Americans (myself included) love their pets. Around 45% of American households include dogs and 30% include cats. We call them our fur babies. We have special voices we reserve for them. (Who’s a good boy?) We Photoshop them as a duchess and let them write the annual Christmas card letter. (That one might just be us.) We just don’t always love budgeting for pets.

Yet our pets are members of our families.

And just like the other members of our families, they can be expensive to provide for, especially if you don’t budget properly and end up financing your pet-related purchases on credit cards. (Hint: NEVER do this! If you can’t afford to budget for pets, you can’t afford to have them yet.)

This past weekend, The Budget Beagle got a bout of doggie hiccups, which is uncommon but not unheard of for her. Then she transitioned to beatboxing (if you know, you know), followed by the tell all splat of vomiting. Less common, but still not unheard of.

Then she started manically licking every rug in the house, chewing at the frayed threads like she was trying to eat grass to make herself vomit again. She started panting and pacing the house before vomitting twice more.

Around this point, full mama bear instincts kicked in, and we started googling everything. We’d already tried to get her to roll over on her back to rub her belly to help with the hiccups initial (she was NOT a fan) and tried to coax her into drinking some water. Nothing was helping and the sounds she made while dry heaving and retching were exorcism-level noises.

We sounded the alarm within our friends and family community for vet advice and recommendations of places to go, grabbed her harness, and headed to the emergency vet clinic.

We didn’t think about the cost of what this vet trip would cost. All we cared about was making sure she was okay. It wasn’t until the vet tech handed over the estimated care plan for signature that the money part kicked in.

Average Pet Costs

The average emergency vet trip is around $460 for dogs and $200 for cats. This trip cost us $327, which was honestly less than we expected. Our last non-routine vet trip was in February, when she had a horrible allergic reaction and her immune system went haywire. Between medicated shampoos, vet visits, etc. we spent close to $1,000. About a year or two ago, she had the trifecta of vomitting, diarrhea, and she stopped eating. That ordeal was closer to around $1,500.

As our Budget Beagle has gotten older, she’s gotten more expensive, just as health care becomes more expensive as humans age. It’s part of the process of being pet owners.

Having a budget and an emergency fund help keep an emotional stressor from becoming a financial one.

Pets aren’t only expensive when they’re sick. They have monthly expenses, just let we do. Below are some average annual costs for pet owners that you should factor in when creating your budget.

How Do You Stack Up?

When you have your next budgeting meeting, compare your numbers to these averages. (Remember: the top group is costs for a year, not every month.)

I’ve gone through my budget tracking app for the past year and pulled all our pet expenses for our nine-year-old Beagle for a real-life example against the averages:

This past week’s vet visit: $327

Monthly Bucky food budget/treats: $60 (every other month)

Six-month flea/heartworm meds: $100

Annual wellness check up/shots: $216.93

February pet care costs (allergy issues and flea/heartworm meds): $905.40

Doggie ramp/steps: $42.60

Total Budget Beagle costs for July 2022 – July 2023: $1,951.93

We’ll be the first to say she’s worth it, but it’s an important reminder to keep the numbers in mind when you’re budgeting and when you consider adding a new four-legged family member to the clan.

Are your pet costs significantly cheaper than the average? How have you found ways to save money when it comes to your four-legged family members?