It seems not at all surprising that a care worker (dog, kids) offering their services to centi-millionaires could make 100k/year.
To that "real estate fortune" family mentioned, it makes zero difference whether their dog walking expense is $5,000/year or $20,000/year. Thus, the same service providers in NYC make 4x what those in Kentucky do.
Although I was once in a shared Lyft ride with the nanny for one of the Getty children and thought it was funny the Getties were too cheap to spring for a full Lyft.
Tangential, but seeing friend and family adopt dogs and basically pampering them as much as they would a child I've been wondering if in 2023 a lot of people aren't using dogs as a cheaper stand-in for kids in areas where the cost of living make actual children cost prohibitive.
I don't know about the situation in NYC, but in Vancouver it's interesting how you nearly never encounter people with children, but you will see a lot more dogs. Could be an interesting correlation to study.
I've heard a few of my millennial peers say, "Plants are the new pets, and pets are the new children."
I agree it's definitely caused in part by the high costs of raising kids. Reaching enough financial and personal stability to have children can feel unattainable. Even reaching enough stability to have a dog isn't always easy: pet friendly places usually cost more (some even charge monthly "pet rent"), you need enough space for the dog to move, you need the time to walk the dog or the money to pay for it, etc.
I think these people are deluding themselves. Sure, dogs may cost a little less than kids in money, but not in time. Dogs severely hamper your lifestyle unless you work at home and don't leave the house much. Kids hamper your lifestyle for about 2 years, and then it eases up as they become more independent, but dogs never get to that point. Worse, there's a lot of things you frequently can't do at all with a dog, that you can with a kid, such as going shopping, going on a foreign vacation, etc.
I believe it. For various reasons my wife and I haven’t had children yet. We’re urban DINKs with combined gross income at nearly half a million per year. We have a 3 month old puppy and he is our baby.
The issue now is that the employment laws are so nasty in places like NYC that a scammy nanny can financially wipe you out with zero evidence.
That doesn't happen with a dog.
Laws just changed. This will become more common. Similar to how NYC paid out 500m to a collection of some legit and many scammy 'police misconduct' lawsuits.
We plan to, but life worked out this way so far. We’re still in our early 30s, and having the financial capability to thrive with children is very recent. We’re both rapidly progressing our careers so it’s hard to find the right time to shift direction. We’ve been together for a decade but most of that decade has been grad school, paying off student debt, paying lots of rent on entry level salaries, and so on :)
Yep. It’s especially difficult for my wife. She finished grad school at 28, and her industry is almost entirely within high CoL cities. We had wanted kids by 30, but when 30 rolled around it was a pandemic and we were locked in a 1000sqft apartment with my mother in law, and my wife was still new in her career and worried that if she took a break from her career it would mean never going back to it.
We’re in a place now that we can actually plan it out but as you mention, our time is low on the children front. There’s just very few sweet spots between “full career” and “no career” for women in some fields, especially if your childbearing dream includes taking a year or two off work.
It can absolutely happen right away though - there’s no way to tell for sure until you try. Our kid #1 (both aged 33) was first month of trying, kid #2 (both aged 36) took 3 months.
Most of our friends took longer, but another same-age couple had a similar experience to us.
So go in with low expectations, but don’t try before you’re ready.
“Geriatric pregnancy” is a term that is sometimes used to describe a pregnancy in a woman 35 or older. It’s best, from a biological standpoint, for a woman to have all of her kids before age 35. I don’t think most people understand this or talk about it enough.
Counter opinion: I regret getting a dog. Bad timing. It was around the time my second child was born. We are not succeeding at giving him the attention he requires because obviously the kids are the priority. He demonstrates his dissatisfaction by pissing on the stairs every other day. Pity, since you can tell he's a cool dog, just frustrated.
One of the reasons I rushed to get a puppy when we realized we were at least 6+ months out from any pregnancy is because I want my puppy to be fully grown and calmed down by the time we need to pour all our attention onto a newborn.
Puppies are actually nuts and are very needy. If I get another dog it’ll probably be when my future human children get to school age
I don’t think you’re wrong, but both the causes and consequences are born at the societal level so there’s a tragedy of the commons happening (where “the commons” is having a stable population I suppose)
People might be pampering their adopted pets, so there might be a huge market for walkers too, but that doesn’t mean that the owners train their dogs properly.
My point is, if you’re considering trying dog walking line of work, consider twice or thrice.
I'm trying to understand what this article is trying to do. Is it highlighting that even in an unlikely occupation, some can make it more than work (in which case, why the idiotic title?) or is it trying to pretend that the world has gone mad because dog walkers can make 100k, like some chain smoking robber baron talking to his robber baron friends over cognac and servants?
When I was a PM with a virtual care company we half-joked about offering vet services. When I gave it more thought, the idea had legs - people spend stupid money on pets.
I left before we even worked out the requirements, but they eventually launched it in restricted locations and I understand it's now the highest-margin offering in the portfolio
Pet stuff always has the potential to be a money printer because pets are a discretionary expense so their owners tend to be way wealthier than the mean at scale whereas even the most destitute person needs medical care. The catch is that these consumers are fickle.
I know one who might have a peak rate of $150 or $200 per hour--$25/dog * 4 dog for thirty or forty minutes (not NYC). But how well he manages to allocate his days I don't know, and I do know he worries. A sprained ankle could do in three or four days' expected income.
We're literally paying a Nanny to do basically this right now with our younger two boys. She has other duties, of course, but we could pay a housekeeper a lot less to have those other things done.
Unsurprising, to be honest. I live in Berlin and pay an average of 6-700 EUR per month for my dog have a pleasant change of scene/environment twice a week so I can be somewhat relieved of dogsponsibilities and focus on my SaaS. I miss her for the away hours, but I know she is in good hands. I think competent dog walkers and carers deserve decent incomes.
To that "real estate fortune" family mentioned, it makes zero difference whether their dog walking expense is $5,000/year or $20,000/year. Thus, the same service providers in NYC make 4x what those in Kentucky do.