I don't mean to be a killjoy, but typically cheap pet food is very low in nutrition, and contributes to skin and other allergies, impaired immune systems, disease, and shorter lifespans.

Obviously shelters can and should use any pet food available to keep their animals going while trying to find them new homes, but if you are looking to add a pet to your family you should do a little research on pet nutrition. Meat should be the first ingredient in any cat or dog food, not corn and other grains which are just fillers and act as allergens to meat eating animals.

There is nothing frugal about having a healthy pet. If you can't afford to buy better quality food to maintain your pet's health you may want to reconsider getting a pet in the first place. Any vet will back this up. Aim for free and cheap toys, supplies, and accessories, not the food.

Cassie, thank you for your good advice. Proper nutrition makes all the difference in the health and longevity of a beloved pet.

I know what Maria is talking about, though. She is talking about using coupons combined with store sales to get free or cheap net prices on decent name brand foods. It's a super-couponing thing and a lot of fun. A lot of work to match things up, but then when you find the right deals you stock up for a long time.

Cassie,

Jill is correct. I didn't mean "cheap" in the context of normally low priced dog food. I meant it to say cheap by the time I purchase it. For example, combining store sales with coupons allowed me to buy 5 healthy-sized bags of Purina ONE Beyond Chicken and Whole Oat Dog Food for less than a dollar each at Target last week. Their first ingrediant is chicken.

We actually plan on using one type of dog food and sticking with it and we will donate the extra bags however we will first have to decide which brand will be the right brand for our new addition. After that, we will donate the rest.

Maria, you rock! Good on you for the donations to the shelters!

And we have got to stop speaking in shorthand about couponing, i think.

Well, i just had a nice thing happen. I befriended someone who runs a cat rescue for sick cats, and they had some extra food donations that their cats would not eat. Weird, finicky cats i guess. But that worked in my favor: the woman gave me three bags of very nice, organic cat food, and two cans of the wet stuff.

So it's worth spreading around town that you are in the market for inexpensive and free sources of pet food. At least among pet people - rescues, shelters, pet shops and boutiques.

Actually, my local pet boutique often has free pet food samples they give me for the asking. Not enough for the cats to live on, but enough to tide them over if I am between bags of the 'bought' stuff.

Another friend asked me to join her for shopping at my ALCO on monday, which is senior citizen day. She gets a 15% discount on everything. So I will go with her and pay her back for buying me this month's cat food with her discount.

So a good idea is finding out where senior discounts are given and making use of those resources!

It also occurs to me that i can buy cheap cuts of chicken and a bag of white rice and crockpot that up as cat food.

Today I discovered my cats like babyfood and whole wheat english muffins. Maybe I can toss some of that in the chicken and rice food for them too. What else might be good in a pot like this?

meh, the cats don't like rice. Fine, cats.

Recently I found a whole wave of resources for free cat food and thought i'd share what is going on. I am not recommending begging on the streets for cat food, but if you find yourself in a really tight spot, i am finding others are happy to help out.

Over the last few weeks I've gotten free cat food:

- from my sister, who saw on facebook that I was bottle feeding six baby kittens as an emergency fosterer. She realized that made 12 cats i was supporting and sent me a $20 Walmart gift card for cat food. I have since found a wet nurse for the infants, so i am back to a normal six (five of my own and one feral i feed). This is so incredibly generous of my sister, who barely has enough money of her own. I am thankful!


- With the walmart card, I was able to carpool with another to the nearest walmart and figure out the cheapest price per ounce bag of cat food. With the $20, i could afford two 16 pound bags. Yes, it's not high quality cat food. But it's food. I looked at the bottom shelf and noticed that the ones way in the back on and on the bottom were offering each a 20% extra free amount of cat food, bringing the bags up to around 20 pounds. Basically, between the two bags with the extra percent, I was able to get the equivalent of another half a bag of free cat food. I always recommend looking closely at products to see if the ones in the back are having % more promotionals. You'd be shocked how often this happens, and people don't even know they missed out on the free extras.

- I've been trading some of the many free boxes i get of just-past-edible food (from food pantries) to a cat shelter that they in turn give to their livestock. The cat shelter gives me free bags of donated cat food that their cats won't eat (they give their cats the good stuff). Recently I've gotten about five bags and boxes of various sizes. They also give me goats milk for the babies i bottle feed when they come along. They consider me a foster mom in their program and it works out for them.

- My local animal control often has extra bags of donated cat food and they will give me some when i ask.

- A local pet shop in town always has free small bags of cat food samples and once a month i go in and ask for some. they usually give me around six little sample bags. Those I keep for the emergency days when I am in between cat food and have no cash.

- my ALCO is having a sale this weekend where if you spend $50 you get a $10 shopping card. On Sunday, my food stamps go thruogh for June. My plan is to go in and get $50 worth of food products with the food stamps and get my $10 free card...and in turn use THAT for a nice big bag of cat food.

- There are ways to use 'free money' at Walgreens and CVS to also get free ct food. It's rather complicated to learn all their rules, but if you look at their weekly circulars you can find Extra Bucks and Register Rewards deals. If you work those right, you can get free money to spend on pet food.

- you can often do this with supermarkets too when they have a catalina special. Those are the long coupons that spit out of the machine by the register.

I assume these ideas can be adapted for dog food or whatever. I really think the produce barter idea for livestock has potential, and it also keeps important soil nutrients out of the landfills.

Well, that worked awesome! I used my food stamps to buy food at ALCO and got my $10 shopping card. I can use that for cat food.

I'll be waiting until they have 30% off one item coupon, and then get a nice big bag for free. I'll have a couple bucks leftover for some wood glue.