Local article states “According to the Humane Society for Seattle/King County, a person should budget between $300 and $1,000 per year of a dog’s life and $700 per year of a cat’s life.”
Is this reasonable and neccessarily prudent? People without the resources shouldn’t have pets - at least the dog & cat varieties? Or is the amount overstated?
I’m not sure, I have two kitties and I buy rather expensive dry food. Even feeding them probably a quarter cup or so more than I should I still only spend about 120 bucks a year on food. I haven’t run the math, but maybe 150-200 on litter? Yeah, there’s toys, but they’re not that frequent. I’d say the first year (getting a cat tower and initial toys, as well as potential adoption fees and baby shots/spay neuter costs if not already done by the clinic) is going to be pretty expensive, but for an average year I’d say 700 bucks is a couple hundred high unless you really spoil them.
Way high for the cat cost.
Well, maybe not if you include the band-aid, neosporin, and furniture replacement costs.
Kidding, kidding!
Since unexpected vet bills can happen at any time and can be very expensive, it probably is wise if you’re able to set aside several hundred dollars a year for the animal as an emergency fund (or at least get the pet on a pet health insurance plan that you’re sure will cover a wide range of things).
But, realistically, I think it’s possible to keep an animal in decent condition without spending a lot if you just don’t have the money. There are homeless people out there who manage to keep a pet dog.
You don’t have to buy the dog toys at the pet store. My old dog liked to play with paper towel rolls and old socks with balls in them.
You can buy the cheap grocery store brand food. Even though many of us feel animals do better on foods with meat as the first ingredient (I choose to get those kinds of foods for my own pets even though it’s a little more expensive), there are a lot of people who feed the corn-based grocery store food. It’s adequate food even if it’s not really great food.
Pay to fence in the yard? I do not have a fenced yard. It’s not that big of a deal. The dog goes out on a leash at all times. It works fine.
We have three dogs, a Chow, Great Dane and a Pom. We spend about $70 a month on food and we use a non for profit vet and our vet bills I would say run less than $300 a year. So, we can do three dogs on $1000 or less. If you are spending a grand on a single dog in one year and that dog doesn’t have major medical problems, that is one pampered dog.
Oh and we don’t buy the cheap dog food. The Dane is allergic to beef and chicken (he gets the itchies) so we have to buy dog food made from venison, salmon and such. We just buy from the local feed store in bulk and it isn’t too bad.
That’s quite a large range in your OP. Definitely 500/ year average for any pet. Cats have the added expense of having to be put under for a lot of medical treatments that dogs will stay awake for. I would also think the costs would increase with the pet’s age.
I think that if you don’t have $1,000 to spare in a year you shouldn’t get a pet on purpose. It’s not only the cost of the pet but the cost of unexpected things in the rest of your life. So, you only have 600 extra/ year and something happens that you need that money for your own health. That leaves you with no money for the pet. If you’re that close to the edge a pet is a bad idea.
The amounts aren’t overstated, some pets are more and some are less, you can’t tell when they’re little which will have expensive medical or dietary needs.
There is also the cost of pet-sitters and/or dog-walkers. I probably spend $300 on cat-sitting annually. Granted, I have the cat-sitter come more frequently than is strictly necessary, and not everyone goes out of town regularly, but it’s a significant chunk of my pet expenses.
Frontline and the like are rather expensive, too.
I spend between 300 - 400 per month for my dogs.
I had a quick look at last years expenses for my two dogs and rounded the numbers. The special vet expenses was Mojo scratching his own eye. I’d say it’s a pretty good range, even if you don’t spend it making people think about the actual costs is a good idea.
Food: 700
Treats: 250
Toys: 100
Annual vet: 350
Special vet: 1400
Oh and we also spent 650 on boarding but I consider that a vacation expense not a pet expense. It’s not their fault I want to go away without them 
I agree if you do a sort of “expected cost” evaluation (i.e. the sum of the probabilities multiplied by the cost of their respective vet feels) with vetrinary bills it could probably come out to 500-700 dollars.
I had a dog who, every single year of her life, had at least one medical emergency that went over $1000. This is of course in addition to dog food, immunizations, and camp. Okay, I’m kidding about camp.
On the last day of her life she cost me $750.
It can happen.
Of course I also have two cats who spent four days absolutely destroying a rug I had just paid around $800 for. I have retired the rug. Still have the cats. And one cat who cost me a whole bunch of money at the vet because he kept getting in fights, and then when I decided to keep him in I had to keep replacing the screens (which was cheaper, actually).
So, yeah. If you can’t afford to spend at least a thousand unanticipated bucks a year you should probably get fish or something. Mollies–buy one, get 50 free!
It’s an average, so it’s averaging out pets who rarely or never have medical emergencies and pets who are on expensive daily medication, require frequent medical intervention, and need an expensive diet just to function. Some people can go for 20 or more years of life without a single medical emergency, for example (no broken bones or kidney stones or STDs or nasty flesh-eating viruses, lucky them). But for the average, you have to factor in both that lucky, healthy person against someone with recurrent stage-3 cancer or AIDS. So the average ends up being pretty high.
I don’t think you need to plan on having the most expensive, medically-unlucky pet before you consider adopting one. But if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, perhaps you should reconsider and get rats or a goldfish (or do without).
Christ on a crutch, if only.
Sure, fish, in and of themselves, are pretty cheap. I’ve spent a grand total of maybe forty bucks on fish and food in the last six months, but at least twice that on the tank, filters, heaters, gravel, and the like to get set up. And that’s only for a ten-gallon tank. For some reason, tanks go up in price exponentially. I can only assume that a fifty-gallon tank is at least three times as expensive to make, because they retail for fifteen times as much. Still, I’m unlikely to have surprise vet bills.
so it is inhumane for poor people to get pets, at least the variety that qualifies for veterinary assistance?
Maybe. Probably. Who cares? You could make the same argument about poor people having children (not that I would). The truth is that a dog or cat doesn’t care how much money the hypothetical poor person has. Assuming you rescue an animal (off the street, from a shelter, or from that guy with the sackful of kittens), chances are that animal’s life is going to be better than it was otherwise.*
*More true for dogs than cats, at least as far as “off the street” goes. House cats go feral more quickly, easily and successfully than pet dogs do.
So, looking back on our pets, I divided major medical problems over the length of time we’ve had each animal, which means I have one cheapish and two expensive beasts. They eat premium food and I did count boarding costs (weekends a couple times a year) since most of those have been due to obligation trips rather than vacations.
Cheap dog has cost about $636 a year, expensive dog has cost about $1339/year, and expensive cat has cost about $980/year. Mind you, expensive dog and cat have had some major medical problems, and cheap dog has had nothing other than standard inoculations/well visits, dewclaw removal/neutering, and routine teeth cleaning.
/edit: To actually address the OP, yeah, those numbers look reasonable to me.
We have three cats.
As an estimate, I spend $45 a month on food. $25 a month on litter. And, absent anything major, probably $150 a year on vet bills. Oh and about $12,500 on carpet cleaning because one cat pukes friggin everywhere.
Seriously that’s $1,000 a year for 3 cats. It’s not as simple as dividing by 3 to get an individual cat cost, but I don’t think, on average, it costs $700 either.
I have a big dog. I would guess I spend about $50 a month on food. I just spent $200 of my dog’s 6 month checkup and a couple of shots. I try to get the Frontline and other monthly pills at pet stores (the vet charges a huge markup.) So I’d guess at least $1000 a year, maybe more like $2000. The vet is always pushing for teeth cleaning, “joint health” pills and other expensive optionals that I refuse because I am a bad person.
This doesn’t count treats, chew toys, shampoo, or the large amounts I pay the neighborhood kid (less than the cost of boarding) to take care of him when we travel.
I was shocked at the time that the “free” dog we got at the local humane socity cost us about $300 in fees before we ever got home.
What about teeth cleaning? My vet suggests it every 2-3 yrs after age 5 and it’s been quoted as $400 a shot.