I'm not sure why I'm posting about this, but it's weighing heavy in my heart and I just want to get some stuff down.
We have 2 lovely dogs, cavvy and a shih tzu, aged 9 and 8 respectively. We've had them since they were 8 weeks old, they are only 5 months apart in age.
We had our first child at the beginning of the year and the dogs have taken to her well, which we were very pleased about so no problems there.
However, I've just found out that when I go back to work next month, I'll be having a paycut, approx 16% of my weekly income. There are no more shifts available that I can do and although I've looked at getting a 2nd job again (I used to do two before I had my DD), we don't want to put our DD in childcare or leave her with family and I don't know that I have the energy to take on another job somewhere else.
At first I was just considering cancelling the dog insurance as it's a whopping £46 per month for both of them. The shih tzu has never had a thing wrong with her and we've never claimed for her, the cavvy has had allergies, recurrent ear problems and some teeth problems so we've claimed quite a bit for her. We were with the same insurer for years so they continued to cover the cavvy's conditions but they put their premiums up to approx £50 per dog at last renewal so we were forced to change insurers so the pre-existing conditions aren't covered anyway. The main reason we've always had insurance is because our first cavvy (who we had as an adult dog), came to use with a bad heart murmur and it was very distressing for us when she died. We knew cavvys were prone to heart murmurs so always had insurance for them but amazingly, our cavvy's heart is absolutely fine, the vet is stunned because by 9 years old, most have a murmur.
DH voiced what I'd been thinking, about whether we should rehome them but then as he pointed out, the new owners might not insure them. I said I didn't think I could do it and he said him neither but the thought is there and we decided we didn't want to do anything rash.
I was talking to a friend about it today and she asked how much the costs add up to over a year. Talking out loud to her, I estimated it to be £1200 and I've just totted it up and they cost us £1300 per year for clipping, insurance, food (they have to have a particular one because of the cavvy's allergies), flea prevention (the shihtzu has to have vet prescribed flea treatment, frontline doesn't work) and boosters. This doesn't include any vet bills that might not be covered by insurance either because it's not enough to claim or because it's a pre-existing condition.
I love my dogs, for so many years when we were told we couldn't conceive, they were our babies, they were our children. When I got pregnant, my Dad said we should get rid of them and the idea was inconceivable. I can't believe that now I'm actually seriously considering it because our finances are getting so much tighter and I can't just go out and do a whole load of overtime to give us some more cash. We don't have sky, we don't smoke, I don't drink and DH has a drink maybe once a month, which costs about £10. We don't go out, we earn approx £25k per year between us. I never considered the total cost of our dogs before, and even when we only had one wage coming in, there was no way I would ever have rehomed them. And now, I just can't believe what I'm thinking. My heart is saying not to do it because I love them and they're part of our family but my head is asking how we're supposed to afford the things our daughter needs. We're pretty frugal as it is, most of DD's clothes are second hand from ebay or charity shops, as are her toys and her cot and a few other bits were free off freegle.
I don't know what to do. I look at how much I scrimp and how I look at baby clothes in the sales and think they cost too much. And I worry about how most of DD's clothes for the first 6 months were gifts and I made the rest up with 2nd hand stuff, how are we going to afford clothes. The car is up for MOT, we're reducing our usage of that as it's a bigger car than we had previously and costs more to run. I just look at how we live our life, how we stretch our money every week to afford fresh fruit and veg. I worry about how we'll pay for shoes for DD.
I guess, and this hurts me to say it, I now see the dogs as a luxury rather than a necessity purely because they cost us so much money.
But I'm worried if we do rehome them, what if no-one wants them, how do we guarantee they don't get put down, I fear that no-one can or will love them as much as we do.
If you've read this far, please don't be harsh to me, but I'd be interested in if you've had a similar dilemma and what you did and how you coped.
Sorry for the long post, DD is waking so have to run, not sure if I will get back on tonight but thanks in advance if anyone replies.