The price you pay when buying a Chinchilla is only a small part of the total cost. To help you understand how much to budget for, I summed up the Initial Costs that you (hopefully) only have to pay once, and the ongoing costs that you need to pay on a regular basis. As you can see, owning a pet chinchilla is not cheap (although very rewarding!). The total amount you need to spend is at least $265 upfront, and then $35 each and every month. To get a clearer understanding, let’s dig deeper into the numbers. Initial Costs The