As I have already confessed, I love animals a bit too much. My husband and I, primates that we are, are minorities in our household. We have two dogs, a cat who believes she is a dog, and two maned pork tenderloins guinea pigs. And just this past Thursday, we came home from the feed store with six new additions.
Whoops! We now own chickens.
And from a financial perspective, we really couldn’t have done anything stupider.
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On the spectrum of compassion for fellow humans, I fall somewhere between Daniel Plainview and Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans. I’m ruthless and self-interested and generally take a dim view of the collective worth of mankind. But like many a cold-hearted misanthrope, I’m a secret, tenderhearted lover of animals. In fact, I’m a big gay pussy for animals and I can say that because <flashes QUEER WOMAN CARD>. Pets are the fucking best.
As bikevangelist Mister Money Mustache points out in his infuriating-but-factually-correct Great News! Dog Ownership is Optional!, ownership of pets is expensive, lifestyle-altering, and entirely optional. Americans spend over $60 billion every year on their pets. It’s an enormous financial and logistical commitment that should be thoroughly explored before adding pets to your family.
Which is why I’ve set out to rank the financial efficiency of the most common kinds of household pets.
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