How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?

My cute dog Lilly

Our dog is the cutest and the smartest dog in the whole wide world. After we got her from a local shelter, it only took  a week before she started running our household. She is very loving and playful dog. When she wants something, she only has to stand in front of us, wag her tail and with those big brown eyes looking at us, we would do anything for her.

We do have the tendency to spoil our dog rotten. She even has her own couch. We take her to the groomer once a month where we spend $45 for every visit. I, on the other hand, visit my hairdresser three times a year and my husband cuts his own hair. 

We buy her so many toys. She has to have the best foods and treats. The only thing that we do not do for her is dress her up. My husband believes that dogs are hairy enough to keep themselves warm and comfortable. 

On food alone, we spend $118 a month. We give her a mixture of dry and wet.  

Veterinarian visit is always expensive. Good thing we only have to take her once a year.

We love our dog but we realized she is becoming too expensive for us. We started to bathe her ourselves. It is quite an enjoyable task and she loves it, too! We saved $45 every month.

Costco became our place to buy dog foods and treats. For a 40-pound bag of dry food, we pay $27.79. For a box of wet food, we pay $18.79. The box contains 24 cans of 13.2 ounce of wet food. A 15-pound dog biscuits only cost us $11.79. The dry food lasts for six months and the wet food for a month and a half. That is a huge savings! 

As far as her toys are concerned, it turned out that her favorite is the one that was a free give away from a pet store. We did not have to buy every cute toy that we see in the store. If she does not want to play with it, it is just a waste of money. What she likes most is for me to chase her around the house and the backyard. Priceless.

Compare Prices

When it comes to grocery shopping, convenience was on top of our list. We liked the idea of getting everything we need from one place. My husband is retired so we have the privilege of doing all the shopping on weekdays. We do not have to fight for a parking spot.

A rude awakening happened when one time, we were looking for an after shave cream and our favorite grocery store did not have it. We had to drive to another store to get it. That was when we discovered that all this time, we have been overpaying at our favorite store for the same brand. We saved two dollars by buying it from another store!

I started walking back and forth on each aisle checking prices. My suspicion was confirmed. They have better deals! We did not stop there. We made it our mission to check different stores and compare prices.

We also realized we were not taking advantage of our Costco membership. We have been a Costco members for a long time but we only use the card to buy gas, paper towels and bathroom tissues. After our experience from the other store, we decided to check what else does Costco sells.

We discovered they carry almost everything we need and they are cheaper and bigger. We never went back to our former favorite store. Our shopping schedule also changed from weekly to monthly because we were buying things in bulk. 

Convenience is good but saving is better.

Costco Membership + Good Credit = Huge Savings

When our twelve-year-old car started to give us so much problems, we knew it was time to buy a new one. We started checking prices online, then we visited different dealerships. We knew what car we wanted and we were just finding ways on how to get good deal. 

Now, we are Costco Executive members and every month we receive their magazine in the mail. We have been wondering about their car buying program. We do not know anybody who used it but we thought we would give it a try.

We were surprised how easy the process was. Costco connected us to the dealer. There are sales agents that are assigned to help Costco members. We were able to meet with him the same day, BUT, before we went to see him, we went online and printed the price of the car that we wanted to buy. In that way, we will see if we were really getting a Costco member discount or not.

To our surprise, we did. We got over a thousand dollars discount! Then, after checking our credit report, the agent said we are qualified for 0% APR financing! How cool is that! The agent was even surprised that we put a down payment on it. He made a comment we could have just used the money for other things. We could but we wanted our monthly payment as low as possible.

Our payment ended up just over a hundred dollars a month. Included in that payment is a seven-year extended warranty. We were more than satisfied when we drove our new car home. It pays to maintain good credit standing. It came handy when we needed it.

Oh, and did I say we love Costco?