[GingerZ]

I'm trying to figure out how to save the most money on my cat's food. Right now I'm paying full price for Wellness Core at Petco because I can never catch it on sale. If I sign up for auto ship with Pet Food Direct I can save about 40 cents a can, but I want to buy several flavors and can't go through that many cans of food before the next shipment comes.

I can't decide whether to give up on multiple flavors and just buy one, or pay more to get more variety.

What do you do?

 

[coyt]

I've been buying online, with amazon, or wag.com with the 15-20% off your first order(depending on your coupon) thing I was able to stockpile a good amount of food at a good price

Also, maybe try looking for pet supply outlets in your area. There's one around where my boyfriend's parents live and we found Wellness 12 oz cans for about 2 bucks (when here in the city it's like 2.79 per can

Also, since you're using Wellness, e-mail the company (find the contact info on their website) and ask for a coupon. I did that and they sent me a $5.00 off coupon

 

[Jacq]

Being in canada, getting cat food shipped is more difficult than mail-order marijuana.

I usually buy at Global pet foods. 12 or more cans gets me a %-age discount (can't remember how much) and they're always really nice to me, even offered to drive me home when I bought too many cans for my backpack to hold.

Variety wins over price in my house. I buy the big cans, and my cat starts getting fussy at the last meal from them, so I've got to switch up the flavours/brands to keep the picky-face monster away.

Once I went to the shop and all they had left of "my" brands was Wellness Turkey. She had to eat 3 of those in a row and you'd think I was offering her poo on a plate by day three by the way she carried on. :roll:

 

[minikin44]

With petflow.com you can choose the frequency of the shipping... so if you want to ship multiple cases of different flavors, just make the the shipments less frequent

 

[6cats4me]

With petflow.com you can choose the frequency of the shipping... so if you want to ship multiple cases of different flavors, just make the the shipments less frequent

I use PetFlow, also. You can easily make changes to the timing of the
shipments as well as changing up the items you have ordered. They
have excellent customer service, too. The few times an item arrived
damaged they replaced it immediately for me.

 

[marie73]

I get most of mine at wag.com.

 

[Pandoragem]

I use petflow.com, wag.com, doggiefood.com and occasionally Amazon. Doggiefood.com has EVO turkey and chicken on sale right now. These sites all have free shipping at $49 where petfooddirect will not give the auto ship discount AND free shipping. Sometimes I can get good deals on Amazon too.

 

[LadyK]

My little local store has competitive prices and a wide selection, so I buy most of the food there. They give a 10% discount when you buy 12 or more cans (mix & match). Once I find something Josie really likes, I comparison shop for the best price elsewhere to see if anyplace else can beat the price. For instance, Amazon has a better price on cases of Weruva, and since I know she loves Nine Liver, I'll buy that there. Wag.com has the best price on the Natural Balance platefuls. The free shipping on these two sites is a plus. I'll keep an eye out on sales at the chain stores, but I don't buy much there.

I also keep a list of the foods/flavors Josie likes, as well as the price of each. It's a useful reference when comparison shopping.

 

[hal1]

Interestingly, my local "premium" type local pet supply store has it the cheapest - Less that $2.00 for a 13.2 oz can EVO 95

 

[minikin44]

Wow that's a good deal! I thought I was doing ok at $2.08/can on the EVO...

 

[scottd]

PetFlow.com and Wag.com also both take manufacturer coupons.

I had issues with PetFlow recently so I'm debating on whether I'll continue to shop there. It was related to my coupons not being credited so if you don't use them, I doubt you'd have an issue. I didn't in the past but I wasn't happy with customer service when trying to resolve my problem on the last order.

 

[doodlebug]

Interestingly, my local "premium" type local pet supply store has it the cheapest - Less that $2.00 for a 13.2 oz can EVO 95

Yup...us independent pet food stores rock!!! My large cans of EVO are below $2, you get $10 off the next purchase after you've spent $200 (cumulative) and EVO has a frequent buyer program...buy 10 cases get one free.

Don't dismiss your local independent store because you think their prices must be high.

 

[coyt]

Yup...us independent pet food stores rock!!! My large cans of EVO are below $2, you get $10 off the next purchase after you've spent $200 (cumulative) and EVO has a frequent buyer program...buy 10 cases get one free.

Don't dismiss your local independent store because you think their prices must be high.

I love independent pet stores.. this is digressing a little bit..but in my experience the staff has been soo much more friendly and helpful, I've even gotten free samples and lots of free advice that I usually don't get at Petco or Petsmart. So sometimes while the prices might be a little higher than at other places (though sometimes, like you say, it can be cheaper!), I still try to support them :3

 

[GingerZ]

I loved my independent pet store back where I used to live. I moved this summer and now the ones near me are more dog friendly and don't have a good selection of cat food.

 

[laurief]

I buy from doggiefood.com. I have found them to have the lowest prices on the brands I buy, free shipping on orders over a certain amount, and frequent discount coupons.

I have purchased from petfooddirect, petflow, and doggiefood. I think I've even done scheduled shipping with each of them. In all cases, I could schedule my shipments any way I wanted them, including cancelling a shipment if I didn't need it when it came due.

Laurie

 

[lovetimesfour]

You can set up auto ship to any specifications that suit you. If a shipment is coming up and you aren't read, simply cancel or reschedule the shipment. You can choose monthly, every three months, every six, or anything in between.

I purchase all cat food on line. I use autoship programs too, but sometimes another store will be running a better promotion, so I will cancel a shipment on my autoship and buy from the promo.

When it is time for a shipment of any given food I check all the on line stores I use for prices, and free shipping deals, before going ahead with the autoship.

the stores I generally shop from

amazon.com
heartypet.com
nationalpetpharmacy.com (it is a subsidiary of petfooddirect.com but often has better prices or promos)
onlynaturalpet.com
petco.com
petfooddirect.com

 

[Pandoragem]

I loved my independent pet store back where I used to live. I moved this summer and now the ones near me are more dog friendly and don't have a good selection of cat food.

I have the same problem, the independents around here are very heavy on dog food and do not have good selections or quantity in cat food (4 aisles of dog food and a half empty aisle of cat food). In order to get cases of food I would have to special order then go pick up and at that point it is easier to go online. I would like to try some different brands of raw but the selection for cats is poor or nonexistent.

 

[Carmel]

I shop in pet stores, where I go is a chain store, but there are only about 5 locations all within the main cities around here. If you can, I think it's good to give to your money local stores on things like this; without competition from other stores there aren't going to be lower prices... I noticed a price drop at our Bosley's pet store (Pet Valu in most of Canada) and I can only imagine they'd do such a thing because of needing competitive pricing.

I went around to every pet store in the city, not all at once, just when I happened to be in the area. I eventually scoped out the cheapest place. I get EVO 95% Chicken (and whatever others are the cheaper versions) for 1.89 each, plus tax at 12%. Wellness grain-free in there is 2.59 I think. Meanwhile at Petsmart it's 3.19! In fairness I have seen on it on sale there... once... at 2.39.

 

[hal1]

Yup...us independent pet food stores rock!!! My large cans of EVO are below $2, you get $10 off the next purchase after you've spent $200 (cumulative) and EVO has a frequent buyer program...buy 10 cases get one free.

Don't dismiss your local independent store because you think their prices must be high.

Doodlebug, can you tell me why the EVO 95 is so relatively cheap? At $2 a can that would be $0.45 for a 3 oz can or $0.90 for a 6 oz can. That seems too cheap compared to almost anything else, yet it still seem like top shelf stuff?

I actually looked again. It's $1.99 for the 13.2 OZ can , and when I by a case of 12, which I always do, they discount it by 1 can, so it's $21.89 for 12, or $1.82 can.

I also get my Dr. Elsey's Cat litter there. The big chains and my local independent only stock the Multiple Cat or Cat Attract variety, but the local shop orders the 'Classic' for me.

 

[Gummers]

I used to buy food by the case on Amazon, but I soon discovered that my cats won't eat the same type of food for more than three days in a row. So it turns out to be more economical to just swing by my local indie pet store and get it. (More economical cause I'm not throwing out a bunch of it anymore.)