Debt Free

This will be blasphemous to some. Pets are a hollowed tradition in America. We love Fido and Fluffy. They lick our hands when we get home after along day at work and generally act happy to see us most of the time. Of course, they also crap in the yard and piss on the furniture, but that's not important right now. We love them anyway. Just how much does this love cost you every year?

Peteducation.com estimates the cost for owning a 50lb dog to be $1200.00 for the 1^st year and over $800.00 every year after that, over the life of the pet. A larger dog will cost more. That presupposes Fido never bites the mailman or chews up the neighbor's prize azaleas and you wind up in court. It also assumes that you avoid any large vet bills over your pets life. It is easy for something to befall your pet that can cost you thousands in vet bills and medicine. It's tough to get the dog covered by Kaiser Permanente or Blue Cross. Obviously, if your pet is a goldfish, you won't have such worries.

In addition to the direct costs for pet ownership, you may have to pay more for homeowners insurance if you own a dog. This depends upon the provider and can be influenced by the breed. The increased costs reflect the increase risk borne by insurers that a dog will cause property damage or bite someone.

This brings us to the point of the whole discussion. Can you afford to have pets? Should you? Does their value as a member of the family go beyond their monetary cost? If you're really trying to get debt free, should you use the $800 per pet each year to pay down credit card balances? Well, only you can answer that question. Financially, it probably makes no sense to have pets while you're trying to get out from under a stack of credit card bills. Then again, it probably didn't make any sense to get under the stack in the first place.

Sometimes pets provide security in other ways besides giving us the warm and fuzzies. They can help protect our property and deter the criminal element from paying us a visit. Nothing like a 125lb Rott to keep away the meth head trying to grab your CD collection and wife's jewelery. If you live in many neighborhoods throughout this land, the $1,000.00 a year to keep that Rottweiller would be a bargain. You'd think that homeowners insurance providers would see it that way too.

If you're looking at ways to decrease your monthly cash outlflow, you need to investigate every possibility. Many people overlook their furry friend when considering where they can cut the fat. It can take a major lifestyle change to reduce debt. You may have to choose between Fido and becoming debt free. Let's hope the choice is somewhat less dramatic. Maybe you could just ditch your $4.00 morning latte. See ya Fido!