January 6, 2010

Sick Cat = $160 Vet Bill

We noticed recently that our cat was sick with something. She was sneezing a lot, her eye was a little runny and she was acting a little weird. My wife took her to the vet and they said she basically had some sort of flu virus. It doesn't seem serious and the cat should be OK thankfully. The vet gave the cat some antibiotics and fluids and also gave us a couple different medicines to give her. Overall the bill ended up about $160. Thats not bad in my opinion for an office visit and medicine. Thankfully our cat should be fine.

This is a reminder that pet expenses can get high. You never know when a pet may get sick or injured and vet bills can be significant. When my previous cat got sick the vet bill was a few hundred dollars. I have friends and relatives who have had vet bills for over $2,000 level.

Previously I looked into getting pet insurance but I didn't find a policy that seemed like a good deal. My preference for paying for vet bills is to have a designated pet emergency fund. By this I mean that you should set aside some funds in a savings account labeled pet emergency fund. You can put $100 or so into the fund automatically every year to keep it funded. I don't officially have such a fund setup myself but have a large standard emergency fund so we could dip into that if we need to pay a large vet bill.

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