We Shouldn't Have Wasted Our Money

After Adam and I got engaged, we pooled all of our income into shared accounts.  Adam was way better at keeping track of money and controlling his spending than I was.  Don't get me wrong, I never spent beyond my means and did put money into a savings account.  But Adam created a budget so we could save for wedding expenses and money for a house down payment.  Boy am I glad Adam initiated all of this, but at the time I was very concerned that I would never be able to go shopping at Target or eat at McDonalds again!

We recently added another category to our budget: Jazzy.  I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we spent $687.14 on Jazzy the first month that we owned her.  To be fair, this amount did include her adoption fee and some vet bills.  But, yikes!  I guess we went a bit crazy and thought that she needed to have a multitude of things.    

Here are some things that we didn't need to buy:

1.  A Bed

Since I'm a girl, I keep more pillows on our bed than necessary.  Because of this, Adam throws whichever pillows he's not using on the floor beside the bed.  Jazzy has decided that this mound of pillows is her "bed."  

2.  Bones

Jazzy is very particular about the bones she eats.  She will eat Greenies and Dentastix as soon as we give them to her.  But she hides pretty much any other bone we give her in various places around the house.  I don't know why we keep giving her bones, but it sure is cute to sneak around after her to see where she decides to hide them.  We could have saved some money had we not bought her all of these bones that I dug out of couch cushions and behind beds:

3.  Nail Clippers

The time Adam and I tried to trim Jazzy's nails was quite traumatic for all three of us.  She hates when you touch her feet, so imagine how much fun it was to try to trim her nails.  After about 30 minutes of wrangling her and Adam and I trying to work up the courage to actually squeeze the nail clippers, we got about 3 nails trimmed.  It was at that point that we decided taking her to the vet to have them trim her nails was well worth the $9 cost.  While we'll end up spending more money in the long run, we could have at least saved money by not buying the nail clippers at all.  

4.  Scary Wire Brush

Adam has bought Jazzy 3, yes 3, different brushes.  He also buys her Burt's Bees shampoo and conditioner, which is probably better than the hair products I buy for myself, but that's another story.  The first brush he bought ended up being a little scary.  It's rather pokey and I certainly wouldn't want to brush my hair with it.  The second brush was a little better.  It fits in the palm of your hand and has softer bristles.  The third brush is called the Furminator and had a rather hefty price tag, though Adam swears by it.  He even shows me the pile of hair he ends up with after brushing her with it.  Lovely.  So, we could have bypassed the first two brushes and went straight for the Furminator.   

5.  Toys

Jazzy doesn't really know how to play with toys.  If you give her one she'll look at it for a second and then ignore it.  Her favorite games to play are chase, where she just runs really fast past us in the backyard, and bite, where she ever so gently bites on your fingers.  She will occasionally chew on a rope if you switch it out for your fingers while she's playing bite.  But then she'll just try to get your fingers where they are holding the rope.  We could have saved some money by not buying her any toys.  

She is one spoiled doggy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.