The Dog Ate My Wallet

The Dog Ate My Wallet

Personal Finance in a World of Excuses

Article

Intentional Planning

I spent today in an all-day meeting, as we were trying to map out the future state of one of the units within our department. This included revamping the job descriptions, deciding if we need two or three levels of analysts, and do we need more supervisors, admin and analytical assistants, or other support staff. The goal is to prepare the unit to handle not just the work in today’s world, but the work we know is coming down due to a major technological change. The key phrase of the day was “intentional planning”, and our goal was to try and find a structure that will work today but be flexible enough that it is still working in five years.

Now, I love the idea of intentional planning. I often do it in my own life- such as when I look at my goals and my next steps career wise. I’ve talked about joining a professional society this year and getting some additional professional certifications before I take the next step of looking to move to a higher position one to two years from now. That’s intentional planning. And for my life goals, big picture, I’m actually really good at it.

While I was in the meeting today, though, an issue arose with my assistant. As soon as I saw the emails about it, I felt like Homer Simpson, hitting my head and saying “doh”, because this was an issue I should have forseen. I know my assistant; I know how she operates. What she did today was 100% predictable on my part. And yet, I had not given her any specific instruction regarding this issue, so she took it into her hands and dealt with it in the way she deals with things. Which left me at my desk at 5:15 (I normally get off work at 3:30) typing up some response emails so that the fires don’t have time to grow overnight.

This was an issue that could have been avoided if I had engaged in intentional planning.

I don’t mean that I should have to create a new plan every time an issue comes up where my admin might need to communicate changes to the department as a whole. I mean, knowing her communication style, and the issues it causes, that I should have put into place a plan for department communications some time ago. Instead, I’ve put out fires every time something has come up. It causes me stress and annoys other members of the leadership team I work with.

I can avoid this if I just do some intentional planning. I need to put into place procedures for my admin to follow, regardless of the specific situation, that will prevent things from blowing up- whether I’m in the office or not. In addition, this allows me to have these procedures already in place as training mechanisms for when my admin retires. (Her current plan isn’t to retire until I plan to be out of this position, but there are changes happening in her life that may change that plan significantly.) And even if I leave before she does, having these standard procedures in place will be of benefit to my successor.

I need to remember that intentional planning isn’t just about planning for things one to five years down the road, it is also about solving today’s issues in a way that allows us all to get one to five years down the road.

 

What about you? Do you intentionally plan, at work or for your life? Do you have plans for the long term, sometimes forgetting that you also need to solve for today? Or are you a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person?

And yes, I recognize the irony of this post going up almost 3 hours late.

Date: 07/08/2012 Author: Tags: Category: Lessons Learned, On the Job, Organization Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Sunday Evening Post #54

Day

Amount

Place

Category

Monday

$22.25

Safeway

Groceries

$5.00

cash

Allowance

Tuesday

$15.00

copay

medical

Wednesday

$15.00

copay

medical

$66.00

Saffron

Eating Out

$47.25

gas

Car

Thursday

$12.00

AutoZone

Car

$10.00

Farmers Market

Groceries

Friday

$14.00

Qdoba

Eating Out

Saturday

$15.00

Clothes

Allowance

$12.00

Safeway

Groceries

$45.00

Hair Care

Groceries

Sunday

$75.00

Faire

Allowance

This weekend was our first visit to the Renaissance Faire. We’ll go again in 2 weeks. We budget for this every year because this is where I get my anniversary gift.

J left this week for 1 week in Spain and then a 2 week cruise.

Otherwise, it’s hot, and I’m cranky.

 

We are half way through 2012. I’m revising some of my goals because life took some turns I wasn’t quite planning on when I came up with the goals.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

The anthology I had a piece accepted to is now available to buy on Amazon. It’s called Conquest Through Determination.

2)      Pay All Adoption Expenses in Cash & Still Pay for C’s College Out of Pocket

We’re doing good here. This was helped tremendously by getting 3x as much in life insurance from the MIL than expected. Our savings is still growing, and we’re in really good shape

Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. However, I did have a chance to talk with the artist I want to work with on Friday, and her life has settled down, so there’s a good chance we can start work on this sometime in June. (When my life settles down a

bit.)

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

Conference attendance paid for. Tickets paid for. The only things left are food and the hotel. I probably won’t have enough in allowance to cover all of it, but it won’t be far off, and the biggest expenses are already taken care of.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I may not make Epsilon class. I’ve got one week to get my Alexa rating back down under 200k. It’s recently been going up and is currently at 246k.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $28.16 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.)

6)      Be healthier

I walked twice Monday through Thursday and once on Friday. I’m keeping a food diary, and we’re trying to eat more vegetables. We’ve also been to the dog park a couple of time, and I took Larry for a long walk one evening.

Date: 05/08/2012 Author: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
Article

What I’m Reading: It’s Too Hot Edition

One of the things I like most about the Seattle area is that it doesn’t get hot, at least not really hot, on a regular basis. Having lived in eastern MT and northern NV, I’ve had my share of hot. I like temperate. To me, the temperature should stop going up once it hits 75.

However, every once in a while, Seattle gets a blast of heat. This is that weekend. (Naturally, we have plans to be outside all day tomorrow, at the Faire, in 90+ degree weather.) Today, we have some things that need to happen around the house. I am making no promises, though. I did get up at 9am and mow the very back part of the yard, but now, at almost noon, well, even the dogs think it’s too warm to do anything other than lie around.

 

Because of that, this may be a slightly less than energetic look at what I’m reading. I do not do well in the heat, and just sitting at my computer seems like it’s too much work.

 

You all know we recently bought a new to us car. Our friend over at Well Heeled Blog thought she could be carless for her time in her MBA program. She was wrong, and now she’s looking for a car- but what should she get?

Well, one of our new Yakezie Challengers might be able to help her out. Will, over at Hacking the Bank recently put together his list of the top 6 best used cars under $10k. Our “new” car isn’t on there, but that’s because it wasn’t under $10k. The car we traded in, also not on there, but no one actually thinks a Chevy Cavalier is good deal, especially not those who own (or have owned) one.

While I was doing a state of my blog post earlier this week, Jason at Live Real, Now was doing a state of his life and finances post about Changing Circumstances. Having also recently lost my mother-in-law, and coming out financially better for it, I can understand the gamut of emotions Jason is going through.

To go along with changing circumstances, Kathleen at Frugal Portland is figuring out new ways to view her finances, not just her debt, but her net worth, as well. Sometimes, changing the paradigm makes all the difference.

Kathleen isn’t the only one who is learning to view things differently. Our next new Yakezie Challenger is Carvin, from Rule Your Wallet. (I can’t, the dog ate it.) He’s taking a look at Budget Flexibility, the problem’s he’s had being flexible, and the problems inflexibility has caused.

Speaking of needing to be flexible with spending, we all know our pets bring endless enjoyment but also unexpected expenses. (My little Junebug is likely going to cost us another few thousand this year, but that’s for a later date.) In my ongoing quest to cross link pet blogs and personal finance blogs, it is once again time for The Cost of Things, the monthly post tracking pet expenses over at The House of Two Bows.

That brings us to Money Beagle (Beagles always make me smile), who shares with us this week some of his recent camping misadventures. Since he decided to tell us that they bought a travel trailer, he now justifies the expense (just kidding) by telling us all about how they are using it. I, for one, am jealous.

And finally, we end with some good advice that I just don’t want to follow. My good friend Joe, from Average Joe’s Money Blog, was finally able to return to his home office after over 6 weeks away. He was home for less than a week before having to run off again. (Hope your daughter did great in her race, Joe.) But he was able to get some things done in the short time because he apparently knows some secrets of Productivity 101. Me? I don’t want to be productive. I want to go lay on the bed with the dogs and watch the Olympics. It’s too hot here to do anything useful.

Date: 04/08/2012 Author: Category: Uncategorized Bookmark: Permalink
Article

The State of My Blogging

It’s been over a year since I joined the Yakezie challenge. I’ve done 53 Sunday Evening Posts, the goal of which is to help me keep track of my spending and my main goals for the year. But the high level look give short shrift to my goals as they specifically relate to this blog.

What are my goals for this blog?

Maintain a consistent blogging schedule of content posts on Tuesday and Thursday, What I’mReading on Saturday, and a Sunday Evening Post. For the most part, I’ve done pretty good. I’ve missed on Saturday, posted a couple Sunday Evening Posts on Monday morning, and gotten posts up every Tuesday and Thursday, though their level of content has been waning in the last few months.

Grow relationships with other bloggers by reading and commenting on their posts, and hopefully have them read and comment on mine. I will say that there are a couple other bloggers who I think of as friends, even though I’ve never met them, and many other I think of as friendly acquaintances, kind of like coworkers I really like but don’t socialize with outside of work. It is because of these relationships that I am going to FinCon12 in just over a month. I cannot wait to meet people in person.

Grow the readership of this blog through the consistent schedule and relationships. I’ve been hovering around 15-30 views of the blog a day for quite some time. I think I’ve done well with the consistency and relationships, but I’m stagnating. I need to do more. I’ve started to do a little more by trying to do some cross posting between this and my pet blog, and participating in events in the pet blogging world. I also participated in Women’s Money Week. At the same time, I haven’t done much else. There are carnivals that I could submit to that I haven’t submitted to. There are forums I could be posting on that I don’t post on. If I want to start growing again, I need to be more active.

Become a full member of the Yakezie Network through a combination of forming relationships and growing the readership. It’s August. A new membership application for Yakezie should be out soon. This time round, I think I have the required relationships (though I haven’t sat down for a count yet), but my Alexa rating is no longer under 200,000. In fact, it’s going in the wrong direction. I was under 200k before, but a couple of nights ago, I was at 227k and last night I was at 240k. If I want to become a member of Yakezie, I need to turn this around. Again, that will come from increasing my participation in the blogging world.

Make money from the blog via advertising. I am not looking to replace my income. I enjoy blogging, but I am no where near as dedicated to this as Andrea at So Over This, Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, or even Jana at Daily Money Shot. I like my regular job. It more than pays the bills. I blog because I like writing, I like talking about money (and pets, and random bits of science, and even about writing itself). But I would still like the blog to pay for itself, maybe make enough that I could feel confident doing a giveaway or something like that. Right now, I only have Google AdSense on the side bar. I want to look into Amazon’s affiliate program, and I wouldn’t mind working with specific sponsors (though that’s more likely on the pet side of things). For now, I don’t want to place ads in my posts, but I wouldn’t mind having a bit more sidebar or header/footer space go toward advertising.

 

In addition to The Dog Ate My Wallet, I have Life by Pets and 100 Words On, which I’ve remained pretty consistent with. 100 Words On is now 6 days a week instead of 7 (no Sunday posts) and for now remains ad free.

I’ve stopped running my micro-fiction contest. I love micro-fiction, but it wasn’t gaining traction, and with such a small readership, it was one of the things that was easiest to throw by the wayside when I started feeling like I had too much to do. I don’t want to give up on micro-fiction on the web, but Fiction in 50 is defunct for now.

I also started The Prose Passage– meant to be a blog dedicated to the art of writing- whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, blogs, novels, or even poetry. I thought I’d be able to do a once a week schedule with that, but no, it’s also been quite neglected. I think, though, that The Prose Passage will stay, and that I’ll bring some micro-fiction to it. But I doubt I’ll do much work on it any time soon.

Because of these changes, I also need to update my home page, which hasn’t happened in a while, and probably still won’t happen for a few more weeks, but it’s something I’m thinking about.

 

So what’s my plan? To try and write better content than I have been recently, submit to some carnivals, and reengage with the blogging world over the next month or so. I don’t necessarily need to read more blogs (though I like finding new blogs), but I do need to more fully engage with the blogs I’m already following.

I want to work harder at cross posting between Life by Pets and The Dog Ate My Wallet– since for those of us who have pets, they certainly play a major role in our finances, and finances can often play a major role in the decisions we make for our pets.

I am also uncertain what I think about the current lay out for The Dog Ate My Wallet, and you may see that change again. I am even considering paying for a WordPress theme or maybe even hiring one of my blogging friends to help me get the look I’m really looking for. But that’s kind of low priority.

I also want to get myself some snazzy business cards for FinCon- which is really has nothing to do with actually blogging, but I love me snazzy business cards.

 

And that’s where we are, the state of blogging for The Dog Ate My Wallet and me in general. I do want to thank my blogging friends and readers who have been hanging in there with me, even as I’ve been kind of phoning it in the last month or two. I plan on making it better. I plan on being a better blogger and blogging friend. And you can hold me to that.

Date: 02/08/2012 Author: Category: blogging Bookmark: Permalink
Article

When is a Perk Not a Perk? (or Why I’ll Never Work at Zynga)

When you’re looking to change jobs, you’re often told to consider the entire package- not just compensation, but all of the benefits and perks that come with the job, from health insurance to discounts at local restaurants. I don’t disagree with that, but I would encourage people to look beyond the financial side of those perks, and ask themselves, what does this tell me about the company culture.

 

Back in 2002 or 2003, C interviewed at a mortgage broker’s office. During the interview, he was told that while the law said they had to give you at least a half hour (unpaid) lunch, company culture was that everyone took an hour lunch, and worked through it. They would send one person out to grab sandwiches for everyone, and then they all just worked. (So the company got 9 hours of work out of everyone for 8 hours of pay.)

He said he mentioned this to all interviewees because while they could not fire someone for taking their legally protected lunch break, they could fire someone for having a detrimental effect on team morale- and someone taking their lunch break would certainly do that.

I think C kind of purposely blew the interview after that, as that was definitely not a company culture he wanted to work in.

I know, you’re thinking that’s the opposite of a perk and it’s likely a lot of you would walk away from that “opportunity”, unless there were other major factors. The thing is, not every company is going to come right out and say they expect you to work through your lunch, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t telling you in other ways.

I have friends who are working at or have worked at Zynga, EA, and BioWare. One of the perks these companies (and many tech companies) offer is a free company cafeteria- one that is open 18+ hours a day, serves three meals a day, sometimes have a restaurant like menu, and even employ gourmet chefs.

Free restaurant quality lunch every day sounds like a great perk. But stop and think about it- a cafeteria that is open from 6am to midnight every day- providing three free meals.

This isn’t a hospital where they have to care for people 24 hours a day. It’s not even a casino (where staff do often get one free meal during their shift from the employee cafeteria), where they are staffed 24/7, so an employee’s “lunch” break could take place any time of day. This is a job at a company where you supposedly work an 8-5 day.

Sure, you could come in and eat breakfast right before starting work, and then get your dinner before you leave the office, all free. Who needs a grocery budget?

No one at these companies it telling you you’re expected to make it into the office before you’ve had a chance to eat breakfast or that they expect you to work through dinner, and sometimes late into the night on a regular basis.

Going into these industries, you may expect to work late right before a launch, or a crunch time before a major milestone, but the fact that the company cafeteria is always open from 6am to midnight should be a sign that that is the norm, not the exception.

The EA office inVancouver,Canada, is also a dog friendly environment. I’d love to work somewhere I could take my dogs, but not if the reason for allowing me to take my dogs to work is so that I won’t feel the need to leave the office at 6pm in order to go home and care for my pets.

 

I will say that my friends who work/have worked for these companies love this perk. Often they have moved to anew citywhere they don’t know anyone for the job. Going home only reminds them that they have nothing interesting to do. So they happily live at the office and take full advantage of their cafeterias. More than once I’ve seen a Facebook post along the lines of- I left the office before 7pm today. No company cafeteria to feed me dinner. How am I supposed to eat? –And more than once, these posts have come on Saturdays.

My friends love their jobs, love the perks that come with them, but for now, at least, their jobs are their lives.

My job is not my life. With C and the dogs, it hasn’t been my life for a very long time. With adopting, it’s going to become even less of a major focus. I don’t want to be at the office at 6pm any day, especially not if I arrived there at 6am. That’s not me.

 

So the next time you’re looking for a new job, pay close attention to the perks and what they tell you about company culture. You may love a place that will feed you three squares a day in order to keep you there 12+ hours a day. Me? I’ll never work at Zynga.

Date: 31/07/2012 Author: Category: On the Job Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Sunday Evening Post #53

Day

Amount

Place

Category

Monday

$4.50

Cafeteria

Allowance

Tuesday

$150.00

Vet

Pets

$15.00

Qdoba

Eating Out

$7.00

Gas

Car

$8.00

Car Wash

Car

$9,700.00

New Car

Car

$50.00

Old Spaghetti Factory

Eating Out

Wednesday

$38.00

Safeway

Groceries

Thursday

$5.25

Safeway

Groceries

Friday

$32.00

Ren Faire

Allowance

Saturday

$71.00

CostCo

Groceries

$60.00

Cash

Allowance

Sunday

$43.00

Gas

Car

We start the first Sunday Evening Post of my second year of doing Sunday Evening Posts by spending every day this wekk and having a significant purchase- we bought our new to us car.

In addition to doing that on Tuesday, we took June in for a 2nd opinion regarding her swollen saliva glands, since it’s an issue our normal vet has very little experience with. It looks like there will be more Junebug spending coming up at the end of August, as we think we’re going to have the glands removed since one of them has ruptured and is leaking into her chin. Right now, she’s fine- it doesn’t bother her, but it could become infected or abscess. We will most likely take her to the hospital at the veterinary school on the other side of the state, as most places have very little experience with this type of surgery. And this is why we have a pet fund on top of our emergency fund.

To go along with all this “fun”, I am sick. I’m feeling better today, but I left work early on Wednesday and didn’t go in on Thursday. Thursday night, C started coming down with the cold, and so he’s been pretty miserable this weekend.

Really, the highlight of the weekend has been the Olympics and the ability to watch things online. We watched fencing and archery today, as well as some women’s gymnastics. In two weeks, I’ll be very happy because I will hopefully get to watch rhythmic gymnastics, which they don’t show much of on TV, but I LOVE. (I had one of those ribbons as a kid.)

I also took advantage of a groupon on Friday and got us tickets for two different weekends to the Renaissance Faire for only $32. It’s a savings of $16.

 

We are half way through 2012. I’m revising some of my goals because life took some turns I wasn’t quite planning on when I came up with the goals.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

The anthology I had a piece accepted to is now available to buy on Amazon. It’s called Conquest Through Determination.

2)      Pay All Adoption Expenses in Cash & Still Pay for C’s College Out of Pocket

We’re doing good here. This was helped tremendously by getting 3x as much in life insurance from the MIL than expected. Our savings is still growing, and we’re in really good shape

Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. However, I did have a chance to talk with the artist I want to work with on Friday, and her life has settled down, so there’s a good chance we can start work on this sometime in June. (When my life settles down a

bit.)

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

Conference attendance paid for. Tickets paid for. The only things left are food and the hotel. I probably won’t have enough in allowance to cover all of it, but it won’t be far off, and the biggest expenses are already taken care of.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I plan to be a member of Epsilon class when the application goes up in August. I do need to make sure I’m still connecting with new challengers, though, because a lot of the challengers on my list this last time will be Yakezie Delta class members.

In order to develop relationships with new challengers, I have decided that each edition of What I’m Reading on Saturdays will now include a new challenger.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $22.11 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.) Apparently, though, I’ve already earned $6.03 so far this month. No idea why the uptick, but I’ll take it.

6)      Be healthier

I walked twice on Monday and once on Wednesday. Otherwise, because I was busy or feeling like crap, there was no walking. We went to the dog park on Wednesday and Saturday, but that was it, again because at least one of us has been feeling like crud.

However, feeling like crud means I’ve not been eating a whole lot. However. On Thursday, C made a wonderful chicken dish with yogurt and this Indian spice that one of my coworkers brought me from India. We will definitely be making it again.

Date: 29/07/2012 Author: Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink
Article

What I’m Reading: First Full Day of the Olympics Edition

So far today we’ve gone to the dog park and CostCo shopped. That means that I should have the rest of the day to be a bum and watch the Olympics. I love the Olympics. I will watch just about any sport (including cycling) during the Olympics, even if I wouldn’t otherwise. I do have to try some moderation because C does not have the same tolerance as I do. Right now, it’s men’s beach volleyball. I’m looking forward to men’s gymnastics later.

And while I have been sick this week (and have passed that on to C), I have been reading the blogs a bit more, if not commenting a ton. So in case you’re like C, and don’t have a tolerance for 12+ hours of Olympics coverage, here are some things you might want to check out.

 

Over at Daily Money Shot, my friend Jana is making some changes to the menu as she adjusts to writing for a living. Check out her new features, and remember to bug her regularly about the word count on that fiction book she’s working on.

Lance from Money Life and More takes a personal finance lesson from commercials, reminding us that it never hurts to ask for more.

You all know I work in healthcare- specifically on the insurance side of a managed care organization (we provide insurance and actual healthcare). That means I pay just a little bit of attention to the changes in healthcare in the US. Philip at PT Money (the guy behind FinCon) recently got his health insurance rebate checks. Most people won’t be getting checks, but Philip still thinks that the new 80/20 rule for insurance companies (80% of your premiums must be spent on healthcare, not administration) might be too difficult for insurance companies to reach. I disagree, but we’ll have to see how it plays out in the next few years.

Talking about what I do for a living, I’m essentially an office manager, a traditional business administrator. Over at Broke Professionals, they had a guest post this week about succeeding as a business administrator. And just like with every other profession, the key is to staying on top of new technologies that effect how your job is done.

And our final regular links, Bog of Debt shares some words of wisdom from her fiancé- You Can’t Change Me Overnight. In this case, it applies to putting shoes away, but the truth is, no one changes overnight for anything. As a bit of a companion piece to that, American Debt Project wonders if there is resentment when the irresponsible join the ranks of the responsible. So for those people that have finally changed, are we really being fully accepting of them?

This week we welcome 30K to 30Million to the Yakezie family. I love the most recent post, Who Knew Giving Away Money Could Be So Fun!.  One thing I think it’s important to remember for all of us financial bloggers is that it can’t always just be about us. It’s important to find causes we believe in and donate our time and yes, even our money, to those causes. Giving back to the community has a great ROI.

Date: 28/07/2012 Author: Category: Round Ups Bookmark: Permalink
Article

New to Us Car

I wrote before about our search for a new car. We bought a car on Tuesday. It was not new. In fact, it has almost 180,000 miles on it. And we paid almost $10k, after a trade in. And yet, I am still very happy about the purchase. Why? Because diesel engines are different. We actually considered a car with almost 300k miles on it.

We bought a 2003 Jetta Wagon GL TDI. We expect it to last at least 10 years, and we have no car payment. A lot of people I know are mystified at how much we paid for a car with that many miles on it, but I will repeat, diesels are different. On a car you expect to make it to 350k+ miles, at 180k miles, it still has half it’s lifespan.

But even with not having financing, buying a car takes a long time. Which is why there was no real post on Tuesday.

Date: 26/07/2012 Author: Category: Major Financial Decisions Bookmark: Permalink
Article

This is why there’s no post today

Date: 24/07/2012 Author: Category: Major Financial Decisions Bookmark: Permalink
Article

Bloggers Unite for Dog Rescue: Consider Fostering

Today, I am participating in Bloggers Unite for Animal Rescue on all three of my blogs. I know a number of my personal finance blogging friends are animal lovers, and I just want to make sure you all know, you don’t have to be a pet blog in order to participate in this event.

You’re in the pet store, grabbing a new toy for your dog, and it turns out there’s an adoption event going on that day. In the midst of all the cute, adoptable dogs there’s one that really stands out to you. He only has 3 legs, or maybe he’s blind, or perhaps he’s just old. Your heart aches. There is a part of you that would really love to take that dog home, to provide him with love and a soft place to sleep. The other dogs are young and cute and energetic, you know they’ll get homes, but this dog, this dog needs you.
Sure, it’s difficult to loose a dog after just a few years, but you think you can deal with that, knowing that those years were as good as could be made. But the real thing holding you back is the vet bills. Taking on any new pet is expensive, but one with special needs? Can you really afford that?

If you’re like me, the above situation has happened to you more than once. You want to help, you want to make a difference in the life of that animal, but you have responsibilities to your family- spouse, kids, the pets you already have –that make it too expensive to take on a special needs animal, no matter how much you want to.
Now, there are things you can do- you can donate money to the shelter or rescue caring for that dog, you can donate your time and energy to volunteering with local rescues and shelters. Or, you can foster.
And if you really want to help an older animal, or one with special needs, one who is less likely to be adopted by most families, well, you can look for a shelter that specializes in taking care of those dogs.

http://www.olddoghaven.org/

Once June and Larry were settled into our house, C and I realized that we only had 60lbs worth of dogs where we used to have 120lbs. We had room, and we wanted to do something. We considered fostering through a number of local shelters and rescues but finally chose Old Dog Haven.
Both of our dogs are young and full of energy. We wanted an older dog because we were looking for one that was a little more relaxed, a little “easier”. But mostly, we wanted to help those dogs that we’d had to pass up at adoption events and shelters before, because we simply couldn’t afford the vet bills, couldn’t imagine having a dog for only a few years before we lost it.
Having the foster be our third dog helped with the emotional issue. And fostering took away the financial concerns. I’m saying fostering is “free”. We pay for food and grooming and anything like that, but the foster organization pays all the vet bills. We just have to get him there.
We are able to provide pets and cuddles and a soft place to sleep to one of the sweetest little old men we’ve ever been blessed to encounter. He is part of our family. It’s possible that Howie may get adopted some day. He has another 3-5 years in him (by my estimate), but also has a number of little health issues that make his adoption, well, even less likely than that of another 12 year old dog.
If he goes to a good home that will love him and care for him, then I won’t be able to help but be happy for him. If he stays with us until the day we have to make the decision, than I’m okay with that, too.

So if you want a(nother) dog, have the time and attention to devote (and also the ability to give up the dog should a permanent home come along), but just won’t think you can handle the vet bills, consider fostering. (Also available for cats.)

Date: 23/07/2012 Author: Category: Helping Others, life by pets Bookmark: Permalink
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