I have looked at my budget (and Im sure if you did you would find the same thing) and I have found that the reason why my bank balance stays the same, even though I reel in cash from games and profit from my shop, is buying food, and toys to keep my pet happy. Here are a few tips to make sure you balance is as big as a Mutant Elephante!
1. You dont have to feed or play with your pets at all. They wont die. The only downside to not feeding them is when you want to battle, because they need to be at least not hungry to fight.
2. The Healing Springs. If the water faerie doesnt give you a potion or heals your all your pets HP, she will chose one pet, and COMPLETELY recover it, which includes its hunger, HP, happiness and disease.
3. Tombola booby prizes. People think nothing of the tins of olives and the fish pops. You can usually pick up these (as well as others) for about two neopoints each. And people on the trades get a nice shock when someone bids on their Tombola lot full of cheap food.
4. The omelet. Each day you can get a free slice of omelet from the massive omelet on the Tyranian plains. The omelets give you three meals in one, and are well worth the visit.
5. The soup kitchen. If you have under 1000 neopoints (who does anyway!) you can get free food for your pets. Unfortunately for people like me, if we want to get our np down to 1000, we have a lot of spending to do. When neopets counts your money, they account for all your stock, and bids in the trading post and the auctions. If you only have a few thousand to be shifted in order to get your free soup, you may as well create a new account and bid on one of their lots and then accept it. And PRESTO! you can get free soup without losing any cash.
6. If you dont want to bother swapping and running round looking for food bargains like me, just use my personal solution. I stick my pets in the cheapest neolodge room, with no extras for twenty eight days, and it only costs a measly 140 np each pet!!!! Then you dont need to run round wasting money making time trying to buy an omelet for 4 np rather than 5 np. And the neolodge keeps your pets deliriously happy as well. Its only fault would be that it doesnt restore HP as well. You can play and feed and battle with your neopets even if they are booked into the lodge!
All of these ways work for getting a cheap (or free) meal, but when you combine the Healing Springs with the Neolodge I think you get the perfect combo. The Neolodge will DEFINATLEY feed and look after your pets, and the healing springs (which you can visit every half hour) will heal your pet and keep it disease free! – Jon Clair