Thursday, August 16, 2012

Cuttin' Costs

One of my goals this month is to take a closer look at my spending and find some "areas of opportunity" for cutting costs. While I could certainly take it to the limit and downsize like a true minimalist miser, I'm not in that dire of a financial situation that I need to consider things like selling my car and sending Fanne out to hunt and gather (although she's much better at this than you'd think).

So, here's my (reasonable) list of things to get cheap about:

Food & Drink: I already touched upon this in my last post, but my biggest money suck is definitely food—and rightfully so because it's a necessity to life, but I can certainly eat very happily and healthily on a much more restricted budget than I usually do. More specific strategies on this to come (hint: meal planning). I'm also trying to get into the habit of stocking up on wine at Trader Joe's at the beginning of the month rather than paying twice as much at the liquor store. The $4.49 bottle of Pinot that I buy there is just as good—if not better, than the $10+ one. Plus, my wine rack will look a lot more impressive at the beginning of each month. Bonus!

Car: Luckily I've finally paid the thing off (woohoo!), but my goal this month is to get into the habit of filling up the tank at the cheapest gas station (instead of wherever I can find when the gas light is on) and to start taking the back roads to and from work more often so I can cut down on my Fast Lane costs.

Fanne: Oh my god, I cannot believe how much money I spend on this animal. It's a special situation because she's diabetic and requires prescription food, insulin and needles, and unbelievable amounts of cat litter, but wow—there's got to be a better way.

The food is sort of non-negotiable because it's worked really well for her so I'm not looking to cut back there, but the insulin and needles are so freaking expensive. Has anyone ever used PetMeds.com? Is that cheaper? Is there a diabetes black market? Any other ideas for how to save on this? I already tried to up her pet insurance plan (which I may just nix altogether since it's essentially useless) to see I could pay more monthly to cover more of her expenses, but—I kid you not—they told me her diabetes was a "preexisting condition" so upping the plan wasn't an option. Really? No, really? Wow, even Fanne is a victim of our bogus health insurance system.

And seriously too, she's practically peeing me out of house and home. I need to find a way to save on litter. Do any pet owners have any great tips for this? Buying litter in bulk from BJ's or Costco? A brand that works better than another? Anything? S.O.S.

What'd I miss? What are your favorite money saving tips?

7 comments:

  1. Hey Danne! I use pet meds for Myles' front line..they send you coupons and remind you via email when it's time to re-order. I find it to be much easier and sometimes cheaper than the other option. I did some kitty litter research for you....you might not go for this as I know you have particular litter tastes lol but what about making your own out of recycled newspaper? It's as simple as shredding, wetting, baking soda, clumping it up and letting dry...
    http://www.treehugger.com/culture/pet-topic-make-your-own-newspaper-cat-litter.html

    good luck!

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  2. you should try this!
    http://www.citikitty.com/

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  3. Hi Danne, I just recently started following your blog. We have a dog that requires monthly injections of a prescription medication (she has Addison's Disease). Our vet has allowed us to get the medicine from an online pharmacy. We use 1800PetMeds.com and they have a "price matching" policy where they will match any online price from an accredited pharmacy. We always have them price match to www.medi-vet.com which is an online pharmacy that only sells to vets but their prices are much cheaper. You have to call 1-800-pet-meds in order to get the price match, they won't do it online. Check out www.medi-vet.com and see what the price is for the insulin you need for your cat.
    Best of luck,
    Sam

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  4. Thanks for the comments everyone!

    @Marissa: Glad to hear 1800PetMeds.com has worked for you, I'm definitely going to look into that now. Funny you mentioned the newsprint option too because I've used a newsprint litter in the past and thought it worked pretty well. I think I'd need to raid a newspaper warehouse to get enough for Fanfan though haha.

    @Jaclyn: I totally bought a kitty potty training book when I first got Fanne and was so into the idea of it. I might still consider it but I don't know if I can handle finding cat poop in the toilet all the time. She is pretty big though so I think she could handle sitting on the toilet. My poor boyfriend...

    @Sam: Thanks so much for the price matching tip! I'm totally looking into that this week and I'll let you know if it works out for me. Great suggestion!

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  5. Hey! We have found an organic kitty liter from Whole Foods at $1.99 a bag. It sounds too good to be true but it is a smaller bag- I think only about 8 lbs- but it works great. It is the in house Whole Foods brand which I cannot recall off the top of my head....

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  6. Ohh thanks Anna-Marie, I'll definitely check that out. My last litter resort is to write Feline Pine a letter and see if they'll send me free litter in exchange for advertising on my blog haha.

    And a 1800PetMeds.com update: I called this morning and unfortunately it would not be cheaper for me to go with them. With the shipping, it would end up costing about the same. Boo!

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