I just bought a nice breeding group for Satomi this week and they are getting along great right now, I already feel like I've made the right decision for a multitude of reasons.1) Initial setup cost for DIY racks are minimal and they work fine 2) I have the ability to know all my feeders will be healthy 3) I don't have to dread going out of my way to pick up rat food on top of hoping they have the quantity and size that I need, everything is at home. (It has happened many times where I have had to move up or down in size or skip a day completely because the store I went to didn't have the sizes.) 4) You get to enjoy the rats themselves as pets(Working with morphs you like to breed makes things a bit more fun) 5) You can sell rats off to mitigate the upkeep.
These are the reason off the top of my head and I'm quite sleepy, but it seems like a no-brainer to me. As long as you have the time and are willing to put in the effort to maintain and upkeep them you can be breeding solely for your collection for free, or even expand and make more money off rats (assuming your customer base is large enough and that's what you want to do). There is a local business near where I live who opened up their 3 current reptile shops "museums" funding it with money they made from their rat breeding business.
I own 7 snakes with a an 8th on the way.
Like Jerry said, $1.50(which is on the cheap side) x 8(or however many you have) per week adds up. To roughly $700 a year in my case currently(Also on the cheap side).
I guess I just can't afford to only be a consumer.
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