Money and time saving tips

With the economy as it is now a days I am starting a thread for money saving and time saving tips.

I will start with my newest supplement money and time saver.
I am a huge fan of the smart pak supplement system but their mark up is kinda high, so I make my own 'smart paks'. I buy the supplements in buckets and then once a month spend time to put them into the Gladware mini round tubs (about $2.50 for 8 of them) and put the supplements for each horse for 1 day in a tub. Then I put their tubs into the drawer with the horse's name on it that used to house the pricey smart paks. The tubs are reusable and easy to clean when you are doing your monthly refill. It has the ease of dispensing of the smart paks and also you can at a glance see when you need to reorder or buy more supplements. I also was not a fan of the automatic reorder thing with the smart paks.
Now this works great for me since I only have two horses of my own and it would complicate things a bit more if I had boarders.

On of the other things I have done is installed a simple horsey survalence system. It cost about $50 to install but I know can check on my girls from inside my house. This is a money saver because if you have been reading my other posts my girls got out a couple weeks ago and one of them now has over $800 in vet bills from that night.

Also, a time saver that I use is for the horses that doen't turn their stall into a pigstay I pile about a weeks worth of savings in the corner of the stall that they do not use. This way I have the fresh shavings right there in the stall when I get done cleaning it out.

I am interested to see what you are doing to save time and money. Also if you have tried something that is mentioned in the thread tell how it worked for you.

I buy hay in bulk and get a better price for it, I get free fields from a local farmer, I source my hard feed from a discount store, it is still the brand I want just at a third of the price. I made my own rug today to save a whole load of money and I buy all the foals things in seond hand shops, I share forks with the farmer and I have a free muckheap.

Great idea for a thread!
My biggest daily time saver is to use the leaf blower to clean up common areas, walkways and the parking area each day instead of sweeping.

Also, we save quite a bit of money by purchasing our annual hay and straw requirements directly from the field and pay no middleman storage fees. We also ask for a discount for having bills paid within 10 days of service. I usually get a minimum of 10% offered back to us. I pay cash upfront for annual vet and scheduled farrier visits and receive a 20% discount.

We recycle all by-products here on our farm. Manure and bedding is composted and used for pasture fertilizer and the "liquid gold" drainage is also sprayed on in the spring.

I make my own stable rugs from cheap, or old blankets, duvets etc ...

At my barn we make out own hay, lots of work ! But better than buying a million bales for a huge barn

We buy our sweet feed directly from the feed mill, it runs about $4 a 50# bag.

We get shavings in bulk. $350 for a load which is about 90 bags, a bag runs us $6.25, so we save over $200 and the load lasts about a year.


My horses know which stall is theirs and walk in on the own at feeding time. Saves time - just open the gate and away they go instead of having to go get one, then the other, then back out for the last one...

I buy all my dewormer when it's on sale. I just stocked up ivermectin for the next 2 years at dover's tent sale - $1.99 a tube. Their pyrantel was $2.49 - stocked that up, too.

Making stuff whenever you can. I just made some vienna reins for about $15.00, versus $40.00 at the store.

You can sell or give away your composted manure rather than paying a company to take it away or just letting it sit their, doing nothing.

If my horses need long term meds I call my vet to get a prescription and order it online and fax the script over to them. Save loads of money this way.

I "do it myself" as much as possible -- health care, hoof maintenance, hay pickup, tack repair, barn repair, house repairs ...
I buy used as much as possible -- I'm always visiting the consignment section, going to value village, sally ann and watching the local classifieds.
I "make it myself" -- Jade outgrew her browband -- made a replacement from an old rein. Saddle blankets are all old blankets from the house. Saddle bags, lead ropes.

I'm not good at the time saving thing. In anything. And I think I'm getting worse at it too actually. Or maybe it's just poor time management.

I saw this happen at a barn I used to bored at, horses slipped in the barn, sparks flew from shoes(could have burnt the barn down) and little kids almost get run over by horses! It was SO dangerous!
This can blow alot of dust and exaust in the air and cause horses to be more suseptible to heaves.

We leave our horses out as much as posible when it's nice, it saves money in shavings. We use a manure spreader, so we don't have a muck heap.

When he have to clean the barn and I want to save time I like to use a shovel in one hand and a muck fork in the other. It just seems much more time effective. I usually put the fork in my left hand and the shovel in the right because I'm right handed and I fill the shovel up more.