Under $20 Part Three

This is for pet owners who abandon their animals to the elements.  Like me.

Okay, basic common sense is to keep your animals healthy and vet-checked and on flea and tick stuff.  It will cost you around five thousand dollars to have a dog for its full life, keeping them healthy and flea-free is going to save you a ton more.  Also, getting a mutt is a money saver, they don't usually have the issues a pure-bred animal will with joints coming loose, eyeballs falling out (I am serious) and various other things running from gooey eyes and ear infections to a propensity to not be able to digest certain foods.

In the winter, for Pete's sake, have a place for your animals to be out of the cold and let them in your house when it's going to be very cold or especially if it will be snowing or sleeting.  You will need a couple of things for them to come inside if they do not have an area year round.  Get a cheap plastic table cloth or shower curtain liner, even from Dollar Tree would work.  That's your base layer to protect your flooring.  Then go through and pull out a couple of old blankets or go to the thrift store and buy a couple-old sleeping bags are a good choice.  Then make them a pallet and they will be fine inside!

Outside, use the same system-get a tarp if you can spring for it to keep them more insulated.  Then go to your local co-op and buy either a $5 bundle of cedar shavings or a couple small bales of hay and put that on top of the base layer, then cover with the blanket or even an old sheet.  They have got to have that dead air space to get them off the ground or they will freeze.  Needless to say, this needs to be assembled in a covered area and if you don't have a porch, carport or shed they can get in, make a low tent out of tarps that is closed off on 3 sides, only open to the south and up on high ground-not where water might collect or even run through when it rains.  They must stay as dry as possible.  On sunny days, go out and hang the blankets to be sure they are dry and not getting moldy.  This allows the filler layer to get some air and dry out, too. Replenish the filler at least once during the winter and in the spring, add it to your compost.

This is the cheapest route to take when trying to winter your pets in a fairly mild climate, like the southeast US.  Look around your house and ask friends for bedding and towels that they are going to get rid of so that you can have a small stash of extra bedding on hand.  For cats, a box with a hole in the top set out of the wind and rain with a few towels lining the bottom and sides is a great option.  Put a little cedar in there under the towel and that will help with fleas, too.  You don't have to have a Dogloo with heated floors, but your pets will need a little extra help dealing with the colder weather.

Under $20 Part Two

I wrote this earlier in the month, just forgot to publish it.

Next up, hot water heater blanket.  They are $12-15 each and help not only in the winter-when they keep the heat snuggled up to the heater and not leaking through the house, but also in the summer, when they...keep the heat snuggled up to the heater and not leaking through the house.  It uses much less electricity to keep the tank full of warm water.

My other tip is free and will save money.  When you wash your hands, don't turn on the hot water.  By the time the warm water gets to your faucet, you have had enough time to wash them already-so either you are using cold water anyway or are just standing there staring at the water going down the drain until it heats up. Just suck it up and leave the hot off.  When you use any hot water, even 1/4 gallon to wash hands, the system kicks on and heats the tank again.  Think of it as good exercise for your metabolism.

That's it for this week!

Under $20 Part One

Winter is approaching and I hate it, everything about the winter-other than the valid excuse to lay under a pile of blankets and read-stinks.  Short days, rain, gray skies, germs, the holidays-all just a pile of stress and blah.  So, instead of focusing on that, I am focusing on ways to be better prepared for winter for under $20, because with a broken retainer, 2 bad tires, 2 bad brake pads, 2 cavities and 2 birthdays distributed among the family to pay for in the next 3 weeks-I don't have a lot of flash cash.

I am starting with the house, because I am housecentric all season, I only go out if it's over 50 and sunny.

The best way to spend $20 and have a MUCH more cozy house is to buy 3 $5 tubes of 100% silicone caulk and attack your windows and doors from the outside.  Latex is cheaper and it will also fail when it's wet.  Get right next to the frame all the way around, fill in any soft spots and make a note of those to be repaired in the spring.  Fill in carpenter bee holes, tiny gaps-those tiny gaps let in COLD air and let your heat leak out.  If you have ladybugs (or other bugs/mice) IN your house, you have a gap that needs attention.  Spend the last $5 on that gap foam that expands and fill in every single one of those vent holes in the foundation, you know the ones if you have an older house.  The foundation is cement blocks and every so often one is flipped to expose the holes.  Fill those in.  Then open your kitchen sink cabinet and see if you can see daylight anywhere around the pipes.  Fill that gap up.  That's a mousey gateway and cold air.  UGH. We are avoiding that.  If you have any sealant of either type left, go in your bathrooms and lift up that little metal ring around the water line where it goes into the floor and fill that up, too.  Then put the ring back in place.

This will save you more than you spent, silicone lasts and last-but you can't paint over it.  So choose clear or white and when you use it, use it neatly.  Any smears will show up when you repaint.

One year, I am sure I have told this one before, but when I was 15 I moved in with my father.  We were completely unprepared for life as bachelors and winged practically everything via best-guess scenario.  I never had a house key, so I came and went through the kitchen window.  When my bedroom window frame rotted, Daddy had it replaced with sheet glass (MUCH cheaper!) and hung a hammer next to it in case of fire.

With no adult females around to hassle us, we managed with a single working stove eye and a microwave, I did laundry twice a month and mowed twice a month-not on the same weekend because that would be insane amounts of work.  ha!

The first winter in the house, a possum chewed open the area around the pipes and climbed in to live under the sink.  Daddy simply tied the knobs together with a rope and when the temps would drop, he angled a space heater at the doors so it would not freeze.  I occasionally cracked the doors and sprayed inside the crack with Lysol, eliciting a horrible hissing that to this day I can still hear when I spray the toilet, imagining the horrific death of so many germs.   It sounds like a gaspy 'heeeeeeeeeeeeee'.  You can sometimes make your cat make the same noise if you annoy it.