I know it is sad but we have just done a full analysis of our home income and expenditure for the year and having three Labs we have spent £2.5K on , Food, chewies,insurance, vets bills. Outside of this would be the cost of vets bills we would have had if not covered under insurance which would have been £200.

In that we have not included also £120 out of the food budget on pilchards once a week and carrots, apples etc.

In all the total cost is £2.8K.

Makes you realise how much it can cost !

In comparison we have analysised Indigo the baby (16 months now) this year  through childcare/clothes/eqiupment has cost £7K 

Frightening ! :D

Lucy
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Very interesting reading, shows the reason I have dogs and not children!

Claire

Hi ive read somewhere that the average cost of bringing up a child is around the 46 grand mark, no wonder i chose only to have 1 child. bearing in mind im now down to three dogs and i cant imagine being without them to save a little money for the luxuries in life i get much more pleasure spending on their welfare and on my son, but it does make you think how much better of we would be, if not very lonely

Certainly makes you think :) I spend about £650 per year just on the cost of one agility class and one training class a week (for two dogs - and that is cheap) and the petrol to get there :( Add to that about £450 a year in insurance and approx. £300 for food, £150 for kennels if we go away just for a week etc etc and we don't spend much else on them thank goodness (they only get new leads, bedding etc when the others fall to bits). BUT our children have certainly cost us more than £46k each so I can't complain about the dogs :D :D :D and they don't answer back :D

Daisy

Gosh didn't include dog sitting fees which was £200 for a long weekend to add on. :)

Also we have just realised another £350 which we can tag against Indigo !

Our dishwasher (6 years old) has been behaving badly over the last two three weeks. Everything comes out just as dirty as it went in. We have tried everything, cleaning filters etc etc. Anyway we got so peed of last night we ordered a new one off the internet. Tonight it has behaved perfectly and everything has come ot sparkling :) We have sat and wondered why and have realised that she has been pushing every button , opening every drawer,  etc that she can find. Which included the dishwasher when it is in cycle ! Today the dishwasher was run as Mike was at home and it has done a perfect job and Indigo has been at nursery :) ! :rolleyes:  :D

I would say I was just posting this was to highlight how much it can cost so you can see what a commitment both two legged and four legged babies can cost :)

Lucy
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hmmm - add 5 horses on - then you're talking :D :D

We looked at food for us humans in this as well and we have split out the % that would have been booze and it is frightening :D :D

Not too bad on clothes though even though Mike thinks it is excessive but he is a boy :D :D

Lucy
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Hi This cracked me up, I did the same thing on new years day and was horrified to discover we spent £2900 on 3 dogs! The problem is I love buying them nice beds and things, it also cost a lot to sort out our rescue dog but still that's mad. 

Fotunately no children!

I don't really care because I love them all but wow, our pup broke her leg this year so if we hadn't been insured that would have been 2K. Ouch.

well i am not going to add it up as i will faint as we have 4 kids with 17 after school activites between them! and a lab who goes through food balls and squeaky toys at an alarming rate!