A very calm dog!

Cocker spaniels are notoriously high-strung dogs, but poor Wyeth is particularly crazy! He's the sweetest, smartest, most loving little dog in the world, but he is nervous, pants all the time from stress, and continuously runs around the house until he finally falls asleep. We kept thinking he'd grow out of it, but he's 6 1/2 now and it seemed to be getting worse, so we finally talked to the vet about it.

Poor little Wyeth is now on Prozac twice a day. It's definitely made a difference in his quality of life, and my sanity! He still gets nervous in the car and when it thunders, but mostly he's a normal dog these days!

The problem, was that the vet was charging $54/month for Reconcile™ which is the brand name for the generic drug fluoxetine. For people it's called Prozac®. It's exactly the same drug! So, I had my vet write a prescription for Wyeth, and I took it to walmart. For $6 I can get the generic fluoxetine that will last Wyeth one month, for a savings of $48 every month.

Walmart pharmacy is a great source of savings for us. Both my husband and I have switched all of our prescriptions to the generics that are on their list. Our doctors were very helpful in suggesting alternatives in a few cases when our prescriptions were not part of their plan. So, even though we have a prescription plan through our medical insurance, we no longer use it very often because this is so much less expensive!

Check it out: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=546834&fromPageCatId=14503

Wyeth and I Both Get Something Good to Eat!

It should come as no surprise that I'm crazy about my pets, or my "furry children" as I like to refer to them! Wyeth was almost out of dog treats, so I decided to make some homemade ones for him this morning. I found a very easy recipe online which claims to cost around 30 cents per pound! Wyeth loves them, and by my calculations, I saved $0.86 on the one pound that I made. I guess that would seem more dramatic if I had a bigger dog and needed more treats. But, I'm thrilled with the savings, AND the fact that I now know exactly what I'm feeding my dog!

I've even got my husband on board with this challenge! He went to walmart this morning to get charcoal for the grill and came home with his own story! Apparently Kingsford charcoal was $6.00 for a 9 lb. bag, and Sam's Choice was $5.27 for an 18 lb bag, so needless to say we'll be grilling with Sam's Choice tonight for a savings of $6.73! I'm not much of a charcoal connoisseur, but how much of a difference could there be?

The Timeshare Escapade

I think I've started off the year with a bang! We got a phone call to invite us to sit through a time-share presentation. They said "absolutely no obligation" and we would get some free gifts. With both of us collecting unemployment this would definitely NOT be a good time to be buying a time-share, but since we have plenty of time, we went.

Needless to say, we didn't buy anything, but they gave us a $50 Target gift card, and although it looks like a pain in the neck to collect your money, they signed us up for a program that gives you a $25 Visa gift card every time you spend $100 at the grocery store (up to $300).

Looks to me like I've just saved the first $350 of my challenge!

AND, it gave me a great idea. I wonder if I can call up other time-shares and request invitations to sit through their presentations? Hmmm...