Two months ago, I lost my dog to congestive heart failure, which came on rather suddenly. (Note that if your dog is ever coughing, a vet visit and x-rays are immediately in order. Dogs don’t get coughs, they get heart disease and other bad things.) It took about a month before the kids started asking for a new dog. Normally we visit the animal shelters for dogs, because, well, that’s where they keep them. We already own four cats (an accident), two gerbils, one mouse (although with the new cat door, sometimes we own multiple mice, temporarily at least. We’re just not always aware of it). We also keep a handful of fish, and as a result, my “pets” budget is usually drained dry. Clearly we’re sort of okay with a lot of animals in the house, but my first thought about animals usually is, “What’s it gonna cost?” (My second thought, unfortunately, is usually “Ah, what the hell.”)

The fish aren’t such a burden, thanks to Pet Guys, an online store that sells aquarium foam filters for a third the price of the local shop. Gerbils and mice aren’t too bad, but twenty dollars for a cat-proof lid here, another bag of ground corn for bedding there, means you’d better consider it in the budget. One of the cats cost me over a hundred dollars recently for an abcessed cat bite. (We’re quadrupally exposed for those fun incidents.)

Hershey the giant dog

We didn’t go to the shelter–$100 plus adoption fees–but not because of the cost. We heard about a year old chocolate lab whose owners worked full time and couldn’t really give him the attention he needed. We have five people, including three teenagers, and someone’s home nearly all the time. He’s huge, though–huge! 85 pounds, so this dog eats four cups of dog food a day. Four cups! That’s more than twice what Foxy ate. His name is Hershey, and he also takes twice the dosage of Frontline Plus. Another cost saving measure of mine is extra large dog tubes of Frontline, syringed out in mililiters for the cats. (This is perfectly safe and saves an enormous amount of money.) But Hershey will need 2.86 ml each month, plus a dose of Heartgard ($8 per monthly pill).  (I found out they sell generic heartworm prevention in Australia, though. Nice shop at Petproductsontheweb.com. Free shipping.)   

Plus all that food! We haven’t had him a month yet, but I can’t see a bag of dog food lasting that long on that appetite!

He’s also chewed up one of my fancy snap-n-seal food storage containers, so that’s a check in the loss column. Then we had to pick up a batch of stuffed animals at the thrift store–he just tossed a stuffed rabbit in my lap a few minutes ago. Soggy.

All in all, he’s a lot of fun. And he’s fairly well behaved for a puppy. Except when he puts his front paws in the kitchen sink to lick the dishes.

Perspective shot-- average sized 13 year old boy vs. big giant dog

In this post a few days ago, I mentioned that families may be resorting to eating and cooking more frugally with the Credit Crunch in full swing.

Seems I spoke too soon, according to this article, in The Telegraph today. There has been a run on tinned tomatoes in the supermarkets, as people cut down on their food bills by making their own meals and not relying on ready-meals.

Spag bol anyone?

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©2008 S.Peyton

Wholesale food prices rose by over 7% in the past 12 months. Does this affect you? The answer is yes because these price increases will be passed on to the consumer as increases in processed and packaged foods. According to http://mysupermarket.wordpress.com/  prices of the most basic food has gone up by as much as 16% over the last 12 months.

Families already struggling to make ends meet under the weight of rising council tax bills, mortgage repayments and energy costs now have to spend more money on food. Some estimates are that families will now have to find another £10 per week for food costs.

The increases are being driven by rising meat prices and global shortages in key crops, caused both by adverse weather and the demand created by China’s rampant economic growth.

It is becoming more and more important for families to take some time to plan and prepare the family meals.  Some recent figures show that on average families throw away as much as 30% of all the food that they buy. This is a lot of waste and represents a lot of money for those on limited incomes.

Of course you should not eat food that is passed it’s use by date. However planning ahead to prepare meals can easily include ensuring that food approaching it’s use by date is used first.