How can people be calling for a Fed paws when inflation is so ruff? Just take a look at this chart from a recent WSJ article! Yeah inflation doesn't look as bad if your metric is the quarterly change in core-CPI ex-pet services. But you can't just remove the worst categories.
Roughly half of the 1,000 pet owners surveyed by consumer-insights platform Zappi for The Wall Street Journal this month actively took steps to reduce pet-care costs in the past year. A little over a quarter skipped or delayed a pet’s vet visit or routine medication on purpose to save money, and 49% opted for at-home grooming instead of paying a professional. One-tenth gave a pet away due to rising costs.
Are pets supposed to just pick themselves up by the paw-straps?
Mona Lipson has been driving three hours round trip to take her dog, Maggie, to the North Shore Animal League instead of her local Pound Ridge, N.Y., vet. The 40-year-old says the trip saves about $1,500 on a routine dental cleaning, minus gasoline costs.
The Rolenaitis family in Silverdale, Wash., recently traded down to $12 bags of Kibbles ’n Bits dry food for dogs Moose and Wink after their go-to Purina Pro Plan jumped to $25 from about $17.
“I feel bad buying them cheaper food, because it’s not like they can go out and get a job and buy it themselves,” says stay-at-home mom Rachel Rolenaitis, 43. “Especially because the quality of their food will affect the quality of their health, but I just can’t stretch it right now.”
Ms. Rolenaitis and her husband couldn’t afford more than a few presents for their two daughters this Christmas, and had to pull the younger one out of preschool in December when tuition went up by $100 a month.
The cost of spoiling our furballs is out of control. Americans would have to drop as much as $300 for a simple spa day for their pups.
For Gabrielle Califre it was the option to add a $17 blueberry doggy facial, $7 snout soother and $65 massage to the $205 basic grooming package at Biscuits & Bath that put her over the edge.
Not all news is bad. It appears the happy hoodie is still at a good deal, at under $15 a piece.
This inflation is probably bad news for pet stocks, like Zoetis? Trades at a huge premium (38 P/E ratio) at a time when Americans are cutting down on their spending. I just don't see the bull case.
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