Pet expenses

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Having pets is expensive but as long as your bills are paid and your buying what they really need, housing, pellets, hay, toys, veggies, vet bills, is normal. I have 2 cats and 2 bunnies and I buy Oxbow pellets & hay and one of my cats gets Natural Choice the other is on prescription dry Royal Canin and wet B.F.F. I try to get the best price I can find online or pet stores but I won't get anything that's lower grade for them. I've saved alot by buying from DrsFoster&Smith for the bunnies. So if it's within your budget then no one has anything to say about what you do with your money.
 
I was just thinking about myself in your exact situation! But instead I think I am going to start a thread on ideas how to stretch your money, whatever you spend on your pets...
 
Some grocery stores will give you veggies they're about to throw out, I've heard.

You are not alone in spending more on your pets than others think you should. For instance, I had a dwarf hamster that I bought for $7. She lived to a year and a half, and at the end of her life I spent about $300 in a couple of months for her vet care. I don't regret a single dollar of it.
 
Oh the vet tech program is awesome! Im taking the Canadian equivalent, so an Animal Health Technician, and i love it. as for pet expenses I also spent a lot to begin with, i have 4 cats and my bun. getting them all fixed was a rather hefty bill but it has not been near that amount for a long time, and hopefully none of them get sick or anything soon :) i try to be cheap with toys for them, asking for stuff for my pets for my birthday and christmas and such, helps keep the expenses down while im only working min wage and waiting to go back to school in the fall.
 
I'm not a financial planner, but I am the daughter of one, and believe me, he taught me everything he knows! :D So here's my take.

Pets are a discretionary item. Yes, they are family members. But they are not required for life. What is required? Safe shelter, food, clothing. That's it. Your critics are right that it is important to save. Calculate what you want to save for retirement and emergencies. If you save 10% of your income for later, you're ahead of almost everyone else in the USA. If that number is zero, so be it, just be ready in case your plan to work forever doesn't pan out.

So once you've covered the basics, and you're comfortable with your savings level (that's YOUR savings level - not your mom's or your neighbor's or your coworker's), then you can spend however much you want on whatever you want.

For some people, that is a trip to Disney every year. For some people, that is designer clothes. For some of the people on this forum, including you, that is our furry family members!

I told a coworker we spent $2,000 to buy each of our bulldogs, and I've calculated we've spent at least $5,000 on vet bills, and he was astonished. "That's a down payment on a house!" he gasped.

Well guess what, my husband and I use business trips as vacations, don't have kids, spend less than $1000 on clothes together for the year. We drive our junker cars into the ground before we get new ones. We buy chicken thighs for .56/lb on sale. And we buy organic, wheat-free pet food for our bulldogs. And I guarantee that our pets add years to our lives, which is something money can't buy!

My point is, I don't "get" people who spend $2,000 on a Louis Vuitton or go to Europe every summer. And those people probably don't "get" me. But our differences are what make our world so wonderful, and how we spend our money is a reflection of that.

 
a good way to save money is DONT SHOP AT PET STORES!!! if you want to get new toys for them, make them at home. only use the pet store for basics like food for them. next time your in the store look at a lot of the toys and think about how you can make it at home. most of the time you can make it. even the bird stuff. all you need is good string from the dollar store (100% natural) and twigs and sticks outside. chew sticks for rabbits? i'm not from NYC can you get apple wood branches? or i think willow branches are ok... i think.... my main point, most pet stores are ripping you off. don't shop there for most toys. i learned that the hard way >.
 
For my entire life most all of my money has gone to my pets (horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish, birds) and I wouldn't have it any other way :biggrin2:


 
My bunnies were expensive- including all supplies (without cages, as we already had them) I believe they were 220$ first day in? We spend about 10$ a week on pellets, and 25$ for hay over the course of two weeks. Bedding isn't too bad- 4$ for three cage changes- but the vet bills are definitely expensive. We've gotta save up roughly 400$ to get them spayed.

My cat is a whole separate matter- he is like my CHILD. I do love my rabbits, but I can't describe the lengths I would go to for my cat. He's two years old (almost- about two months shy of it), and we've probably spent close to 2,000$ on vet bills alone. We only buy him canned cat food because he's at risk for UTIs, and that's another 5-10$ a week for cat food. He is the reason we can't save up any money- anytime we have a decent amount set aside (250$ is "good" for us, LOL), something happens to Mrowmrow and we have to whisk him away to the vet who I swear is taking advantage of us. They mislabeled the dosage and frequency of his medicine last time, which resulted in us nearly killing him because we were unknowingly OD'ing him on an antibiotic. We had to bring him back in- first they admitted they made the mistake, but as soon as I said "Well, in that case I expect to pay for none of this. I didn't mislabel the bottle; I gave my cat medications as you directed me to" they basically went "Haha oh wait, we were just kidding...his partial kidney failure is obviously caused by something else- not a triple dosage for a week too long of a strong medicine!" and then questioned how well he was being taken care of and still made us pay outrageous (read: 200$) bills to get THAT problem fixed.
 
cojo wrote:
I'm not a financial planner, but I am the daughter of one, and believe me, he taught me everything he knows! :D So here's my take.

Pets are a discretionary item. Yes, they are family members. But they are not required for life. What is required? Safe shelter, food, clothing. That's it. Your critics are right that it is important to save. Calculate what you want to save for retirement and emergencies. If you save 10% of your income for later, you're ahead of almost everyone else in the USA. If that number is zero, so be it, just be ready in case your plan to work forever doesn't pan out.

So once you've covered the basics, and you're comfortable with your savings level (that's YOUR savings level - not your mom's or your neighbor's or your coworker's), then you can spend however much you want on whatever you want.

For some people, that is a trip to Disney every year. For some people, that is designer clothes. For some of the people on this forum, including you, that is our furry family members!

I told a coworker we spent $2,000 to buy each of our bulldogs, and I've calculated we've spent at least $5,000 on vet bills, and he was astonished. "That's a down payment on a house!" he gasped.

Well guess what, my husband and I use business trips as vacations, don't have kids, spend less than $1000 on clothes together for the year. We drive our junker cars into the ground before we get new ones. We buy chicken thighs for .56/lb on sale. And we buy organic, wheat-free pet food for our bulldogs. And I guarantee that our pets add years to our lives, which is something money can't buy!

My point is, I don't "get" people who spend $2,000 on a Louis Vuitton or go to Europe every summer. And those people probably don't "get" me. But our differences are what make our world so wonderful, and how we spend our money is a reflection of that.
Click to expand...

Nice message. I'm not a financial planner either, but I've been a banking professional for over 30 years. I've seen way too many people that earn (way more than) over a million dollars a year and don't have squat in savings and are up to their eyeballs in debt. I find myself smirking when I look at a financial statement and see that I have more liquidity than some hoity-toity wanna-be,lol. In my profession we always say "the lifestyle is always the last thing to go."
 
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