The True Cost of Pet Ownership

<p><strong>Josh: </strong> This is Josh Tirado. And thank you for joining the Making Smart Decisions podcast. What is the true cost of pet ownership in 2021? let's dive into the dog dilemma. In some reasons studies, some data showed that the initial purchase of a dog in the United States is ranging anywhere from roughly $600 to $2,300.</p><p>[00:01:58] It's also showing that annual care and maintenance of that dog is running between $600-$2300 a year. In fact, one survey shows that 40% of Americans are spending an excess of $3,000 a year on their dog, but in reality, they're budgeting a hundred dollars or less per month towards that same expense. Now, I love dogs.</p><p>[00:02:23]I own two doodles, two Ozzy doodles, half Australian shepherd has standard poodle they're brother and sister. They're great. My kids love them. My wife and I love them. They bring a lot of joy to our family. I will say this though. They are designer doodles. They were not inexpensive to purchase.</p><p>[00:02:41]And because of allergies in my family, I had to go with a dog similar to them. So adopting a dog will be searched and cannot find anything. So we had to go down that route. So let me just preface that with, I love my dogs. Buying a dog is not cheap. Giving the dog good food, good vet care is not cheap.</p><p>[00:03:01] As a matter of fact, I have in many people do have health insurance on their dogs. And my pet insurance is now $68 a month. But if you'd look at the cost of something going wrong and incurring vet bills, those bills can be very expensive. So the pet insurance, I think is a useful hedge against that.</p><p>[00:03:22] Between Christmas and New Year of 2020 more dogs were put up for adoption and were abandoned or turned into the shelter than any other time during the year. And that's true year over year, I think 2020, was worse because of the pandemic.</p><p>[00:03:38] People are out of work. People cannot afford their animals. People's living situations are changing and they cannot afford it or are unable to