Lazy Man and Money

  • Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • What I’m Doing Now
  • Consumer Protection
    • Is Le-vel Thrive a Scam?
    • Is Jusuru a Scam?
    • Is Beachbody’s Shakeology a Scam?
    • Is “It Works” a Scam?
    • Is Neora (Nerium) a Scam?
    • Youngevity Scam?
    • Are DoTERRA Essential Oils a Scam?
    • Is Plexus a Scam?
    • Is Jeunesse a Scam?
    • Is Kangen Water a Scam?
    • ViSalus Scam Exposed!
    • Is AdvoCare a Scam?
  • Contact
  • Archive

The Million Dollar Dog?

April 17, 2023 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

Today’s article is a little unique. It’s three articles in one:

  1. An obituary for my dog, Jake, who we euthanized in late March

    It’s extraordinarily difficult to write a dog obituary in a way that strangers will connect with. I’ve read a few online. I’ve included a link to one of my favorites at the end of this article. This isn’t the space for dog obituaries. I’m not ready to write one, and I don’t think it would be good anyway.

  2. A belated April Fools joke

    I love April Fools! I usually have an idea of what I’m going to write about a month or so in advance. It snuck up on me this year. I wasn’t in the mood to write anything that was humorous at all. I’m still not there. However, this article can be seen as a little tongue-in-cheek. Don’t take the premise too seriously. At the same time, don’t dismiss it completely.

  3. A personal finance article

    I write personal finance articles. Hopefully, the title was a hint that I’d try to stay on topic.

Let’s get started.

The Million Dollar Dog?

The Start of the Dog Business

Million Dollar Dog
The million dollar dog (left) with my 3 year old in 2015. The dog on the right was the second dog we’ve ever hosted.

More than fourteen years ago, I wrote an article exploring how much a dog costs. I had the wrong mindset back then. Instead, I should have asked the question, “How much money can a dog make you?”

When we got our dog back in 2009, I couldn’t have imagined that it would lead to a dog boarding career. It started as a tiny side hustle in 2015, earning about $1000 a month on average. All the pieces fit together to be a Rover.com host. I work from home. We have a nice fenced-in yard. My dog would love to have a friend come for a play date, so why not get paid for it?

I think most people will take an extra grand a month, but it certainly isn’t something that qualifies as a career. All that changed with COVID. With travel being shut down, we earned almost zero dollars for a full year. We were paying for a private school, and I was out of around $15,000 in annual income. In the meantime, I was teaching my six and 7-year-olds how to read and do basic math. My wife helped a lot, but she was working on the policy for the pandemic, so her time was more limited than mine was.

Everything changed when vaccines came out. Many people got dogs during the pandemic, and they wanted to catch up on travel. Suddenly, I was making $3,000 a month… then $4,000. I was getting so busy that I raised prices to try to get less business. I make a little more than $5,000 a month on average – over $60,000 a year. Some months are busy with school vacations or summer travel. We travel ourselves sometimes, and I can’t board dogs then.

Of course, this business would not have been possible if I didn’t have experience with my own dog. It also wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t fence in our yard for him to do his business. Jake loved being outside. Many days, he would only come back in to bark at me to tell me it was time for a walk. Whenever I got the leash, he’d hump my leg like crazy. Some people might have discouraged that behavior, but I thought it was great how freely he expressed his love. Most people don’t experience that level of happiness once a week. I loved seeing it from him a couple of times a day.

The Total Dog Boarding Numbers

Overall, I’ve made a little more than $175,000 boarding dogs. That seems low to me because I’ve been on that $60,000/yr pace now for a couple of years. That shows you that the first five years were slower, $12,000 years.

I don’t know if I’ll keep up this pace of dog boarding for the long term. I’m thinking maybe five or six more years, and maybe I’ll cut down. I can get help from the kids until then, but they’ll probably be off with friends, and maybe I’ll slow down as I get into my early 50s. If I continue another five and a half years at this rate, it will be around another $325,000. That would take me to a half million dollars in lifetime dog boarding earnings.

We’re halfway to Jake’s influence being a million dollars. There are a few ways to bridge this gap to get to the other half million:

  • Wife Joins in Dog Walking

    My wife is going to retire one of these days. She seems to push it out one more year. However, she came up with the idea of dog walking when she retires. I don’t go around and walk dogs because we have them come to our house, where I get some blogging done. She likes the idea of getting some exercise. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to build the business from the ground up. I would just add it to the list of services I do, and she’d get clients fairly quickly.

  • Kids Join in with Biscuit Business

    My 10-year-old is really into cooking and loves the idea of starting a dog biscuit company. We should hopefully get this started this summer. My 9-year-old is interested in cooking too. They don’t work well together, but I’ve got an idea of how they could make competing brands.

    We’ll fine-tune our recipes with all the dogs we are boarding.

  • Personal Finance Math

    Whenever a money projection doesn’t seem to work, we can always use what I call “personal finance math.” (This is the tongue-in-check, April Fool’s inspired part of the article.)

    Personal finance math is an easy way to make half a million dollars into a million dollars. Instead of using that money for housing repairs and such, I say, “Let’s invest that half million dollars.” If we use the rule of 72, we know it will double in about ten years if I earn 7% interest. By my early 60s, we’d hit that million-dollar mark.

Finally, I should mention that even if I slow down in five and a half years, it wouldn’t be a stretch to make $30,000 a year for the ten years after that. In the end, it may be a mix and match of all the above that makes the decision to get a dog back in 2009 worth a million dollars.

Jake’s Other Jobs

But wait, there’s more!

Every year around Mother’s Day, Salary.com puts out a “value” on the jobs that mothers do around the house. The list includes things like event planner, executive housekeeper, and staff nurse. They add up all these jobs and determine that a mother’s job value is $178,000 as of 2019.

You can do a similar thing with dogs. Jake didn’t just inspire a dog boarding business. Much like a mother, Jake performed a few other jobs around the house.

  • Personal Trainer

    I took a look at my Fitbit lifetime stats the other day. I’ve been using one since 2012, and I’ve covered 35 million steps and a distance of 16,000 miles. I estimate that Jake got me up and walking for half of them. He was getting me walking before Fitbit was around, so his numbers are probably closer to 10,000 miles. I found an article online that says that dog owners walk an average of 24,000 miles during a dog’s average 13-year life. Maybe my estimate of 10,000 is too low.

    In any event, it’s hard to dismiss the health benefits of moving around. More and more research is showing that a sedentary lifestyle of sitting at a desk typing all day is not good for you.

    Fortunately, Jake reminded me of this a few times a day when he thought it was time for walks.

  • Therapist

    As I mentioned above, a few times a day, Jake forced me to get some exercise and fresh air/vitamin D. In study after study, those two things have been shown to help with a number of mental health issues.

    However, you’ve probably seen the bumper sticker of a paw that says, “Who rescued who?” The fact that there are so many sold shows that it resonates with a lot of people. Even the American Heart Association recognizes how pets can help with mental health.

  • Exterminator

    Dogs are great at keeping mice and snakes away.

    Jake had a strong instinct to get any other animals. He never caught the squirrels he chased, but one time while we were on a walk, he did get a woodchuck. I gave him a couple of tugs on the leash, and he let him go unharmed.

I’m probably missing a few jobs that dogs can do. Obviously, some are guide dogs or licensed therapy dogs. Jake wasn’t either one of those, so we can’t use those to bridge the gap to a million-dollar dog. Still, the cost of a live-in personal trainer and a therapist is very high. Over 14 years, that adds up to a lot of money.

Was Jake a Million Dollar Dog?

Value is the eye of the beholder. I say yes, but I’m sure that many of you could make a strong counterargument. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

P.S.

Looking for that dog obituary? It’s One final toss for The Dooze.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: dog boarding, dogs, Jake

Does Materialism Breed Unhappiness?

March 27, 2009 by Lazy Man 10 Comments

Below is a guest post from LAL from LivingAlmostLarge and LAL Musings. I’ll let her introduce herself: “I’m a twenty-something DINK, living in the northeast searching for financial freedom. I hope to one day live large and be financially free, but it’ll only happen one step at a time. I admit to not being the most frugal or smartest financial blogger, but I think I’m giving a real perspective on the challenges faced by many other young adults. So please stop on by. I have a couple of giveaways going on including a 1 year subscription to Money Magazine if you subscribe to my RSS or Email feeds.”

This week I read this post called “Materialism breeds unhappiness, ” by Embrace Living. The writer suggests that as a society we use material possessions to value ourselves. Thus it breeds discontent and unhappiness because we are constantly wanting the newest fashions, etc.

She says that there is something within that is wrong with you that causes you to want material possessions. That we have to investigate what it is, work on it, and become happier. I guess she’s preaching the idiom “Money can’t buy happiness.”

Honestly do I think that? Well let me say this, money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly make you feel better. And anyone who says money can’t buy happiness hasn’t been poor. I am not knocking this chick, I don’t even read her blog. But BTDT [Editor’s note: is it a sign that I’m old that it took me three minutes to realize that this is “been there, done that”?] about being poor and HELL NO I’m not going back.

I believe money buys me freedom and peace of mind. It allows me the freedom to choose where I live, how I live, and what I buy. I honestly like having new clothes that fit instead of used hand-me downs. I like having better wine than $2 chuck. I like eating fresh fruits and veggies instead of canned. I enjoy playing my Nintendo Wii and having two dogs. Luxuries all of it. My DH definitely lusts after an iPhone or iTouch. Will it make him happy? Yes. Will he want something more? Doubtful, he’s been lusting after the iphone since it came out and still hasn’t gotten one. Think of it as delayed gratification

Are we materialistic? I guess so. Are we unhappy? Not really. Do we desire to earn more money? HELL YES. But I have very specific goals in mind. I want to be independently well off enough to quit my job if I hate it at the drop of a hat. I want to be able to pay for my children’s college, and maybe even a home down payment or wedding. I want to be able to drive a car without worry that it’ll break down all the time. I want to be able to provide for my parents (and in-laws) in case they need financial support.

So yes I’m materialistic. I’m also realistic. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure helps. Being poor doesn’t mean you are any happy. One could argue you are even more unhappy because you struggle to get out your circumstances. That you would love to new clothes, fresh food, etc.

So maybe over materialism breeds unhappiness. People who just spend for the sake of spending. People who are thousands of dollars in debt and need to go to debtor’s anonymous. Or perhaps those rich people who can spend money like water and never run out. Then perhaps materialism breeds unhappiness.

But to me it’s not materialism that breeds unhappiness. It’s the person themselves. It’s not about material goods. You can have no material goods and be unhappy. Happiness is from within and wanting material goods doesn’t make you a bad person.

Thanks to Lazy Man for allowing me to do this guest post. Please stop by my blog, I enjoy tons of feedback.

Filed Under: Psychology Tagged With: discontent, dogs, Financial Freedom, iphone, materialism, money magazine, nintendo wii, unhappiness, wii

As Seen In…

Join and Follow

RSS Feed
RSS Feed

Follow Me on Pinterest

Search The Site

Recent Comments

  • Joe on The Kids Are Doomed!
  • Joe on Summer Vacation 2023: “Rhode” Trip to Pennsylvania
  • Lazy Man on Running Out of Life
  • Dividend Daddy on Running Out of Life
  • Lazy Man on Summer Vacation 2023: “Rhode” Trip to Pennsylvania

Please note that we may have a financial relationship with the companies mentioned on this site. We frequently review products or services that we have been given access to for free. However, we do not accept compensation in any form in exchange for positive reviews, and the reviews found on this site represent the opinions of the author.


© Copyright 2006-2023 · Perfect Plan Publishing, Inc. · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · A Narrow Bridge Media Design