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Monthly Costs?

breakawayfromme

Junior Guinea Pig
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I'm making an expenses spreadsheet and I'm doing my pet expenses first.
Wondering if anyone here had worked out how much they roughly spend a month on food/hay for there pigs so I could just use that as a basis
Thanks
 
Its not an exact thing. I spend about £5 a week on veggies. A bag of nuggets lasts ages as I don’t give a lot. I buy hay from Haybox. About £30 every 6 weeks maybe. Then I buy 2 wood shavings every 8 weeks = £16. And a large bag of meadow hay £8 every 2 months maybe. Hope this helps.
 
For hay, pellets, wood shavings and veggies, I spend roughly £40 a month and I have 4 pigs. I also have a vet fund that I put money in each month which varies on what I can afford that month
 
Now I am wondering whether Piggle uses my credit card too much lol, I spend £75 per month on hay, £50 on soft paper bedding, £25 on carrot cottages and haycubes and hay cookies, £50 on piggy veg, for 8 or 9 pigs... Piggle assured me that was normal, has she conned me again? She wees on my socks if I don't do what she says...!
The vet fund is definitely most important though, I always have £200 per piggy saved up ready in my piggy vet fund just in case, with an extra £300 I could access easily if a piggy needed an operation or specialist referral or emergency out of hours vet trip.
 
Let's see ... for 2-3 piggies (I'm estimating and have had two or three piggies at different times, so I may have mixed values for 2 and 3 piggies).
I'd say lettuce and veggies, I can spend as little as $3 a week or as much as $15 for two weeks ... (well, I'm sure I could find ways to spend more than that, but you get the picture). That depends on 1) what's in season, 2) how much specialty lettuce and goodies I'm willing to spring for, 3) how much I have growing myself. Of course, we get some nice salads out of it, too ... the piggies "allow" us to share with them ... sort-of. So $5 a week is probably a good estimate for piggy purchases. That would about $20 for a month.
For hay ... it depends on the varieties I buy ... their primary hay, timothy, would be about $25 per month (though that could be reduced by buying the bigger boxes instead of the bags), but small bags I get for variety are more expensive, so probably more like $30-$35 for hay for spoiled piggies.
Their pellets are like $11 a bag which lasts a while, so I guess I'd throw a dollar or two in the monthly budgeting, but it's a minor cost.
When I used disposable litter, it cost me like $50 a month for the litter, and I'll say $4 for other (paper to line the cage, vinegar and paper towels for cleaning).
Now that I use washable, reusable bedding, it's pretty much just the extras and laundering, so like $6 for a month, but there was a starting cost on that ... $65 ish + existing supplies at home and the ability to sew.
If we buy bottled water for them, that's another $6-$7 a month because we can't deal with larger bottles.
Throw in a bit more for whatever the girls have begged out of me this month ... probably around $65 a month for a pair/small herd, but would be almost double with the skyrocketing prices of Carefresh if I hadn't swapped bedding.

1 USD = .79 GBP, 1 USD = .93 EUR ...
So I guess around £52 or €60, if conversion is valid?
 
Please don't forget to put some money aside for a vet fund. Even a visit for something minor can be over £100 and even more expensive if you are in the US.
 
Please don't forget to put some money aside for a vet fund. Even a visit for something minor can be over £100 and even more expensive if you are in the US.
 
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