Cat Pillows

You of course are your cat's pillow, but you cannot be still all the time, so here is an idea for using socks with holes in them. This is an issue since we have forgotten how to darn and we hate to waste them. Stuff the socks you cannot wear with---something soft, maybe other socks you cannot wear. Then you can pad your cat's basket with them, and not only with the cat be cozy but a smaller basket (in effect) will be easier to heat.

Those coin machines

Goodness I hope none of my readers uses those machines that digest your coins and give you back a receipt for the money, MINUS, of course a small charge. What small charge could be justified for theft. You are just saving the stores trouble, they ought to pay YOU to use those coin sorting machines. But they do not. Never use those machines. If you cannot stand under the strain of giving the cashier coins, here is what to do: you use the self service lanes many grocery stores have now. The self service checkout lanes have a place you can insert coins, and if it takes you a little longer to check out because you are putting 4.00 of nickels into the coin slot, your money is as good as anyones, and the people behind you in line can just stand behind somebody else to wait their turn.

Biscuits should be eaten in a bowl

Yes, this saves on butter, and remember you need to save money, no matter how rich you already are, so you can get some of that Belizean gold cat nip for your babies, you know the kind---the young sprouts are fertilized with jaguar scat. Of course it is expensive. How much a thrifty outlook can save your pocketbook is amazing once you get into it.

Free Note paper

Everyday free notepaper is delivered to you and everyday you throw it out. Many of the envelopes holding adverts have lots of large white spaces which you can use for notes. Here's what to do: 1. Toss those envelopes which are mainly covered in writing etc. 2. With the envelopes which are largely blank, at least on one side, tear neatly off the envelope flap. This allows you to immediately know what is stationery among your mail. 3. If a lot of space is needed for notes, you can always neatly rip the sides of the envelope and have the entire inside of the envelope, flattened out, for your scribe purposes. How much more sensible this is than buying stationery, and how better for the environment to be reusing those items that contain environmental toxins, like bleach. At least the amount needed is reduced when you recycle.

The softest cleanest pet blankets

Are the sleeping bags you get for children. That parachute fabric dries quickly and the smaller size of the childrens blanket makes these objects easier to wash. I have a bunch, always something soft and clean for the children. You can usually pick them up at thrift stores or garage sales for very little money.

Cafe au cat spit

And how to avoid this. Why is what you are drinking so interesting to a cat when you know darn well they are not subject to caffeine addiction. But the solution is simple. Remember those one off saucers, the old ones with graceful infloriate patterns (infloriate is a technical term for a design which combines elements of art nouveau AND art deco in its flourishes.) The yellowed center is still only slightly crazed but you have only one, and no cup much less more of a set --- go ahead and buy these saucers and then use them for cup lids. Voila, your beverage is cat safe.

One for the dog

Okay, here is a way to make the dear pooch who protects your household definitely happy. That slice of toast you put on your plate so you will have something to give the dog when you are eating: that toast-you break in half and use one part to stick in the margarine tub which is for all practical purposes empty. You wipe the toast around in the margarine tub to make sure each smidgen is actually used. The dog that gets this treat is so happy.
Of course if you use the tub to freeze something in, then you don't have to wash the tub first -- I like to put spaghetti sauce in these tubs to freeze. But obviously that is just a hint.

Pleasing the dog

When cooking, if the ingredients are already out, put half a slice of bread on the spoonrest. That way an ordinary treat will be especially yummy when you slip the dog his portion from your plate.

Recycling paper

Really one cannot be too thrifty. That nice catnip, the gold kind, that Belizean jaguars rolled around in before it was harvested, that catnip is not cheap, and so we save money to get the good stuff for our kids. Along those lines, it is possible to recycle a lot more paper than most households do. Take paper towels. You may wash your hands frequently just because they are dusty from your cleaning chores. These towels may be saved and reused if they are not really dirty, just damp. Pop them in the refrigerator and then on those (rare no doubt) occasions when ketchup is on the linoleum, pull out one of the crumpled up paper towels from the fridge drawer and clean up thriftily. You will cleanup more than the floor this way. Another thing to do is recycle paper plates if they just have a smidge of butter on them, when you are finished eating, just reuse them, or, they can even be turned over and the bottom side of the paper plate can be flattened out and used again to serve food. Not when the queen is visiting, just when you are eating en famille, on a paperplate, in front of the telly, you and the kids. No reason to be too fancy then, and you get that nice feeling that you are saving money and wasting less environmentally harmful stuff. (Like the clorox in the paper.) The kitties will appreciate you.

conservative flea control

Yes I use Advantage. I use Advantage because it is milder than most other similar formulas---it does not claim to kill ticks. (So you can pick off a few ticks yourself and save the environment some) A few points here. How could anyone know if Advantage, etc, is really safe. Yet such products are omnipresent in American homes, including mine. My holistic vet uses it. Yet how could it be really tested for long term effects, when you realize HRT was widely prescribed for years before dangers were recognised. Are pet products better tested than products for women. I doubt it.

These points are a background to some encouragement to use such products sparingly. These products typically are recommended to be used on a monthly basis. This is nuts---why not just use them when you see a reason to, a flea on somebody. That is what I do. And there is more --no one has pointed this out, but I say --test my next idea for yourself: I do not use Advantage or similar products on all the pets. Just applying it as needed to a couple of pets seems to confer immunity to the pets in the household. I am not sure why, (though I could guess) but test this out yourself. Fewer applications to fewer pets prevents flea problems and may do less harm to the environment than the recommendations of doctors.

Documented new tip about clean pillows

This comes from a scholar, a sleep researcher named Dr. Breus. He says that you should not keep pillows more than a few years because of the dust mites. Then he said, put your pillow in the freezer for 8 hours and this kills dust mites. This suggests to me that you can keep your pillow longer than 3 years.

Safe cat ribbon

in time for the holidays---how kitties love to play with ribbon and string and rubber bands. Unfortunately this habit can kill them, if they ingest any of this. To make a safe toy, cut a ribbon up in small pieces and glue the pieces back together with a non toxic glue. This way should the ribbon be ingested, then it cannot strangle the cat's digestive system. Tie the ribbon you just made to a helium filled balloon to give your cat a thrilling adventure.

A cat name for you

Bling Bling, how is that for a great name for a Siamese kitten?

Coins to save

and improve the fortunes of our cat filled households: half dollars minted before 1971. Most have been removed from the currency by now, but if you are going to find a coin with any actual silver content in the American coinage, in circulation, it is probably a half dollar, minted between 1965 and 1970. That quarters before 1965 have some silver content is common knowledge, so the best chance of finding silver is to scrutinize the halves. The quarters are almost certainly absent from your change.

The perfect litter box

The perfect litter box is free, the perfect litter box is disposable. The perfect litter box is available just not as prevalent as one could wish. Here is what you are looking for: those cardboard boxes encased in plastic and used to store and transport bottles. You find them with the plastic ripped and the box empty, tossed perhaps in a pile of rubbish. Grab them---they are the perfect litter box, no cleanup, just toss them out when they are dirty. You can put litter in them and have the smoothest litter box operation around.

Drying silver

This is cool, you can re-use those cardboard egg cartons, NOT the styrofoam ones, but the gray cardboard cartons and instead of throwing the carton out, open it flat and use it to drain the silver or silverplate you just hand washed. It will save you some polishing time to let it drain briefly and the cardboard soak up the moisture very quickly, -- that is, before water spots can form.

Park close to the road

At the grocery store, you can score a big green hit by parking near the road you are using, and away from the store. You save by not crusing around to get a good parking spot, you get an extra walk, helpful especially during the holiday season, and you get even more exercise walking the cart filled with kitty litter BACK to the car.

Teabags without staples

are ideal for reheating tea in a microwave. Celestial Seasoning tea bags have no metal staples and so are ideal in this regard.

The best pet rugs

are nothing you can buy in a pet store. The very best---long lasting, soft, cleanable, -- pet bed rugs are bath mats, the small ones you put around the toilet. But not just any bath mat, and this kind is getting harder to find, but the kind of bath mat you want has fabric, cotton or a cotton blend on the bottom. This bottom is really important because if you get the kind with a rubberized bottom it will get flaky in the wash, and not be fun to touch. I get this straight from the cats--find the kind of bath mat with a cottony reverse side and they will be happy. Really I only am sure you can find them in thrift stores, but even there, observe carefully before you buy.

chicken soup for the poultry's soul

NOT.
You are not supposed to put a tv dinner in a toaster oven, nowadays they are designed to be microwaved. But should this suit you, try it this way: I have not tested pudding okay, but this definitely works for turkey. The trick is to remove it from the packaging AND remove it from the microwaving container and place the bird in an aluminum toaster oven container, then use the directions for cooking in a conventional oven.
The cats of course will not mind how you cook it as long as you share it.

Getting rich to keep your cats in luxury

Of course us cat lovers shop at thrift stores, that is because we are sensible people who do not like to waste money. We need lots of money to spend on our cats so we live thriftily. So we will enjoy tips about junking it, as I call a tour of thrift stores. Todays tip is the alert, despite the previous sentence, that thrift stores overprice some items---I am thinking of costume jewelry. A brooch with missing stones could not be sold on ebay for anything like the two to three dollars a thrift store typically charge. (Of course I am referring to an unmarked piece). Prices have risen this year in thrift stores in Atlanta Georgia at least. I suspect this is a general trend. But you have to be careful, especially if you are collecting stuff to sell online.

Upcoming topics for our cat lovers blog

cat safe ribbon-- a how to on making your own (or wait til I market it) ribbon which is safe for cat toys. Anything except cat food a cat might swallow could produce a crisis in the digestive system. This ribbon is safe for kitties, to use, for example as a string for helium filled balloons. That's another tip: cats love to chase balloons, and the string attached to such a balloon is irresistible. Assuming it is made of the cat safe ribbon I will tell you how to make.

furnishings that are best for cat full households, eg, forget a sofa.

Collecting and marketing cat figurines.
(eg--write a collectibles book, how to)

How to shop well at thrift stores.

How to make your own homemade glueboxes (this totally original project saves a bunch of money and is necessary for every housekeeper because even if you have no bugs you can check the integrity of your barrier by carefully distributed glue traps.-- but more details soon.)

Backup cat litter

Getting a dog-- (essential for the true cat lover btw)

washing pet blankets-- how to, with eco aware principles.

how to have more cats than the neighbors notice.

Litter box tips

To encourage and make neatness more likely, I like to put litterboxes inside litterboxes. Here is what I mean. I use a plastic storage container, the long flat kind you buy to put under the bed, as a start. Then I put two plastic dishpans with litter inside the long flat plastic container. This way the cats throw the litter out into an acceptable container. If you are running low on cat litter you can scrounge another day by scooping up the litter the cats kicked outside their box (and into the larger container) and putting into their dishpan litter boxes. This works because the litter outside the regular litter box but inside the surrounding plastic container is probably clean. Oh I have lots of tips like this, I can hardly wait to share them.