Expats Would Rather Spend Christmas with Pets than Inlaws According to Study

This is a guest post from James Cave from TrustedHousesitters.com

Just how bad are your inlaws? According to pet sitting website Trusted Housesitters.com, the majority of us expats – 79% of us to be exact – would rather spend Christmas with our pets than with our inlaws. 

Now before you start nodding your head in agreement, the study wasn’t designed to highlight just how bad our inlaws really are, although interestingly in France the number of people who favour pets over inlaws rises to a whopping 94%! Instead the study focused on expats and pets and just how important they are to us at Christmas time.

Of the expats who took part in the survey, 72% plan to buy a Christmas present for their pets and just less than half plan to cook a special Christmas meal up for Fido and Fluffy. Typical spend on animals is less than 15 GBP, although 8% of expats plan to spend 50GBP and up on their pets. Interestingly no figures were given on how much these people will be spending on their inlaws, but you can be certain that a lot more thought will be going into the pet’s presents.

Money struggles and a general tightening of the purse strings won’t be playing any part in this Christmas’ festivities either; 83% of those who took part in the survey said that they weren’t going to let the current economic climate influence how much they spent on their pets.

Trusted Housesitters owner Andy Peck commented on the study saying:

“A large proportion of the pet sitting assignments that are posted on TrustedHousesitters.com come from expats so we’ve always known about the close relationship expats have with their pets. It’s good to see that the financial crisis isn’t going to affect Christmas for pets this year and that they can expect as good, if not a better, Christmas than the rest of us.”

What’s your take on the story and who would you rather spend Christmas with? Pets or Inlaws?

About the author

This article was contributed by Trusted Housesitters, the one-stop global house sitting site for homeowners and the right trusted house sitters.