haha wow, I always joke about how fiscally irresponsible my horses are but this thread is really driving it home. I live alone and keep my horses on my property. My budget for them is around 25% of my income, but vet bills have easily driven that up to 50% some years. I… don’t travel or indulge myself much 
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HAHAHAHAHAHA!
waaaaaaay more than 10%. Let’s see. Lets say I make 100,000/yr (not exact, but close enough). I have a barn at home and so I’ll count the mortgage as “house”, vs 'horse" expense, even though my mortgage would be half if I was financing a house instead of a whole farm.
Counting horse care e.g. feed, tack, vet, farrier as well as lessons, training rides, etc, and the farm-related expenses like tractor payments, fencing repairs, horse trailer payments), I spend about (in 2021) a little over $60,000. So about 60% of my paycheck (after taxes) goes to the horse addiction
I keep very detailed budget spreadsheets to help account for all the nickels and dimes, and with some unfortunate luck with accidents/injuries (because horses are all suicidal or homicidal) my vet bills the last 2 years have been about ten times the annual vet budget. But while on paper I make good money, I live paycheck to paycheck because of the horses. Totally worth it.
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As an accountant, some of you terrify me. 
But while I’m below 10%, I could easily see me having that be a higher number if I had a lot more disposable income. If I had everything else (including a good savings and retirement) in the bag I’d buy all the fancy things and go to all the shows and clinics and lessons because why not?
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ahhhh I think I probably spend like 75% of my income on my horses hahahahahhahaha
I don’t really spend on anything but them and my dogs? I’m a low cost person to keep alive lol
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36% … that’s eye opening. Biggest waste is probably my $250 a month in supplements that may or may not even be doing anything… (excluding Perfect Prep Training Day/worth every penny)
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Thanks, everyone, for being so respectful of one another! This is sacred “safe space” territory (or more realistically, we secretly know we’re all living in glass houses and nobody wants to throw the first rock 
). But I do think it’s good for everyone to do a personal check-in, in terms of how much we’re all committing to our horses/hobby (and if there’s a way that could be lessened).
(She says, as she starts planning for two years’ worth of deferred clinics and events and additional lessons she’d like to attend in the coming year… 
)
Why? A person’s spending habits are completely their own choice.
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Absolutely, they are. I’m sorry that part of my post seems to have overshadowed the actual point I was trying to make, which is that there’s nobody here judging anyone else’s spending.
I apologize if that one innocuous sentence came across as anyone else NEEDING to reduce their spending. That’s not the case at all! Personally, I’m always looking for ways to save - on everything. Being a one income household, it’s just a reality for me.
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All of it and my soul . Pretty close anyway!
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Ok I understand! 
Single income farm here too, but whether it’s Stockholm’s Syndrome or not, I have just accepted horse costs as fixed (or rising) at this point.
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Although I said its 30% of my income (which is true), I also work off some expenses at the barn and the real reason we can afford it is because I came into some money a couple years ago and have lower costs elsewhere as a result.
There are completely legitimate and perfectly good reasons to spend a lot of your income on your hobby.
Honestly, zero judgement here, and as I said–I wish I had more disposable income so that I could spend more on them.
I just know that if I were spending that much I’d be neglecting other things (like saving for retirement or a new vehicle when mine poops the bed). None of us have the same financial situation though!
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Y’all are making me realize i REALLY need to increase my income lol…
Very general estimate, before lessons I spend about 20% of my income on my horse. Add lessons, which are all currently taking place on other people’s horses because mine is lame, and that gets closer to 30%. FML!!! THAT’S WAYY TOO MUCH
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Uh just started looking into lessons on schoolies (my arena is closed until better weather) and since when did lessons go up to $60?? Yeesh. My instructor comes to me and charges $35, but she teaches out of another facility and it’s $60 there, plus I need to get serious about my riding (versus riding to train my horses, which is all I’ve done for the past eight years) and it’s $60 at the nice facility with quality jumping school horses. I am willing to fork it out on a limited basis but damn, FML indeed.
And yes I get that I am lucky to even be able to say “my arena” blah blah, but that isn’t even part of my revolving horse costs.
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I knowwwww! I started taking lessons at a very nice facility on a very nice schoolhorse where I get to jump every single lesson, which is something I haven’t had in a while and value very highly.
However the lessons are $75 each and when I started them, I basically tried to feel out the minimum commitment the instructor was willing to let me make, and that seemed to be every other week lessons.
However after taking this little look at my finances I’m very much considering asking her if I can reduce down to once a month lessons because… it’s just so much 
and in addition to these I also take $50 dressage lessons on a green pony that I’m riding at my own barn, and I definitely need lessons on her because she is super green. Ugh it’s just so much!!!
And I’m trying to save to fence more of my property for more turnout, I have two one-acre paddocks but now have four horses, and one goes out alone so the three on one-acre really eat it down… I was thinking about using my tax return, assuming it’s the same as last several years, to buy a used dressage saddle but may earmark it for getting the fence posts set professionally instead. Not sure if the extra paddock will save me in hay costs v fencing costs over the course of one year, but probably will over three years, weather depending. Because lord knows THAT isn’t getting cheaper.
OK now I’m depressed 
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Ohhhh I can sympathize with you on the lesson expenses! Good for you, though, for reducing down to every other week. I had to bite the bullet this year and take some hourly private carriage driving lessons as I’d really maxed-out what I was able to learn on my own.
$96 a pop. Every week for eight weeks 
I stopped when the weather got colder, but for awhile there, the lessons cost more than the upkeep and maintenance of the pony.
The only reason I had less guilt than usual over this was A) driving instructors are hard to come by and it just costs what it costs, and B) I actually managed to raise several thousand dollars this year by selling three rare collectibles that I’d been lucky enough to either win (raffle) or purchase before their value went waaaay up. So essentially, that has covered my mare’s upkeep for an entire year, an easy entry cart, a new custom Biothane harness, and two months of those prohibitively expensive lessons … with $3,000 leftover 
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I have one in full training right now in addition to my retiree at home so… yeah, really not going to add that up!
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Same ugh there’s always so much your money could go to… RIP
I think we are sitting roughly around 15-20% gross income for all animals. This year the companion animals kept up with the mare due to some mega bills and fostering at a higher rate than normal. A typical year would be more like 10-12% (full board, front shoes only, no showing, hauling vehicle and trailer outright owned, 6-8 lessons a year).
I wish that we could both enjoy the animals and have extra $$ to take a big vacation or two every year but if I can only have one option, the animals will always win.
If I look at how much more we could be saving towards retirement without animals it is sobering. However, we are still saving at a responsible rate. I’ve met too many people who held off on the things they loved until retirement only to find that their health or the health of their partner prevented them from doing it. I’ll never forget the story I heard (perhaps on here) of a couple who never traveled because they were saving for retirement. The husband finally retired, they bought an RV, and he passed away before it ever got a chance to leave the driveway.
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