I woke up this morning to my husband whispering those dreaded words: "Honey, we're out of dog food!" Really? That giant plastic garbage bin on wheels is empty? Two days into my month of thrift and I have to spend $50 on dog food? Well, when you have a cute, big dog with IBS (he can only digest salmon!), switching to a cheaper brand of dog food is not an option.
I thought about buying the little bag, but the big bag is 25% cheaper per pound. I decided to call the two pet stores near us and see if there was price difference. There was! The store at which I normally shop (Petco) was $5.00 per bag more than Petsmart! I then decided to go online and found a $3.00 off manufacturer's coupon at the Purina Pro Plan website. It wasn't exactly easy (you had to fill out information and download bar code software), but I figured between switching stores and printing the coupon, I would save $8.00.
I put on my game face and took the kids to the store. No, you can't have a cat. No, you can't have a hamster. No, you can't have a pack of gum! I caved and let them get a $3.99 toy for the dog's upcoming birthday.
When we got home, I decided to begin taking inventory of the pantry and started to organize the snacks. I took out all the open snack bags and had the kids re-package them into snack-sized ziplocs.
Next, I took inventory of the cereal. We had two half-full boxes that no one really liked, so I made a big pan of Quaker-Oatmeal-Square-Kashi-Go-Lean-Marshmallow cereal bars. Who won't eat cereal wrapped in marshmallows?
Really on a roll, I found the last three over-ripe mangoes, put them in the blender with the last yogurt and made -
Popsicles!
