Most of us are looking for ways to trim our horse expenses. I know that I’m looking carefully at my feeding and supplement strategy and have already eliminated a few “nice to haves” so I could keep the “must haves.”

Now a new resource from The Horse is available to give you tips and tricks, Thrifty Horsekeeping is a free, downloadable book. Each month a new chapter will be posted and readers will be asked for their comments and suggestions on the topic. The final chapter will include the reader input.

The first chapter, “Where is Your Money Going?” talks about the need for tracking expenses and making a budget. I know that many of us would prefer not to add it all up, but it’s hard to know how much you can save if you don’t start with your baseline expenses. Several months ago I looked into some on-line record keeping programs (Keeping track of your horse expenses is easy (and free) online). I must admit that although I started to use one, shortly thereafter my Trakehner ended up with a fatal illness and I couldn’t bear to put in all the expenses associated with it. Now that my horse life is more or less back to normal, perhaps I’ll start back up.