Thursday, April 05, 2012

Budget Kitties

funny cat pictures - My budget needs an increase NOW.
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I had to laugh when I saw the above LOLcat this morning! One reason is I'm currently in budget mode. Thanks to Dave Ramsey, we're doing pretty well (no credit card debt, yay!) But my oldest is going to be attending a private Catholic high school in the fall, and I'm taking a look at our spending habits and seeing where I can cut back a little. It's scary to think of all that high school tuition when in four years she'll be heading off to college, and she has two siblings behind her, too!

Of course, if I let the cats have any say where I should cut the budget and where I should add to it, the humans would be living off rice & beans and they would be eating a completely raw food diet, snacking on grain free treats and have an unlimited supply of organic catnip and wheat grass at their disposal. Oh, and they'd want new toys delivered weekly and a second cat tree, one with more nests, for the upstairs.

They'd beg to differ, but we spend a lot on them. I never realized how expensive quality cat food could be.

I did the math and figured out it was better to buy the canned cat food I add to the raw food in bulk through Pet Food Direct rather than make my weekly run to the pet store. A couple of weeks ago, I ordered four cases when they were having a big sale to see how it worked. So far so good. A little research via google found me a pet store in Portland call Meats for Cats and Dogs that offers discounts on the raw cat food if you buy that in bulk. Given it's frozen and the amount my cats eat, that'll work great! They also said they could teach me to make my own which would be even cheaper. Just need to make the drive south at some point. Sooner rather than later.

So have you found any ways to cut your budget?