I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later. We finally have an actual pet at our house. Yes, we now have a HAMSTER living in our home. It’s been a solid week now and, so far, the Hamster has only escaped once. While this doesn’t seem like much of an event for most of you reading this, it is a really big deal for us. My nickname amongst all my friends is “Bubble Boy” because I’m pretty much allergic to the earth and everything on it. Animals, of any size, top the list of things I need to keep out of my bubble, so it was with a lot of trepidation, that I finally gave in to my daughter’s desperate pleas for a pet. I haven’t actually calculated the total amount of money we’ve spent on the hamster so far, but with the bag my wife brought home tonight, I can tell you we are solidly over $100 in expenses.
Luckily we didn’t spend all the money ourselves. As part of my agreement to buy a hamster, my 8 year old daughter had to save enough money to buy the hamster and pay for part of the equipment we had to buy. I decided that it was a good opportunity to teach our daughter about saving to buy something, as opposed to the popular American tradition of borrowing someone else’s money to buy something when the urge arose. I’m very proud of her for sticking to her goal and diligently saving for her hamster. I will admit there was a small part of me that hoped she’d fail simply because I REALLY didn’t want to have a hamster in the house.
So far things are going pretty well, with the exception of the “Great Hamster Escape” that we had a few nights ago. It was a stressful few hours but we were very lucky that we finally found “Cookie” at about 9:30pm that night. I definitely slept a lot better knowing that the damn thing was safely in his cage.
I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that, while I really didn’t want to spend money on a rodent, it’s going to be a heck of a lot cheaper than owning a cat or dog.
I must have spent enough on my pets to put me through university. Well maybe not that much, but I have spent a lot. I wish I had kept all of the receipts so I knew how much exactly. Though the number might scare me, lol. Most of it I do not consider a waste. Money I spent on products that I now know are unsafe seem wasteful looking back, but I see it as the price it took for me to learn a better way to care for my hamsters. I have accumulated so many toys and supplies over the years that I don’t really buy all that much any more. When there are new ones out that are more original than ones I already have than I will get them, but they don’t come out all that often anymore. I’ve learned where to get aspen cheap and food doesn’t go by as fast as it did with 8 or so hamsters and I have all the supplies I really need. It’ been cheaper keeping just two hamsters because I am so well stocked. Most supplies last quite awhile, so your money spent on supplies, toys and cages isn’t going to go to waste even when Boba does one day pass on.
Luckily we didn’t spend all the money ourselves. As part of my agreement to buy a hamster, my 8 year old daughter had to save enough money to buy the hamster and pay for part of the equipment we had to buy. I decided that it was a good opportunity to teach our daughter about saving to buy something, as opposed to the popular American tradition of borrowing someone else’s money to buy something when the urge arose. I’m very proud of her for sticking to her goal and diligently saving for her hamster. I will admit there was a small part of me that hoped she’d fail simply because I REALLY didn’t want to have a hamster in the house.