Reining in Mr. Fix-It

In the process of spending half our grocery budget on a ‘loaf of bread’, my husband purchased a plastic dog food storage container. In all fairness, the recent storms and moisture have molded the dog food and we’ve had to throw some away. Not realizing the container was too small, my husband dumped the entire bag of dog food into it – a large portion of which landed on the floor. Frustrated, he went back to Target to return the container and purchase a larger size. They didn’t have a larger airtight one so he brought home a cheap plastic bin with a lid. Putting his hand to his chin, he stared at it and said, ‘It’s not air tight. I refuse to lose anymore dog food to bugs or water!’

Today at work, I received an e-mail from my husband with a ‘solution’ to our problem.

From: Chris
To: Rebekah
Subject: Dog Food Storage
What do you think of something like this for dog food storage?

Dog Food Storage

Um. I don’t think food containers are even that complicated at the San Diego Zoo. A ‘blast gate’ on the bottom? Was he planning to build a dog food container or a launch pad for NASA?

I showed my co-worker the sketch from my overachieving Mr. Fix it and she laughed… then offered to give me a dog food bin from her dog who passed away 6 months ago. She wasn’t planning on getting a new dog and was throwing the bin away.

In the end, my husband came through, just not in the way we expected. We were able to return cheap bin. Woo Hoo for returns! More grocery money!

Posted by Beks on March 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM in Ways I Save Money | 11 Comments »
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Money Beagle responded:
Posted: March 5th, 2010 at 7:17 am
But Tim Taylor from Home Improvement would be so proud!
mom responded:
Posted: March 5th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Mom here…… need I say more?
emmi responded:
Posted: March 5th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Awesome. You need to have mom (mom needlepoints, right?) make you a little wall hanging that says KISS in big letters and underneath, small “Keep It Simple, Stupid”.
Karen responded:
Posted: March 5th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I think your husband should get an A+ for effort! We have a chow chow and a golden retriever and buy the 50 lb. bags of dog food at Sam’s Club. We store the food in a metal trash can with a tight fitting lid in our heater room. We used to get occasional mice coming in for the food but this solved that problem.

Having two large dogs has kept the food from ever getting moldy. They eat it too fast for it to get moldy!

Money Beagle is right – Tim the Toolman Taylor would love it. Put some wheels on it, too!
Michelle H. responded:
Posted: March 5th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Wow that is some dog food container! Free is better though.
Nicole responded:
Posted: March 6th, 2010 at 2:33 am
What a thoughtful husband! I can’t believe he put that much thought into a dog food container. What a guy : ) Glad you found a free alternative!
Dekel responded:
Posted: March 6th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
This container looks to good to be true.
clever, what will the dog think of that?
I read once of a dog’s food manufacturer that paid a lot of money for focus groups and survays to check if people liked the design of the food bags, but sold very little because he forgot to do the same focus groups for the food itself. Apparently the dogs didn’t like the taste…
Kevin responded:
Posted: March 7th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Being a guy, I can’t help but immediately like the food containment unit your husband found. It’s an elegant solution to the problem and even some problems that haven’t been brought up — like how annoying it can be to have to manually scoop the food each day!

Maybe it’s not the simplest or cheapest solution… but it is easily up there among the best solution.

Promise me… that in the future… you will let him make something this cool. I am tempted to make one myself right now… and I already have a container for food… and I am going to be giving away my cat because my GF is allergic… so I won’t even have a need.
m responded:
Posted: March 7th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Maybe he could patent it, find someone to manufacture it in bulk, put it on the market and make a fortune??
Beks responded:
Posted: March 8th, 2010 at 1:17 am
Kevin – By far, the funniest response I’ve had. My husband is excited to have someone on his side.
lizzie responded:
Posted: March 9th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
So when is going to enroll in an engineering program???