thoroughly impressed, and I hope you will give these a try and have the same results. Only one lemon is necessary for one ice cube tray. I covered mine with tinfoil as I was afraid of spilling the water in my freezer. Without the tinfoil, I think my ice cubes would have turned out "prettier". I think these would also be awesome to put in lemon water or lemonade! 

Enjoy!

My Inspiration

When I married my husband a year and a half ago, I didn't realize how drastically it would change my life. Not necessarily in a negative way, but I didn't know there were so many things that I would need to learn and constantly work on.

The first six months of our marriage were hard. We had a great relationship, but we were learning to work together as a team. As we are both extremely hardheaded and assertive, this took a lot of work to get used to, but eventually we were able to work out the kinks to get to where we are now.

You see, it was a month before my 20th birthday when I got married. While my husband was 23 and had lived away from home for many years, I hadn't even had the chance to move out of my parent's house. I was going to college full-time at a local university and there was really no need. Also, I was never really given much responsibility at home. My mom took care of most of the housework and while I helped out often, I certainly wasn't in the habit of cleaning, nor did I know how to run a household. Luckily, I had taken a few cooking classes in junior high and high school to know my way around a kitchen.

So, the first six months or so were difficult. I don't know if my husband felt the same way, but I was extremely overwhelmed. I found that I had to quickly pull myself together to keep our relationship moving smoothly.

It took practice.

I had always loved to cook and was excited to have the chance to experiment in my very own kitchen! Luckily, our kitchen was stocked from wedding presents so we didn't have that to worry about any kitchen items. One problem: I had only ever gone grocery shopping by myself maybe a handful of times prior to my marriage. I soon found that I was spending around $400 per month on groceries alone, just for the two of us!  BUT this didn't seem like much of problem, as our income was large enough and we didn't have a budget set up. We were naive, to say the least. So we continued on doing what we were doing until eventually we upgraded from out 525 square feet basement apartment to our two bedroom 875 square feet apartment. The price difference here was enough to send us through a loop. Our rent went up by $100, along with the cost of our electricity bill. But we managed.

Then, after the semester was over, we decided together that it was time to quit my job as a nanny and just focus on school. This cut our income by around $400. At the time, my husband took care of our finances and I never really knew how much money we had. We spent money rather freely considering we didn't even keep track of it, although we always did pay our bills on time. We didn't buy new cars or anything that crazy, but we certainly weren't financially aware.

Quickly I realize how stressed my husband was becoming by our finances. We weren't broke. We weren't in debt (besides my college loans which we have not had to start paying for, yet!). But we were living paycheck to paycheck. We had food, we had clothes, and we had our home, but it was tight.

So finally, after around a year of marriage we decided to sit down together and form a family budget (reluctantly). We found that we made plenty of money to get by while still having enough leftover at the end of the month for a little bit of savings (which we had zero at the time).

WHEW!

This was rough. We now had to start physically thinking where our money was going! Sure, we really wanted to go to nice restaurants all the time, but we had to kick ourselves in the butt to not give in!

While my husband is very good with money... I on the other hand... tend to get a little careless from time to time and I feel like I need to treat myself sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. This was a habit that I had to learn to break, and continue to have a difficult time with. I like to splurge.

After this August, we can use my husband's VA loan from the Army to buy our first home. While we are going to use this loan, there are a lot of expenses that come with home ownership. Saving money in any way we can will get us that much closer to owning our first home together!



And here I am now... laying in bed making this blog as I have contemplated for months how I can collaborate all of my ideas, while being able to share what I have learned with others.

I'm still learning. Maybe we can learn together?

So stay a while and we can see what we can come up with together as we all get through this crazy life, balancing home, school, and relationship responsibilities.
I promise to post something new at least weekly, if not more. Although there maybe be a week here and there that I don't post, due to crazy life, like vacations or...dun dun dun...finals. I wouldn't expect a post around mid April.


Thanks for stopping by! Stick around and leave me a comment and don't forget to vote on the poll at the bottom of the blog home page.