Inexpensively

Helping you live your life, inexpensively.

How to Save Money on Pet Care

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If you have furry friends at home, you know all about pet care expenses. Beyond pet food costs, you have vaccination costs and vet care—it all really adds up! I keep our food expenses down the same way I save on groceries—stocking up with sales & coupons. The pet medical expenses take a little more creativity, but we have found several things that can lower your budget just a bit:

  • Do-It-Yourself: Spending a few dollars on a set of nail clippers, avoids unnecessary grooming expenses. We trim the cats’ nails every few weeks completely free. Of course, by we, I really mean him. It keeps them from accidentally hurting the kids or scratching the furniture but doesn’t require regular trips to the groomer or cut into at our budget. This also works for groom fur—buy a trimmer to save hundreds over the life of your pet.

  • Pet Care Clinic: We recently had our new(ish) kitten neutered at a local pet care center. FACE works as a non-profit organization and offers heavily discounted shots and services. Check with the humane society in your area for information on similar options. Many will offer free pet care if you adopt an abandoned animal, too.

  • Discount Pet Meds: Purchasing pet medication from the vet costs a fortune, but I didn’t know another way! I still kick myself for how much money I wasted over the years. I now purchase the exact same product or through discount pet med stores online. Several, like PetCareRx, actually offer a variety of medications, including antibiotics as well as flea control.

  • Pet Sitting Swap: To avoid the high cost of boarding your pet for vacation, turn to your friends. You can offer to swap to watch their animals for their next vacation. Another inexpensive option is paying a neighborhood teen. We paid a neighbor girl $5 per day to peek in on our cat a few years ago—we would have spent 5 times as much boarding him through our vet. However, she was thrilled to make $30 just to play with our cat everyday.

  • Pet Insurance:Even if you are carefully planning and saving all year, accidents can happen. Emergency pet care may become a necessary (and very high) expense. To control unexpected pet medical expenses, you might consider an insurance plan. Pet health insurance may cover accidents or illness, plus some routine care for your pets. Depending on the plan and provider you choose, pet insurance costs may range up to $100 per month but could save even more throughout the year.

Kroger Personal Finance offers several health insurance plans and they want to help you protect your pet. Their newest product is an accident-only policy for only $9.95 per month for each pet. “By paying monthly premiums there is no need to worry about suddenly struggling to come up with unbudgeted veterinary expenses down the road,” says KPF president, Kathy Kelly. Plans can be purchased at the checkout counter in Kroger, and their affiliates. For pet owners who do not have a Kroger store, plans can be purchased online. More information is available on their website at http://www.krogerpets.com/.

Giveaway Closed

They have generously offered a $25 Kroger gift card to one of our readers. The gift card is good at all Kroger affiliates and can be used to purchase your insurance plan, pet food, supplies and groceries. To enter, simply leave a comment here telling us about your pets! We actually have a dog, two cats and a ferret—Indy, 8-Bit, Nemo and Missy are the furry members of our family. You can earn additional entries by:

  • Subscribing to our site by email or RSS
  • Following Kroger and Inexpensively on Twitter
  • Blogging about this giveaway
  • Tweeting about this giveaway: Win a $25 @KrogerDeals gift card from @Inexpensively! http://bit.ly/9xUTub

For your extra entries to be counted, be sure to leave an additional comment directing us to your entry. Only one additional entry per method (i.e. While multiple tweets are appreciated it, only one will count as a drawing entry.) The contest runs until February 7th at 11:59pm est. One winner will be notified by email on February 8th (as selected by Random.org) and receive a $25 Kroger gift card. Winner will have 48 hours to complete the claim form or a new winner will be chosen.

I was provided with a $25 gift card to manage this giveaway, but my opinion is 100% real.

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Comments

  1. Nice article Heather. We have two dogs and a cat. Paisley is a 8 month old sheepadoodle, she is half sheep dog and half poodle. We rescued her from a not so pleasant house we will say. We also have a Puggle that is simply crazy at times. She is now 5 years old. And then we have our cat. Huck. He likes to keep our house clean, so if you leave anything on the counter or any paper out he will let you know with either knocking it off the counter or eating the paper.
    Hope to work with you soon! Keep up the good work on your site!
    Bryan L

  2. I have a dog and 2 cats. Miles, Peggy and Pierre respectively. I just got Miles teeth brushed “professionally” last month (because his breath smelled like death). Needless to say, it cost an arm and a tail.

  3. I have two kitties at my home. I absolutely love both of the kitties because they’re just always so adorable. One of them always ends up cuddling up and sleeping with me every night. I love them.

  4. We have 2 dogs and a fish. I can’t count all of the desert critters that we find around the outside of our house, can I? It’s probably better that I don’t…

    🙂

  10. I don’t have any pets but my grand sons live next door and they have 2 dogs, 5 cats, fish and are getting some chickens!

  13. I used to have a pet cat named Spice, but we don’t have any pets right now. My daughter had an imaginary puppy at one point, though. 🙂

  15. We have a cat named Lacey and a dog named Minnie. Our kitty is all black and will be 10 years old this year. Our dog, that we recently adopted, is a beagle and has a mickey mouse shaped set of spots on her side that gave her the name Minnie. We love our animals, and appreciate the advice on how to save money on them!

  18. We have a dog named Piper and I love the idea in the article about saving money on meds online…hadn’t thought of that. Thankfully we’ve only had our dog for a year so we’re not out too much $ yet!

  21. I have a dog and a puppy – Eli and Rory. Eli is a papillon – very small – and Rory is a border collie and might get to be pretty big!

  27. My son has been wanting a dog…we haven’t gotten one yet, but I’m glad to know that services like this exist!
    bebemiqui82(at)yahoo(dot)com

  28. I had a Jack Russell Terrier named Bonnie. We had to put her down a few years ago. I miss her like crazy.

    Thanks for having the giveaway!

  29. We have one dog and are getting another one, new to pets care but will definitely consider getting them insurance.

  34. I have 2 dogs! One is a Belgian Sheepdog- Robert, the other is a Pomeranian-Shady. I love my cute furry guys 🙂

  38. We have a cat named Holly and a Boston Terrier named Bugsy.We drove 100 miles to get Bugsy.He was born to a family of Amish in Oden Indiana.He was the runt of the group.When we saw him under a warming lamp we just had to get him.He looked so sweet.I’m glad we chose him.He still likes to snuggle up by the heater just like he did as a puppy.They really do have a personality….

  39. Our family has an almost 100 pound Samoyed who likes to think he is a lap dog, but instead looks like a polar bear. He is almost eight years old, but still loves to play like a puppy.

  40. We’ve got a Chinese Fighting Fish (Betta) who is gorgeous, and 2 labrador retreivers!! Giant, our 2 year old Chocolate Lab is a big loving, giant!! And Sadie, our yellow lab is 5 and she’s our prissy girl!

  44. I have a pigeon-JetJoe, who came in my garage door, with a smashed up wing.He was banded, so I found out he’d been on a 300 mile race. Most importantly-I could keep him! He is lovely- a couple shades of the lightest powder blue,and a fantastic pet!We also have 2 great dogs from rescue. Blondell is an 11 yr old beauty, who runs (and jumps) rings around our young man Bubba. Bub must have been through an especially hard time. It took quite a while to earn his love, and trust, but it was worth it!

  48. I am a email subscriber. We got our dog Missy from the animal shelter 4 years ago today and love her to pieces

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