I sell computer software for a living and in my job I often encounter clients who rave about open source software (like Linux) because it’s “free.” My first inclination is always to remind them that it’s free in the way that a gift puppy is “free.” Once you get into the care and feeding of a pet you realize just how expensive free can be.

Taking that into consideration, it then becomes self-evident that keeping pets can be a challenge for the chronically debt-addled. I’ve already taken a lot of heat for implying that maybe (just maybe) it’s not such a smart idea to spend so much on pets that one can’t keep up with other obligations and becomes buried in debt.

Thankfully the heavy hitters at Mint.com now ride to my rescue, with new data from over a million Mint users, a representative sampling of US consumers, and data from wiki.answers.com. To make a long story short, it makes it clear just how the little costs of pet ownership add up.

Click on the image below for the full story.

Budget Planner – Mint.com