Save Money with Cat & Dog Care

Cat & Dog Care Money Savings Tips Page #SaveMoneyCatCare #SaveMOneyDogCare

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This Cat & Dog Care Money Savings Page contains several ideas for caring for your pet without breaking the bank.

Cutting the Cost Of Cats at Dollar Stores

I buy cat food at Dollar General for $0.25 per can (chicken, tuna, and salmon flavors) and my cats like it just fine. I serve it to them on “paper plates,” but not the cheap absorbent paper ones. Instead,  I pay a little more and get the plasticized nonabsorbent ones. I take these inside, wash them off, and reuse them. I buy 50 plates for $2.39 at Dollar General. Plus I save meat packages and other flat styrofoam store packaging to use for as cat plates. The plates cost $0.0478 each, but with at least three uses per plate, I get the average cost per plate down to around $0.016 per use.   Ivan R. Vernon – Medina, Ohio

A grey kitten eating cat food from a paper plate.

We find great deals on treats at the dollar stores! Linda Crosby – Phoenix, AZ 


Calling For Pet Food Coupons

I call the 800 number on the back of the products I use and ask if they could send me coupons.  Lots of times they do. Purina allows me to call once a month and request coupons and they send me 4 of them, enough for a month, which is great because that’s all my Great Dane will eat.   Stacie – Victory Mills


Cat Tree for a Little Scratch

A grey cat tree with two cats next to it scratching.

There is a lot of new home construction in our area. My husband and I rummaged through the construction trash bins in our area one day and gathered all the good discarded plywood, drywall, lumber, and carpet pieces we could find to build our own cat tree for our two cats.

The retail price for medium sized cat trees is around $100 to $200. In our case, we were able to make our tree as big as we wanted for free. The only thing we paid for was the rope to wrap around some of the legs of the tree and a few nails. All of the other materials else came from the trash bins. If you don’t want to purchase rope, simply turn the carpet pieces inside out and staple it to the legs.

We found that our cats love to scratch the back side of the carpet more than the carpet itself. Take a few precautions when digging for deals, like being extra careful of nails sticking out from boards and only taking things from bins or trash piles and not new construction material that may be stacked nearby. We also avoid rummaging during working hours or on the weekends. It’s a very inexpensive way to provide a play area for your pet.   F.T. – Tucson, AZ 


Fostering Pets

Here’s a great idea if you love having a pet but can’t afford one because of the cost of shots, vet appointments, food, etc. Become a pet foster parent. I mentioned the idea to my mom, and she fostered 2 dogs and got reimbursed for the vet visits. This is a great and affordable option for responsible pet owners. My mom and I live in Delaware so we fostered through Faithful Friends (www.faithfulfriends.us) but I’m sure no matter what state someone lives in, there are places that allow a person to be a pet foster parent. The only downside; you will miss the animal once it’s placed in a home. My mom confessed to crying once the dogs were gone, but we are happy that they now have a permanent place to call home.   Layla H – Wilmington, DE


Dog Care Taken to New Heights with Fence Jumping

Our 60-pound dog Mel is so sweet, but he was driving us crazy with his habit of scaling and jumping over our 6-foot block fence. Even though our backyard is large and park-like, Mel was intent on exploring the rest of the world. We tried everything we could think of – including an electric fence and a shock collar – to keep him in our yard and safe from the two major roads of busy traffic near us. We finally used bird spikes on top of the section of block wall he loved to scale. That did the trick, and he now stays safely in our yard. I just wish we had found this less expensive and most effective solution sooner. Jane Hopkins – Scottsdale, AZ


Rawhide’s for Cheap

WinCo has rawhide in bulk for very cheap.You scoop them into a bag and pay by weight. It is way cheaper than the big bag at Wal-Mart. Linda Crosby – Phoenix, AZ 


Getting Rid of Canned Food for Something Better

My cat has Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I have discovered that I now sadly have to pay for the expensive dry food. However, I also determined that she appears to have a sensitivity to certain foods and we seem to have the best results with turkey. Purchasing canned foods to supplement her dry food was getting very expensive as well until I realized I could just buy ground turkey fry it up and then cover it with broth.

Purchasing canned foods to supplement her dry food was getting very expensive as well until I realized I could just buy ground turkey fry it up and then cover it with broth. I actually use canned chicken broth as it doesn’t seem to be affecting her. This has created significant savings for me and I know she is not getting any “fillers” in her food.

Also, in response to the paper plates idea above, purchasing a few plastic bowls or glass custard cups would work just as well and would be even cheaper in the long run…especially if you are washing them anyway.

Cat and dog care savings.

If you want to read more about owning and caring for a pet, check out this blog of ours, Pets on a Budget.

If you have other ideas about caring for dogs or cats, please leave it in the comments below and we will review!

7 thoughts on “Save Money with Cat & Dog Care

  1. Barbara Thatcher

    I like to buy Made In USA treats for my dog. I have found that Big Lots have several of these treats at prices a lot less than the grocery and pet stores. Because their inventory varies, when they have my dog’s favorites, I purchase in large quantities.

  2. Brenda

    Just a few comments–if buying cat or dog food from the Dollar Store I would not purchase their brand. Even some of the so-called high dollar foods have ingredients and chemicals that are terrible for your pet. Adding real turkey or other cooked and mostly unseasoned human food meats to dry, with water or broth is a better option and the animals can tell the difference and usually like it better. Feeding a pet well isn’t cheap, but is certainly worthwhile. Chewy is a good site to order food from, and their return policy is great. If you are dissatisfied with the food they will usually send you something else at no additional charge and just request that you donate the pet food you don’t want to a shelter or rescue.

    1. Steve Economides

      Brenda – thanks for sharing this information. We love your idea of augmenting dry food with unseasoned human foods. Great input.

  3. Cheryl Pounds

    Thanks Steve. I also have two more money savers I have discovered when it comes to pet care. One is drug discount cards. I Google searched for pet med discount cards and found multiple sites where it is free to print a card and use at participating pharmacies. And yes for those who don’t know pharmacies can fill meds for pets. All you need is a valid prescription from the vet and take it to the pharmacy. Use the card for savings. And my other tip is when buying Revolution (flea med) for the cats I have saved so much by purchasing it from https://www.discountpetmedication.biz here I got a three month supply of Revolution for about the same price as one from the vet. It was the exact same product. And I also found one better money saver. I found that they sell the Revolution in prefilled doses and in a 12 month supply kit. With the kit you must draw out the dose from a vial. So it isn’t for everyone. But I’m a nurse so drawing up meds is easy. Plus there are two options with the kit in regards to dosing, either use a weight range set dose or weight the cat and dose by weight, which can equal more than 12 doses this way. I paid just over 50$ for a year+ supply. And lastly I found an online discount code to save an extra 5%. Very cool!

  4. Cheryl Pounds

    I have been advised by the vet that Blue Buffalo brand of cat food is a very good brand, however it is also pricey. I did buy one 7 pound bag of food at our local pet store and it was over 20$. I wanted to see if I could do better, so I looked online. I compared several online companies and found the best deals at pet360.com and so here’s what I did…. I bought three 15 pound bags and used a discount code to receive 20% off and the order was large enough to get free shipping. So i ended up with 45 pounds of a high quality cat food with tax, for a little over 80$. Which if you do the math if I purchased six 7 pound bags at my local pet store the cost would be over 120 – BEFORE TAX. So yeah in a nutshell I saved a lot. I also researched other brands of cat food and found that in some cases the prices in store was cheaper. So you really have to just take a moment to compare. By researching and stocking up I saved a lot, it was worth it.

    1. Steve Economides

      Cheryl, we love the thorough research you did and the bargain you found! It’s not cheap to work and find the best quality for a better price . . .it’s being moneysmart!

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