Paid By Cash: Pets Are Part Of The Family!
My name is Debbie Geary and I started using coupons around September 2011. Like every other family we would simply shop the flyer sales and get what we needed for the week. Coupons was saving us some cash but I really wasn’t sure how much. I thought I was doing well couponing but I had not tracked any of my savings. I felt it was very important to know how much I was actually saving using coupons to weigh the benefits.
I decided that I would design a spreadsheet for tracking my coupon savings in
2012 which I use weekly. After discussing the savings with my husband, we decided that we would move what money I had socked away from using coupons over to a separate savings account….for a rainy day.
Fast forward to April 2012.
Time for the pets’ annual checkup.
Our beloved family pet Beagle Molly has become obese over the years and now she needs to get some blood work done so the doctor can evaluate what the problem might be. You see we’ve tried every solution we could to help Molly lose some weight but nothing helped her. Turns out she has hypothyroidism and will be on medication for the rest of her life. This is manageable, her medication is $65 for 4 months so we easily could factor that into our budget.
Our cat Dixie is another story altogether.
At 11 years old, Dixie is still in pretty good health and we love her dearly but she is full of surprises. The latest surprise is that Dixie needs one, possibly two teeth extracted. The vet said to keep an eye on it, that it isn’t an emergency and he’d call me with an estimate for the teeth extractions in a few days.
How bad could it be, you ask? Well, it can be pretty bad….$661!! My
first reaction was to panic, that is a LOT of money, at least to us. I was
really worrying about where we were going to come up with the money for this. Then it struck me, I had forgotten I had savings in my coupon account.
I opened up my spreadsheet and I had already had $496 put away. Oh boy, was I ever happy that I started couponing and setting the savings aside.
Dixie is going in for her extraction in the beginning of June and I won’t be on the ede of my seat worrying about where the money will come from. I am extremely proud to say that by matching my coupons to sales, I have MORE than enough money put aside to cover the vet bill.
Pets are like family as we would do anything to help them.
Debbie Geary
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