Ask:
Hi everyone,
Does anyone here have any good tips for saving money on pet care? I share my home with two wonderful cats and spend about 100 dollars on them every month on just feeding, grooming, and toys- not counting trips to the vet at all! I don't really know if what I'm spending is normal, but I'd be interested in hearing what other pet owners have to say. Thanks in advance!
(I apologize if there are already threads like this on the board. I searched, but didn't find anything!)
~Holly
Answer:
Sign up for a Petco Pals card if you have a store near you. Every 10 bags of food you buy they send you a coupon for one free.
Answer:
Wow, when I had 2 cats I think I spent like $20/month. I think I was using 1/2 of a 40# bag of litter and about 8-10# of dry food per month. What little grooming I had to do I did myself and toys were either homemade or from the dollar store. They always had more fun with shoelaces, hair spray caps and old toilet paper rolls than anything I ever bought them anyway. HTH
Answer:
Wow- that seems high to me to not include vet bills, but I have a dog so not too familiar with cat care. We sign up for all the perks cards- Petco and Petsmart so save some there. My baby is overweight so no treats or anything for her and toys tend to be rejects she has "borrowed" from the kids.
Answer:
WOW! That seems really high... I spend maybe $200 a year at the most with my two kitties.
Not certain how you can cut this cost without specifics. Good luck
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Wow...that seems like a lot. We have two cats. They're older (12 and 13) so they go to the vet twice a year for check ups - I would say probably $200 per year, per cat for vet costs. They aren't interested in toys, so I don't buy those and I don't know exactly how much I spend on food but it's definately less than $100 a month! I can see grooming costs being really expensive, they must have long hair...yes? Any way you can learn to do that on your own?
Answer:
100a month is really high to me for only 2 cats. we have a cat and two dogs andmaybe spend 60.00 amonth on food, for them. and i buy the 50lb bags of food for the dogs tehyg o through 2 a month, and i buy a 20 lb bag of cat food for my cat and she goes through one of those a month, and you can buy those for relatively cheap. i also buy my dog food from the agriculture equipment store, its the best spot for it, and i buy my cat food at walmart. as for toys, i get her some from the dollar store. other than that, nothing.
Answer:
Wow! I can't believe I'm spending so much compared with the rest of you! That's certainly eye opening!
Most of the expense is catfood. They eat a brand of food called Wellness that costs just under twenty dollars for 24 cans... and they're small cans. Each cat goes through about 3 cans a day. So that's the main culprit, but I'm worried about switching them to something less expensive. We started canned food when one of the cats started having kidney problems, because we thought it would help him get more liquid in his diet, which it did. But all those little cans add up!
I'm already doing my own grooming, so those costs are relatively low. (They'd be lower if I could keep track of the brushes and toenail clippers, so I'll have to work on that.) We were using what I now realize was a pretty expensive brand of litter- 9 dollars for 15 pounds, but we switched to one that is the same price for 35 pounds.
Thanks again for all your insight!
Answer:
My mom started one of their cats on wet food and now that cat will eat nothing but! So it might be hard to switch even if you tried! I wonder if you could ask the vet if there were any cheaper dry foods that wouldn't bother their kidneys? Those cans are really expensive!
We spend about $30 a month on our 2 kitties, we buy a big container of litter from costco once and a month and I just make sure that I scoop it out very regularly so I don't have to dump the whole thing more than once a month, so a huge container lasts at least a month and half!
Good luck!!
Answer:
wow. I think that is alot for 2 cats. I have 2 cats and spend about $25 a month.