- Americans are stressed about money as life gets more expensive.
- Pet costs have surged, with 31% of pet owners spending more on their pets than a year ago.
- Many Americans would turn to credit cards to cover emergency vet bills.
Americans are worried about money.
A survey from the nonprofit National Endowment for Financial Education asked 1,200 US adults about money at the end of 2025. The results are sobering: A full 88% say they're feeling some sort of financial stress, and 77% say they had a financial setback of some kind in the past year.
The survey asked about costs like housing, medical spending, and saving for the future. But what about an expense shared by millions of Americans? What about spending on pets?
Those costs are going up, too. Department of Labor data cited by Healthy Paws Pet Insurance found the cost of pet services (that includes vet care, grooming, and boarding) rose 38% in the past five years.
While the initial costs of owning a pet can be considerable, the reality is that owning a pet only gets more expensive over time.
Pet costs keep going up
Healthy Paws and Money.com surveyed more than 1,500 U.S. pet owners who have at least one dog or cat and found that almost a third (31%) of respondents find they're spending more on their pets now than they were 12 months ago. Looking forward, 28% of respondents think pet ownership will get even more expensive.
Paying for food and treats is the biggest pet-related expense among the survey respondents, with 36% spending $100 or more each month. The next-highest area of spending is for veterinary care, for which 29% of respondents spend $100 or more a month.
Even cutting back on vet visits doesn't save the money you might think. The American Veterinary Medical Association reports that veterinary revenues in the U.S. went up by about 2.5% in 2025, while average visits were down by about 3%. In other words, people are going to the vet less often, but the cost of doing so has risen enough that veterinarians still see increased profits.
"Vet costs have gone up exponentially," Tessa Steinemann, CFP and managing partner at True Alpha Wealth Management, told Business Insider. Steinemann, who has Gabe the cat and Bailey the dog at home, says that she finds clients often don't consider veterinary costs to be a regular expense. But aside from checkups and vaccinations, many groomers require regular vet visits, as do travel guidelines for those who want to bring their pets on the road.
But for many Americans, money is tight. In the NEFE survey, 39% of respondents said they probably or definitely couldn't come up with the money to cover a $2,000 expense in the next month.
Some pet owners are leaning on credit cards
Rising costs aren't the only reasons pet ownership gets more expensive over time. There's also the fact that during your pet's (hopefully long) life, it's not uncommon to have some sort of veterinary emergency, expensive procedure, or chronic condition requiring ongoing care.
These expected-yet-unexpected costs can run into the thousands of dollars, as three dog owners told Business Insider about their own pets. All three found themselves having to take on debt to afford their beloved pet's vet bills — one even opened another credit card after maxing out their first.
Using credit cards to cover expenses is increasingly common. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in 2025, Americans' credit card debt rose by $66 billion, reaching nearly $1.3 trillion, while total debt rose $740 billion to over $18 trillion.
In the Healthy Paws survey, 38% of respondents said they would put a vet expense they can't afford outright on a credit card. Credit cards are notorious for their high interest rates, which means holding debt with 19% interest or more.
Financial advisors typically recommend paying your credit card bill in full every month to avoid these rates; however, that's not always realistic. An estimated 111 million Americans carry credit card debt — about half of U.S. credit card holders overall.
Expect unexpected expenses for your pets
Financial planner Chloé Moore, founder of Financial Staples, recommends anticipating emergency costs for your pets as much as possible. "It's important to set aside savings for unexpected expenses like emergency medical procedures," she says. "This could be in a separate 'pet care' sinking fund and possibly a higher emergency fund if your monthly pet expenses are significant."
For people who need to use a credit card to cover these costs, she says borrowers with good credit may be able to qualify for 0% interest promotions, in which you must pay the balance within six months.
People carrying existing credit card debt may also consider a balance-transfer card. If you go this route, she continues, "make sure you factor in the upfront transfer fee, typically 3-5%, and that you have the discipline to pay off the entire balance within the 0% promotional period — often 12-18 months."
If your balance is small and you think you can pay it off even quicker, she adds, the fee for the balance transfer card may not be worth it.
In the day-to-day, however, if you end up spending so much on your pet that it jeopardizes your ability to save for the future — or worse, your ability to cover your other expenses — then it's time to start assessing where you can cut back.
For Steinemann, that sometimes means having frank conversations with her clients about how they spend money outside of emergency situations: "If they're not able to save because they're spending all of their money on items like the expensive pet food, or going on vacation all the time and having their pet at a pet sitter," she says, "we'll have the conversation: 'Well, you probably should change this.'"
Created by the Commerce Team in partnership with Healthy Paws Pet Insurance.
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