Barkin' A! I Gots Me a Blog!

Welcome to me 'dog blog'! My family is worried about feeding me lately what with all the high prices and whatnot. If it comes between feeding me or the car, I think I should win. The car doesn't seem to mind going without. I DO mind, very much.

Being the proactive pooch I am, I decided to do what I could to add to the family coffers. Without thumbs it's a little awkward to clip coupons, and all the holes I dig looking for treasure are largely unappreciated. About all I have are my good looks and my smarts. Fortunately I have a lot of both, and I'm pretty observant too. That comes from being smart.

I figure the best way I can help out my poor family and keep the kibble coming is to watch what they're doing with our money and help them stretch it out. Stretching is very important - I'm only 7 months old and already I weigh almost 90 pounds! That's a lot of stretching, and I'm not done yet. So you can see why I'm worried about the kibble supply.

By being watchful (comes from being a watchdog), I can really see the gaps in my family's budget. But how can I communicate my barkin' good ideas to my family? Duh! Same way as everyone else - by blogging! I managed to show this to my family and they were so impressed I get extra biscuits now. Saving money is VERY cool.

Almost immediately I had a good idea to tell them about (c'mon, extra biscuits!). I've been watching my mom with coupons. I get the concept that they save you money, but I don't think my mom gets the concept that you actually have to USE them for them to do the saving. I think she keeps them for good luck, cause she almost never uses them up. At least until I helped her out.

I think one reason she doesn't use these coupon things is 'cause she forgets about them. She had them stuffed in this little file thing, all crammed together so there was no way she could dig through them all. Even she realized that that wasn't a working idea, and she's not even observant!

After the file crammed full of coupons thing she read about a pretty good idea. Instead of a tiny smushed file she started using card collecting pages in a 3 ring binder. The boys never guessed that she snuck some of their card pages away! The problem with that system is that the little card packets were too small for some of the coupons, so she was back with the smushing and the cramming. The other problem was remembering the darn thing. Sometimes she would find herself near the grocery store but the coupon binder would be at home. It was too big to carry around all the time.

I was thinking about this all one afternoon while all the people were gone. Believe me, being in a kennel for a few hours a day gives you a lot of time to think. Suddenly, all the buzzing ideas came together and I knew what could help my mom with her coupons.

I've seen things called brag books. They are little photo albums with pages that hold one photo each. My mom carries one around in her purse (of course I'M in it!) which is where I think I got the good idea. The pages are perfect sized for big coupons, the book is small enough to carry everywhere and you can get the books cheap at the dollar store anytime.

I told my mom about my good idea and she loved it. She put her coupon brag book together almost immediately. Now she always has her coupons handy, and she says it's also really easy to organize them and get rid of expired stuff. She loves it and saves money every time she shops. She said she'd let me take a picture of my invention for my blog, and I'll post it next time. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of more great ideas for my family to save money while spending 'alone time' in my kennel. Of course, I'll share. Dogs are nice like that.

Until next dog blog, I remain faithfully faithful,