Hummingbird Food

Dear Cheapskate,

In my never ending quest to provide entertainment for Beaubeau, I lured some birds to the window for him to watch. It's like TV for cats, only better! Hummingbirds. I got some hummingbird feeders on freecycle and then I went to buy some hummingbird food at the pet store. It's expensive!! $5.99 for 2 liters of red liquid. I read the ingredients: Sugar, red food coloring, and water - for $5.99!!! $5.99 for sugar, red dye, and water???? I could make this at home for practically free!!


Hummingbird Food
Dissolve 1/4 cup sugar in 1 cup water
(I figured the hummingbirds would be ok without the poisonous red food coloring.)

That's it!!

2 Liters Hummingbird Food From Store: $5.99
2 Liters Hummingbird Food From Home: 40 cents

The hummingbirds guzzle this stuff!! And I don't blame them! Yay, sugar! The little sugar addicts drink a liter a week. That's 52 liters per year!

Savings per year: $290.68

But what about Beaubeau???

Beaubeau lounges at the window basking in the sun while the hummingbirds flit around right in front of his face!! Beaubeau looks up ever so slightly and says, "Oh, another hummningbird."

I got a cutting of pineapple sage from freecycle and it grew into this big plant! When the hummingbirds aren't too drunk on sugar water, they drink/eat/guzzle/sip/snort the pineapple sage. They're so cute!

Suggestions from a Brilliant Cheapskate

Dear Cheapskate,

One of our esteemed fellow cheapskates has sent several amazingly cheap tips!! She is a genius!!

Here are her tips:

1) "I'm not sure if this is too cheap or what, my husband thinks it is, but after we've squeezed out as much toothpaste from a tube as we can, I cut the bottom of the tube off, scrape what I can off from the bottom inch or so, cut a bit more off, etc, etc, until I've cut most of the tube off and am scraping paste off from inside the funnel-part and neck. You can get at least 5-10 additional brushings out, depending on how flat you've squeezed the tube. Maybe more if you don't use a flat object to squeeze paste to the top. My extremely cheap suggestion."

2) "Another tip - if you don't eat organic, have you checked out ethnic stores? I've been meaning to check out the Indian places on San Pablo and University in Berkeley, I hear spices are very reasonable there."

3) "I have a money saving tip for you re: fleas and cats. Several years ago, a vet at school told me that Advantage (NOT Advantix or Advantage Multi) for dogs was exactly the same as Advantage for cats, just put in different sized tubes. You just need a syringe (no needle). Ever since, I have never paid the cat dosing price for our three cats. I buy Advantage for large dogs (the bigger the better), pull out a tube, shake well, squirt a little on a piece of waxed paper or foil, something you can throw away, and suck up a dose in a syringe. If you get too much out, you can put it back in the tube. For cats and kittens under 9lb, it's 0.4ml, for cats over 9lb, it's 0.8ml. Then you hunt down little Fluffy, darn her flea-ridden hide, pin her down, and apply as normal. http://www.lisaviolet.com/cathouse/advantage.html - works with Frontline, too (diff. doses) if that's your poison of choice. I personally won't go more than two months between doses during the warm months once the cats get fleas, I have small, delicious, and tender-skinned children. And an equally unamused larger delicious and tender-skinned husband. I buy a mondo pack for mondo dogs ($65 online at Fosters Smith, no idea where I got it last time), and it will last me easily a year. Same 6 pack for cats would cost just about the same amount and only last me a couple doses. If you only have one cat, it would last you a very long time even if you dosed every month."


Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pets: Fleas

Dear Cheapskate,

Did you happen to own a dog in the 1970's? Were you overwhelmed with fleas? Did you do the best you could and arm your dog with a flea collar and a flea-shampoo bath? Did the fleas fill the carpet and jump so high, en masse, that you had to walk across your room high in the air, by stepping from a chair to a wobbly desk to a chair to the bed, to avoid the floor where an ocean of vicious fleas awaited your delicious leg blood? Would you vacuum them up but it didn't help much? Never mind your poor, dear, miserable, itching, scratching pet?

Now there's this miracle flea liquid you apply to your pet once a month! Just a few drops between your pet's shoulder blades a mere once a month and there are no fleas! Personally, after my experience with the untrainable, undefeatable, fleas of the 1970's, I was willing to pay any price for these fabulous anti-flea drops. WAS willing to. It's, like, twenty bucks a pop. Worth it? Yes.

But I wondered: How can I save some money here?

I happened to talk to a vet (a veterinarian, not a veteran) who told me that indoor cats can get by with the treatments every two months. Hallelujah! I save $10 per month, or $120 per year!!

Then I wondered: What if I give this to my cat every four months?
So I did! No fleas! I save $15 per month, or $180 per year!

Then, my friend told me he never puts the drops on his indoor cat. But he lives in an apartment on the fourth floor in the city. Cockroaches, yes. Fleas, no.

My cat, Beaubeau, lives on the first floor and sits by a lot of open windows, tempting the fleas with all his soft, thick, great-for-hiding-in, fur.

Maybe Beaubeau can hold off the fleas for five months! Six! I'll save even more money!

Here's what I'm wondering: Why don't they put this stuff on kids who have lice?

Pets: Cat Grass

Dear Cheapskate,

Have you ever spent $3.99 on one of those little pots of lush green cat grass at the pet store? You thought, boy, my faithful cat would love to munch on that cat grass. And really, money is no object here, because what is money compared to the happiness of my precious pet? Then you saw, next to the little pots of cat grass, little bags of cat grass seeds for sale? You thought, I could save money growing my own cat grass, which will make me happy, and my cat will be happy, too! We'll both be happy!

You can indeed grow your own cat grass!! But not by buying those seeds you saw at the pet store. Oh, no. I have a much better idea.

My dear Cheapskate, I have a fantastically cheap idea for you today.

I did what you did. I went to the pet store. I saw that cat grass. I saw those seeds. I saw the price of those seeds ($2.95 for one ounce of seeds!), and I thought - what kinds of seeds are these exactly? What is cat grass, really?
I read the label: barley, oats, wheat.

Barley, oats, wheat??!!?? This is what this fancy, special, mysterious, cat grass is made of? For $2.95 per ounce? That's, like, $47.20 per pound! (As a highly motivated cheapskate, I have learned to do such calculations quickly in my head. You will, too. I promise.) Can't I buy oatmeal from the bin at the grocery store for $1.25 per pound? Don't they have whole grains there, too, in those bins? Cat grassy grains like barley, oats, and wheat???

I rode my bicycle as fast as I could to Berkeley Bowl (a very cool grocery store) and I ran to the bins section. (Wear sneakers for optimal running.) I bought 32 cents worth of whole oats, 43 cents worth of wheat berries, and 39 cents worth of whole barley. (I also had the free cheese sample while I was there.)

I planted a little pot using a fraction of my seed supply, watered it every day, and voilà! It grew! It grew into beautiful, tall, green, delicious (according to Beaubeau - I didn't taste it myself) cat grass. And I'm not even good at growing things!!!

I know you can't believe it - all that cat grass for $1.14. But wait, there's more. This was a year ago and I'm still using that same supply of seeds and there are still a lot of seeds in those little baggies! That $1.14 worth of grain grows a LOT of cat grass!

Tip: As soon as one pot of cat grass is tall and ready to give to your cat, plant seeds in a second pot. When the fist batch is eaten or has turned brown, the second will be ready.

Calcuation:
At the pet store: $3.99 every two weeks for cat grass. That's $103.74 per year.
Plant edible grains: $1.14 for (eternity?) a year.
Savings: $102.60 per year!!!!

And think of all the time you saved not going to the pet store, and the money you saved because you weren't at the pet store so you weren't tempted to buy a bunch of junk you didn't need while you were there!

And you grew your own grass!! How cool is that???? You farmer, you.

PS The pot and dirt were free. I'll tell you how to get free stuff like pots and dirt in another post. I know you can't wait!!!!