<prompt> Human: My wife and I were looking at getting a bearded dragon for our son for his birthday. A young beardie is only about 60. So we set aside 200 in our budget counting on buying a reptile aquarium and some incidentals. Then we learned it needs expensive UV bulbs that last about 6 months and are about 40 each. Also the electricity cost the run this heat 24 hours can be a drain on the electric bill. Also the beardie needs to go to the vet every 6 months for a checkup. And finally, food. They have a very diverse diet and can eat up to 15 per week in foods. So I did a total cost analysis for a beardie that lives 12 years and it turned out to be a whopping 10,000 Life pro tip, do a total cost analysis on pets before deciding to purchase. Even free pets are absurdly expensive. In 12 years both of my kids are going to be in college and I will desperately need 10,000 then. I will not need an aging lizard.Edit: For everyone giving me shit about my poor son, dont pity him. First he didnt know about the beardie. Second we are taking that 200 and taking him to an amusement park. Hes fine. Edit 2: This post is not about dont buy pets, theyre expensive. The post is about make sure youre aware of the full cost of something before making a decision. Yes we have kids and dogs. Yes theyre more expensive than lizards, but for us well worth the cost. A reptile, not so much. Edit 3: Thank you all for the youre way overestimating and the youre way underestimating posts. The accuracy of the cost really isnt the issue. The issue is we were expecting something minimal and almost made a big mistake. The point is, we did the research and it was way more than we were expecting and wanting to pay. To us, it wasnt worth it. We have other pets. We arent frugal, but we are smart with our money. I am simply encouraging others to do cost analysis. And at the end of the day if a bearded dragon is worth 10k to you, awesome! Do it. Assistant: I have heard estimates that a dog will cost around 40,000 over its life.Human: We had a discussion on that a while back and just about everyone agreed that seemed insanely high unless:1. You have insane medical bills, probably near end-of-life2. You pay for daily doggy day careAssistant: This cost actually could occur if you include incidental costs. For example my wife and I built a backyard fence FOR our dogs, we had to replace carpet because of our dogs, we had to pay kennel costs when we would go on vacation. So aside from all of the real costs my incidental costs alone on my dogs were around 8000.  <response>: Plus if you rent, youre likely to have to pay extra every month for a pet. Im currently paying 30 per month in pet rent. 