7 Ways To Save Money Caring For Your Pets

Pets can be so expensive! Veterinary care, food, medicine, grooming, training, dog walking, pet sitting, etc, etc. These little balls of furry love can burn through cash like few other things can. It’s so worth it, though, isn’t it? What’re a few bucks when it comes to unconditional love?

Even if you’re financially conservative, owning a pet should be something everyone experiences and you’ll be happy to know there are plenty of cost-reducing hacks when it comes to pet care. Here are seven of them:

1. Don’t feed your pets commercial pet food

Most commercial pet food is super expensive and made with a high-grain concentration which isn’t necessarily good for dogs and cats. Their diets should consist almost entirely of protein with little bits of roughage here and there. If you have a larger dog, even raw bones can be introduced. Do your research based on what sort of pet you have, first, but feeding your animals raw, whole foods can be a lot less expensive than the dry stuff. Plus, it makes them smell less!

2. Do your own grooming

Dogs and cats don’t really need much in the way of grooming and what little they do is easily done at home. Unless you’ve got yourself a Saint Bernard, give your own dogs baths, if they even need them. Learn how to clip their claws, brush their teeth and trim the fur around their eyes if necessary. The animals don’t care all that much about any of it, so just do it yourself and save a buck or two!

3. Use Youtube training videos instead of obedience school

There are an absolute plethora of resources to learn how to train your dog, complete with video instruction, all over the web. You are not going to learn anything at an obedience class that YouTube cannot teach you for free. Keep your cash and get online.

4. Be health conscious

It starts with great nutrition which, sadly, does not always come from commercial pet food as mentioned in point one. Being well-informed about how to prevent your animals from getting hurt or sick, is going to save you a great deal of money on bills for veterinarian care.

5. Get pet insurance

Everyone is sure their pet won’t need pet insurance until they do. A lot of devoted pet owners have gone heavily into debt to save the lives of their furry family members. You never want to have to worry about whether or not you can afford to keep your furbabies healthy, so think about getting pet insurance.

6. Keep your eye on the “free” section of your local classifieds

Pet items like carriers and perimeter fences often pop up here and collecting these expensive items for free can really save you some cash.

7. Make your own treats & chews

If you have a smoker or a dehydrator, it’s super easy to make your own treats and chews. It’s just as easy with your oven. Sweet potatoes make great chews for puppies when they’ve been dried out, and dehydrated chicken makes a great treat. There are plenty of recipes online to find out how to do it, but it’s really just as simple as slice, spread out on a rack in a roasting pan or in your smoker, and dry out on a low heat with no smoke. Given the price of sweet potatoes, these things are practically free.

Regardless of how many of these points you implement into your pet care routine, pets are still going to cost you money. So, the best thing to do before you adopt is to take a good, hard look at your money and make sure you’re making the right choice for you and your animal.

How do you save money on pet care? Let us know in the comments!