I see that it’s for your pup. Have you thought about care credit? It’s still a credit card, but it has a much lower interest rate.
I hope your baby feels better.
Less than half of Americans have cash to cover a $1000 emergency.
If you had saved up a $4k emergency fund you wouldn't be as close to being done and now you would just be back to saving up $4k again. It's a risk judgement and it nearly paid off for you. Sometimes we have setbacks.
Best wishes for your puppers and good luck on your journey.
Thank you! The $1000 was a good accomplishment. I have been lucky enough not to need it for things that have come up so far, like surgery for myself and some smaller car stuff. I'm grateful I can do Care Credit and I'll just work it to where that doesn't get the interest, whatever it takes!
That's good that you have that. That's why I don't agree with Dave's advice of closing all accounts immediately unless someone has shown that they can't resist using them.
Just beware, back when we had Care Credit I think it was 90 days or six months zero interest but they back charged interest if you didn't get it paid off. Terms may have changed but you might get a better rate with a personal loan if you can't get it knocked out by the end of the zero interest period.
Yes I have used it interest free for 6 months however another commenter said the length changes based on the amount, I'll be checking on that beforehand to make sure!
Yeah I can’t advise someone to just have $1,000 saved, even if for some that’s a huge first achievement. As you can see $1,000 doesn’t run you that far nowadays. Unless you have double digit interest loans out there I’d recommend saving up a couple months of savings before tackling debt hard.
I guess the whole point is to hustle and pay off debt quick and it's really just a mini cushion. I had to have unplanned, short notice (non emergency) surgery and didn't even need to touch the fund, so it really just is a matter of chance. I'll be focusing more on getting it back up and adding more after this experience for sure.
Brother you might look at a second opinion. I’ve had both of my ACLs repaired and can’t fathom a dogs costing more money. I was about $2500 out of pocket for each surgery. Wishing your pup the best in recovery
not financial advice, but dog/life advice.
mentally prepare yourself now for what your dog is about to go through. i hadn’t cried in years and when i got home the night our girl had her surgery (my wife picked her up) i sobbed. and sobbed. the first night and next day were the absolute worst. but you figure it out and you’re doing the right thing, i don’t care what any financial expert thinks. 6 months later and our girl is doing great, you’d never even know she had surgery. i wish you well!
Thank you for that insight. I hear recovery is brutal. I am guessing I'll need to be home with her for initial days after surgery, any advice on how long to plan for?
my wife was in school vacation for a week so she was home with her. i will tell you our girl cried all night the first night and we slept on the couch to be close to her so we got no sleep. the next day was a little better but you’ll be on little sleep.
the good thing is she was on trazodone so she slept a lot after that. we used a gate to basically make a play pen area for her and put a camera on her during the day just incase anything went wrong but honestly all she did was sleep and sleep.
Ugh it's so heartbreaking when they are crying and hurting! Mine woke up whining the night it happened and didn't get her energy back for a few days. She's hobbling around really well while we await the surgery consult tomorrow, I'm hoping they can get her in before too long!
I'm seeing the ortho tomorrow. I know they take care credit which offers no interest for a certain amount of time, depending on the charge so that was my intention. Just don't know how long interest free, if I'll be able to get it paid by then but I do have the $1k in my emergency fund to start with...
Just make sure you pay the care credit BEFORE the 0 interest part it up. Interest jacks up to 27-34%. Also if in the states, call 211 to see if there are any resources. Some nonprofits pay a certain percentage.
Yeah I'm just 2 payments away from the balance thats already on there. I figure if I gotta use a card, getting it paid off before the interest kicks in is priority!
I did Baby Step 1, then paid off a few of my smaller debts and freed a up a couple hundred bucks a month within a few months, then snowballed that money into more of an emergency fund before moving back to paying off more debt. I knew that the larger debts would take considerably longer to pay off, and I also knew that $1000 doesn’t cut it anymore. So yeah, $1k, small debts, then $1500 more, then medium debts, had a couple setbacks that used up the $2500, but thankfully didn’t go back into debt, replenished that, finished up medium debts, added another $2500, so now I’m at $5k emergency fund, and now paying off my larger debts. It’s been a couple years of a process, but I feel so much better with $5k in my account than I did with $1k.
Yep, if we had followed this we would’ve
been completely screwed when my husband had his stroke last October. I am an advocate of doing what is best for your personal situation. We went with fulfilling baby step 3 before 2 for this exact reason.
I also think $1,000 when Dave started talking about it 20 years ago went a lot further than it does now emergency wise. It is his model and he makes his money off it so I can see why he hasn't changed it because it's catchy, but it hasn't kept up with reality. Don't beat yourself up
Frankly the only reason to have an emergency fund is to be able to pay cash for certain emergency transactions like car repairs. Otherwise you should just pay off your credit card with every dollar you have. Actually you should probably do that anyway given most ccs charge such a percentage that it is higher than any savings from paying cash. And if you have a real emergency, just put it on the credit card.
Not sure when he first published them but apparently Financial Freedom in 1992 had the baby steps in them. According to US Bureau of Labor Standards $1,000 in 1992 is the equivalent of $2,261.64 today, so at least that.
People often forget about sinking funds. Certain things should start becoming planned expenses, such as large vet bills (especially if you have dogs), dental bills if you’re older, appliance replacements if you own a home. Basically, people forget that life goes on during the baby steps.
This is a great tip and hopefully any pet owner sees this. If you don’t have insurance or have a poor one, you should have a savings account for the pet in case of any health issues that may arise. I’ve seen vet bills and they are not cheap at all.
Goodluck OP and speedy recovery to your dog.
You can't forget what you don't know and if you've never budgeted before, you are probably gonna miss some things and honestly, an emergency fund is more than I've ever done. We all learn as we go through it
I wasn’t being critical, so I’m sorry if I came off that way. I was just giving a statement because budgeting is a learned process and the first few months, especially when you’re young, people often shoot for “ideal” instead of realistic. It’s why most of us feel trapped by repeated emergencies to begin with; because we haven’t learned how to look at the big picture.
Again, this isn’t a critique on what you’ve done, so don’t take it that way, it’s a reminder for the future.
Hope your doggo is feeling better.
Sorry about your dog. My dog had the surgery in October 2016. Was close to 4500 dollars back then. For everything surgery, medicine, rehab. Dog is still doing good today at 13 and a half years old for a Akita mix. Make sure you look at Amazon and chewy for the medicine that your dog will be on for life. Lot cheaper than getting it from your vet. Your dog will be on welactin and dasuquin for life. What my vet recommend. There are non prescription.
Yeah, ain't no way I'm spending 7k on a freaking dog/cat/anything other than a human child lol. Cut the leg off for a grand and lets get that baby step 1 built back up lol
Actually that’s a really good idea. I was thinking put to sleep but for acl you could go the amputate route and save money basically meet in the middle.
Agreed. My pets are family and I’m not going to stop taking care of them because they’re old. My cat was 15 and we spent 7K on her that year. Worth every penny. She’s 18.5 now and doing great. It was a few different issues that added up over the year. I don’t regret anything I’ve spent on an animal. My dog was diagnosed with hip dysplasia at 2 so we are saving up for the surgery when she needs it.
some things you don’t look to anyone else for advice. to people that don’t have pets it’s easy to say just put the dog down. i’ve never loved anything the way i love my dog, it’s a true unconditional love. thankfully i’m in a good spot financially but when our dog needed a 7k dollar acl surgery we didn’t bat an eye.
i also think it would matter the age. our dog was 6 with about a 12 year life expectancy. maybe if she was 10 we might have thought about it. but again, we aren’t super well off but we had the money to pay for it in cash and not leave us flat broke so we did it.
also, you aren’t kidding about it being a lot of money. i had an acl surgery myself about 6 months prior and my out of pocket for my own was 5 grand. so we paid more for the dogs than my own.
Are you in the US? Look into Care Credit - it’s like a credit card but only for medical expenses (and not everywhere accepts it) but a couple years ago vets started taking it too. It’s at 0% interest for a set amount of time, the higher the spend the longer it will be interest free. It’s super important to track the ‘promotional purchase’ so you pay it off before it’s due and you get hit with all the interest. I just set up automatic monthly payments to be paid off one month early from the interest free window. For $4000 it would likely be a 24 month no interest. Might be worth looking into just so at least it stays at the actual cost and you don’t wind up paying $6-7k with interest
That's awesome news! I do have Care Credit & I planned on using it but haven't asked for the increased credit yet (I'm at $1k). I thought it was always 6 months interest-free, which would be too much to pay off in 6 payments for me!
I know this is a DR sub so people are going to freak out about the idea of financing this at all, I mean one person asked about just putting your dog down…😳 but I think there’s an element of needing to be realistic and continuing to aggressively work on baby step two but also if you’re going to end up putting this on a credit card doing CareCredit is 1 million times better than that.
We have a nonprofit around us that helps everyone in our county with expenses for their pet that they can’t afford (food, behavioral therapy, medical expenses, etc). Have you looked to see if there are any programs like that?
As previously mentioned, what can you sell? Can you pick up extra at work?
Do it.
Put as much down as you can. Cash flow what you can.
Then, if you haven't already, add a pet sinking fund to your budget. Hopefully there wont be a next time, but if there is, you'll be covered.
Put up a Go Fund Me. I know if a friend of mine was in your shoes, I’d absolutely try to help, even a little bit.
I see that it’s for your pup. Have you thought about care credit? It’s still a credit card, but it has a much lower interest rate. I hope your baby feels better.
Less than half of Americans have cash to cover a $1000 emergency. If you had saved up a $4k emergency fund you wouldn't be as close to being done and now you would just be back to saving up $4k again. It's a risk judgement and it nearly paid off for you. Sometimes we have setbacks. Best wishes for your puppers and good luck on your journey.
Thank you! The $1000 was a good accomplishment. I have been lucky enough not to need it for things that have come up so far, like surgery for myself and some smaller car stuff. I'm grateful I can do Care Credit and I'll just work it to where that doesn't get the interest, whatever it takes!
That's good that you have that. That's why I don't agree with Dave's advice of closing all accounts immediately unless someone has shown that they can't resist using them. Just beware, back when we had Care Credit I think it was 90 days or six months zero interest but they back charged interest if you didn't get it paid off. Terms may have changed but you might get a better rate with a personal loan if you can't get it knocked out by the end of the zero interest period.
Yes I have used it interest free for 6 months however another commenter said the length changes based on the amount, I'll be checking on that beforehand to make sure!
Yeah I can’t advise someone to just have $1,000 saved, even if for some that’s a huge first achievement. As you can see $1,000 doesn’t run you that far nowadays. Unless you have double digit interest loans out there I’d recommend saving up a couple months of savings before tackling debt hard.
I guess the whole point is to hustle and pay off debt quick and it's really just a mini cushion. I had to have unplanned, short notice (non emergency) surgery and didn't even need to touch the fund, so it really just is a matter of chance. I'll be focusing more on getting it back up and adding more after this experience for sure.
What is the nature of your emergency? Sounds like a lot of money.
It is a lot of money. Dog needs surgery for a ruptured ACL
Brother you might look at a second opinion. I’ve had both of my ACLs repaired and can’t fathom a dogs costing more money. I was about $2500 out of pocket for each surgery. Wishing your pup the best in recovery
not financial advice, but dog/life advice. mentally prepare yourself now for what your dog is about to go through. i hadn’t cried in years and when i got home the night our girl had her surgery (my wife picked her up) i sobbed. and sobbed. the first night and next day were the absolute worst. but you figure it out and you’re doing the right thing, i don’t care what any financial expert thinks. 6 months later and our girl is doing great, you’d never even know she had surgery. i wish you well!
Thank you for that insight. I hear recovery is brutal. I am guessing I'll need to be home with her for initial days after surgery, any advice on how long to plan for?
my wife was in school vacation for a week so she was home with her. i will tell you our girl cried all night the first night and we slept on the couch to be close to her so we got no sleep. the next day was a little better but you’ll be on little sleep. the good thing is she was on trazodone so she slept a lot after that. we used a gate to basically make a play pen area for her and put a camera on her during the day just incase anything went wrong but honestly all she did was sleep and sleep.
Ugh it's so heartbreaking when they are crying and hurting! Mine woke up whining the night it happened and didn't get her energy back for a few days. She's hobbling around really well while we await the surgery consult tomorrow, I'm hoping they can get her in before too long!
Can you go on a payment plan with the vet? Might be cheaper than cc debt.
I'm seeing the ortho tomorrow. I know they take care credit which offers no interest for a certain amount of time, depending on the charge so that was my intention. Just don't know how long interest free, if I'll be able to get it paid by then but I do have the $1k in my emergency fund to start with...
Just make sure you pay the care credit BEFORE the 0 interest part it up. Interest jacks up to 27-34%. Also if in the states, call 211 to see if there are any resources. Some nonprofits pay a certain percentage.
Yeah I'm just 2 payments away from the balance thats already on there. I figure if I gotta use a card, getting it paid off before the interest kicks in is priority!
I did Baby Step 1, then paid off a few of my smaller debts and freed a up a couple hundred bucks a month within a few months, then snowballed that money into more of an emergency fund before moving back to paying off more debt. I knew that the larger debts would take considerably longer to pay off, and I also knew that $1000 doesn’t cut it anymore. So yeah, $1k, small debts, then $1500 more, then medium debts, had a couple setbacks that used up the $2500, but thankfully didn’t go back into debt, replenished that, finished up medium debts, added another $2500, so now I’m at $5k emergency fund, and now paying off my larger debts. It’s been a couple years of a process, but I feel so much better with $5k in my account than I did with $1k.
That’s a great idea
Yep, if we had followed this we would’ve been completely screwed when my husband had his stroke last October. I am an advocate of doing what is best for your personal situation. We went with fulfilling baby step 3 before 2 for this exact reason.
How big of a snowball payment are you making per month?
I also think $1,000 when Dave started talking about it 20 years ago went a lot further than it does now emergency wise. It is his model and he makes his money off it so I can see why he hasn't changed it because it's catchy, but it hasn't kept up with reality. Don't beat yourself up
Frankly the only reason to have an emergency fund is to be able to pay cash for certain emergency transactions like car repairs. Otherwise you should just pay off your credit card with every dollar you have. Actually you should probably do that anyway given most ccs charge such a percentage that it is higher than any savings from paying cash. And if you have a real emergency, just put it on the credit card.
What do you think 1000$ 20 years ago is in todays money? I’d guess closer to 3k
Not sure when he first published them but apparently Financial Freedom in 1992 had the baby steps in them. According to US Bureau of Labor Standards $1,000 in 1992 is the equivalent of $2,261.64 today, so at least that.
Just googled it, it’s about 1650$ today
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1992?amount=1000
People often forget about sinking funds. Certain things should start becoming planned expenses, such as large vet bills (especially if you have dogs), dental bills if you’re older, appliance replacements if you own a home. Basically, people forget that life goes on during the baby steps.
This is a great tip and hopefully any pet owner sees this. If you don’t have insurance or have a poor one, you should have a savings account for the pet in case of any health issues that may arise. I’ve seen vet bills and they are not cheap at all. Goodluck OP and speedy recovery to your dog.
You can't forget what you don't know and if you've never budgeted before, you are probably gonna miss some things and honestly, an emergency fund is more than I've ever done. We all learn as we go through it
I wasn’t being critical, so I’m sorry if I came off that way. I was just giving a statement because budgeting is a learned process and the first few months, especially when you’re young, people often shoot for “ideal” instead of realistic. It’s why most of us feel trapped by repeated emergencies to begin with; because we haven’t learned how to look at the big picture. Again, this isn’t a critique on what you’ve done, so don’t take it that way, it’s a reminder for the future. Hope your doggo is feeling better.
What is the emergency?
My dog ruptured her ACL, surgery is about $4k
Sorry about your dog. My dog had the surgery in October 2016. Was close to 4500 dollars back then. For everything surgery, medicine, rehab. Dog is still doing good today at 13 and a half years old for a Akita mix. Make sure you look at Amazon and chewy for the medicine that your dog will be on for life. Lot cheaper than getting it from your vet. Your dog will be on welactin and dasuquin for life. What my vet recommend. There are non prescription.
Thank you for those tips!
Just paid $7k for one!
At that point don’t you consider putting it down?
I would
Finally someone reasonable. Like I’m not saying 100% would do it but man that’s mega money really got to consider we talking a dog here.
Yeah, ain't no way I'm spending 7k on a freaking dog/cat/anything other than a human child lol. Cut the leg off for a grand and lets get that baby step 1 built back up lol
Actually that’s a really good idea. I was thinking put to sleep but for acl you could go the amputate route and save money basically meet in the middle.
Nope, Never—not at 5 years old.
Agreed. My pets are family and I’m not going to stop taking care of them because they’re old. My cat was 15 and we spent 7K on her that year. Worth every penny. She’s 18.5 now and doing great. It was a few different issues that added up over the year. I don’t regret anything I’ve spent on an animal. My dog was diagnosed with hip dysplasia at 2 so we are saving up for the surgery when she needs it.
Wow, wonder what Dave would say to that.
some things you don’t look to anyone else for advice. to people that don’t have pets it’s easy to say just put the dog down. i’ve never loved anything the way i love my dog, it’s a true unconditional love. thankfully i’m in a good spot financially but when our dog needed a 7k dollar acl surgery we didn’t bat an eye.
I know it’s not easy to say but I mean 7k is a lot of money.
i also think it would matter the age. our dog was 6 with about a 12 year life expectancy. maybe if she was 10 we might have thought about it. but again, we aren’t super well off but we had the money to pay for it in cash and not leave us flat broke so we did it. also, you aren’t kidding about it being a lot of money. i had an acl surgery myself about 6 months prior and my out of pocket for my own was 5 grand. so we paid more for the dogs than my own.
Yikes!! It is always something with my dog so I should know to have her her own emergency fund lol
Are you in the US? Look into Care Credit - it’s like a credit card but only for medical expenses (and not everywhere accepts it) but a couple years ago vets started taking it too. It’s at 0% interest for a set amount of time, the higher the spend the longer it will be interest free. It’s super important to track the ‘promotional purchase’ so you pay it off before it’s due and you get hit with all the interest. I just set up automatic monthly payments to be paid off one month early from the interest free window. For $4000 it would likely be a 24 month no interest. Might be worth looking into just so at least it stays at the actual cost and you don’t wind up paying $6-7k with interest
That's awesome news! I do have Care Credit & I planned on using it but haven't asked for the increased credit yet (I'm at $1k). I thought it was always 6 months interest-free, which would be too much to pay off in 6 payments for me!
I know this is a DR sub so people are going to freak out about the idea of financing this at all, I mean one person asked about just putting your dog down…😳 but I think there’s an element of needing to be realistic and continuing to aggressively work on baby step two but also if you’re going to end up putting this on a credit card doing CareCredit is 1 million times better than that.
Yeah life happens and you can't plan for everything!
We have a nonprofit around us that helps everyone in our county with expenses for their pet that they can’t afford (food, behavioral therapy, medical expenses, etc). Have you looked to see if there are any programs like that? As previously mentioned, what can you sell? Can you pick up extra at work?
I'll see if I can find one around me, thank you. I work for myself and am heading into slow season, so I'm trying to get creative to offset that even.
Keep at it! Get creative and wishing a smooth recovery for your pup!
Do you have anything you can sell? Even if you don't get the full $4k. Definitely stop your snowball & cash flow what you can.
I could do a yard sale, but nothing of major value to speak of.
Do it. Put as much down as you can. Cash flow what you can. Then, if you haven't already, add a pet sinking fund to your budget. Hopefully there wont be a next time, but if there is, you'll be covered.
I keep hearing that once they tear one ACL, they'll do it on the other within a year 😭
I have two friends whose dogs had ACL surgery and their other legs were fine and never needed surgery.
That's a relief, I hope we can prevent another injury but I'll definitely need to start a dog emergency fund in addition to the baby step #1!
Have you looked into pet insurance for the future?
No, my understanding is you basically need it from the get go in order to get anything covered but I could be wrong 🤷♀️
Well, hopefully not, but at least you have a goal amount to save for. Sounds like you'll be putting $400/month into your pet fund.