The Frugal Networker

Pet Pods
Education Outdoors
$15.99 – Amazon $5.98

So everyone loses earbuds, right? I’ve lost them. You’ve lost them. Your kids probably have lost more than one pair. It’s frustrating and it gets expensive too. Most often, my earbuds get misplaced to replace ones that have been lost. That’s even more frustrating. Well, Education Outdoors has a pretty good solution for your earbud problem that it calls Pet Pods. They’re cute little animal plush toys with earbuds inside.

The Pet Pods come in six different animal styles: Beaver, Buck, Bear, Fawn, Eagle, and Moose. Your child will love the stuffed animal and you’ll love that he or she will have a place to stash those earbuds. My daughter never knew where her earbuds were from one hour to the next, but now, she stores hers in the animal when they’re not in use.

Small children (not recommended for children under three years of age due to choking hazard) will love the plush animal as an extra “friend” to play with. Teenagers can carry the plush animal ironically to show how cool they are by carrying a stuffed animal with earbuds inside.

“My wife and I have teenage daughters and between the four of us on any given day, we always used to be at least one pair of earbuds short,” said Education Outdoors CEO Tim Paczesny. “Tired of constantly searching for earbuds, I decided to create a solution and came up with the Pet Pod. America already loves stuffed animals so I figured why not make a mini version that serves dual purposes by storing a pair of headphones inside.”

You can scan the QR code to learn more about your animal.

My daughter, who actually uses the Pet Pod and earbuds told me that the Amazon price is a real value at $5.98, “Because you’ll pay that much or more just for the earbuds alone. Plus, you get the animal that you can put your earbuds into.”

She told me that her earbuds had a “bend” in them that doesn’t affect their sound or functionality now, but might in the future. She also wishes that there was something to wind up the earbuds on instead of just having them loose.

Why it’s Frugal: Earbuds generally cost from $3.00 to $50.00 or more and even at $3.00 per pair, lost ones add up over time. The Pet Pod is a cute storage compartment for your earbuds and anything that prevents lost money is frugal.

The earbuds are quality made. The plush toy is a nice little toy with the added bonus of being storage for the earbuds. In all, Pet Pods make a great gift for birthdays, stocking stuffers, or just because you don’t want to keep replacing earbuds once a month.

About Education Outdoors

An avid outdoorsman, Tim Paczesny grew up at his family’s log cabin resort in Northern Michigan. As an adult with children of his own, Tim wanted to create a way to share his knowledge of the outdoors with his children and his “city” friends. He came up with the idea of creating games that would be able to teach families about the outdoors through trivia questions and fun facts. For more information, please visit www.educationoutdoors.net.

Rating: 8/10

Recommendation: Buy it, but not for children under three.