Yearly Archives: 2009

Yearly Cost of Owning Pets

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Today, I’m sitting down to calculate the cost of owning my pets.

I’m not including any cost like worm pills for the dog, vet visits or grooming expenses.

We currently have 1 dog (a chocolate lab), 1 cat, 2 hamsters and 1 1/2 fish.  With the fish, sometimes we get new ones when the fish dies and sometimes we don’t, thus the 1 1/2 number…  We really like having pets, but they do require a lot of work (I hate cleaning cages) and if you add up the cost per years, it’s ends up being a little over $1,000 dollars.

Obviously, the most expensive pet for us is our dog.  She eats about 1 bag of dog food a month (@ $45 per bag).  We got unlucky with our dog because she has a food allergy that requires us to spend $45 per bag.  Our cat goes through about 1 bag of cat food every 3 months (@ 10 per bag).  Cat litter usually runs about $12 a month.  The cost of the hamsters and fish pale in comparison to the dog and cat from a food perspective.  But the hamsters do require frequent bedding changes (once a week, but we stretch it to 2 weeks).  So the bedding cost for a hamster usually runs about $5 per month.   The fish cost about $3 a year. 

When we go on vacation, we only board up the dog.  We get away with the cat because we bring out extra litter pan for her, and she use all 3 until we return.  Note, we only take 1 week vacation, 2 weeks and we’d have a problem…

Yearly Pet Costs    
  Food Cat Litter Boarding Bedding
Dog 540 0 180 10
Cat 40 144 0 0
Hamster 40   0 60
Fish 1 0 0 2
      Total Cost: $1,017
  *bedding for the fish is water changes

 

My kids really enjoy there pets though, so for the time being, this is an expense that I can’t get out of. 

If you do want a pet, that isn’t expensive, fish are the way to go.  We currently have 2 beta fish, and they are both pretty and easy maintenance.

-D

Why Buy Microsoft Office When Open Office 3.1 is Free!

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Why spend money for Microsoft Office 2003 (or 2007 for that matter) when you can download and install Open Office 3.1 for free?

I’ve been using Open Office for all my spreadsheets at home for the last 3 years, and it works great!  The beauty is you can save the file as a microsoft office 2003  file type, so you can bring the file up in Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007.

I’m very surprised that more businesses don’t take advantage of the huge cost savings that they could gain by going with a free office suite package instead of paying for one.  Open Office 3.1 has the following software packages includes: writer, calc, impress, base and other pieces that I haven’t tried yet.  The table below is what the Open Office equivalent is in Microsoft Office.

This software package would be a great workhorse package, handling 95% if not all of the day-to-day tasks at work.  And it handles all of my needs for home use. 

Yes, a little bit of relearning will be necessary, but not much.  If you know the Microsoft products, you are over 90% of the way knowing how to work with the Open Office products.  Plus, it might be possible to modify the Open Office commands to respond practically exactly like the Microsoft option (although I’m not sure about this…). 

The thing about the Microsoft Office package is, the average user doesn’t use half of the features anyway…  One thing that you should definitely do is change the software setting so it save the file as a Microsoft file type, instead of the Open Office default file type.  Do this especially if you will need to send the file to people that use Microsoft Office.

         
  Open Office 3.1 Microsoft Office 2003 Compatability  
  Writer Word Very Good  
  Calc Excel Very Good  
  Impress PowerPoint Very Good  
  Base Access Good?  
         
         

With the Open Office 3.1 program, Base is the only one that I haven’t used yet.  From what I’ve been told, Base is the least compatible piece in the Microsoft suite with respect to “Microsoft Access”.

If you are familar with older versions of Open office, following is a quick “new features” video, just to give you an idea of how far the production has come.

For even more information about the software, go the  OpenOffice.org

Good stuff!  I highly recommend this software.

-D

Is the Government Destroying Our Banking System?

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I ask this because the government keeps making it harder for the banks to recover.

First, the government provided the bail out money from TARP.  But then they said that the banks need to keep certain capital levels in reserve.  Then, they complain that banks aren’t lending out money…?

Now, I read today that Barney Frank has introduced a bill to give the government the power to take over the banks whenever an emergency or whatever arises.  Now that is crazy!  I don’t have much respect for the politicians anymore when they start thinking they can run businesses better than the experts in the field.

I found a great article that really presents out how illogical the government is handling the entire banking mess Here at SmartMoney.com

I wish the government would stop focusing on the short term problem, and focus their attention on the real issues of job loss in the United States, instead of punishing the stockholders of the financial systems (some of many real victims in this mess).

Now, I don’t like some of the credit card practices that banks are pulling, but let’s let the bank get off of the ice before we pull the rug out from under their feet.

-D

Carpooling to Save Money and Reduce Gas Prices

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During the winter of 2008, I was amazed when gas prices crept over $3.50 a gallon (not to mention when it went over $4.00).  When this happened, I asked a buddy from work if he wanted to start car pooling.  We have the perfect scenario, he only live 2 miles from my house, and his house was on the way to work for me.

The arrangement was, we would alternate weeks of driving, so for first week, I drove, the next week he drove, then me, then him…

My Benefits from Car Pooling:

  1. Lowered my monthly gas spending from $180 to $90.
  2. Reduced the wear and tear on my car by 1/2.
  3. I did my part to try to reduce oil prices by car pooling.
  4. I cut the carbon emissions I produced by half.
  5. Cut down on traffic on the highway by 1 car.
  6. Freed up 1 parking spot at work (our lot is pretty full, or was…).
  7. It’s nice to ride some mornings, instead of driving.

Once the gas prices fell to the low $2 range, we stopped car pooling at that time because of conflicts in schedules.  However, if prices creep back up to the $3.50 or higher, we said we would start car pooling again.

Near the end of our car pool trips, we both started telecommuting once a week, and that was even better!

Below is the ultimate solution to high gas prices, if the weather and distance permits (which in my case, it doesn’t).

Don

Update, I forgot to add a few additional benefits:

  • If you’re in an accident, you have a captive witness (unlikely, but still nice).
  • Forces you to adhere to a more strict timetable, you don’t want to be late or pickup your buddy late.