To ask how much a cat costs to keep?

We have 6 cats. The initial outlay was the most expensive with the spaying/neutering etc. The neutering was £160 each for the males and spaying was a bit more for the females but I don’t recall the specific cost. We pay £18.99 a month each for the pet health club but this includes all initial vaccinations and boosters, regular flea and worm treatments, 6 monthly checkups and an ad hoc appointment in case of illness or injury.

We pay £70 every 6 weeks ish for 10kg of a good quality dry food online and spend £160 a month on pouches. They each have one in the morning and one in the evening and graze all day on the dry food. We bought 3 fountains that are placed around the house as running water encourages them to drink more, these were £15-20 each on Amazon. We spend about £30 a year on replacement filters for these.

We don’t buy insurance and just pay as necessary for anything they need but our oldest cat has recently started getting age related health issues and we spend £40 a month on his medication which he will have to take for life. Depending on how his condition develops we could end up spending considerably more monthly on meds.

Insurance though for young healthy cats is really low, when we first got our eldest two we paid about £6 a month each. It does increase with age and isn’t really worth it anymore for our olds and we can afford to pay outright now if they need anything, although when we got them 15 years ago we were in a different position and it was definitely worth it for the peace of mind and for instant treatment if/when needed.

I've got two boy moggies who were free as kittens from a neighbour, but they're fairly cheap to keep on the whole. I know some people love their pedigrees but after years of getting expensive breeds with lots of hereditary health problems and quirks, I'd always get a bog standard moggie.

These are the costs for just one of them:

Neutering, microchipping, and first vet checkup - around £100.
Monthly vet plan (includes flea/worming and vaccinations) - £20 a month.
Pet insurance - £7.82 a month.
Wet food (I used to get some really posh stuff but it was very expensive. I found HiLife from Amazon is much cheaper and still has a pretty high meat content) - £0.65 a sachet, costs about £40 a month to give them two sachets a day.
Scrumbles dry food - £15-20 for a bag depending on the price in Pets at Home. Lasts about a month.
Cat litter - £15-20 for a big 5L bag which lasts a couple of weeks. Didn't have to buy this once they started going outside.

It's worth saying that we haven't had any big trips to the vets yet. The pet insurance covers quite a bit though, I strongly recommend getting your cat insured immediately just in case.

Cats can be a bit fussy with things too, so there's been quite a few wasted purchases, such as different collars which were pulled off and abandoned. We also bought AirTags for their collars but they didn't get used for very long because they couldn't hold onto a collar. Sometimes they don't like a particular food and you have to try something different, so there can be a bit of trial and error. A lot of cat owners will attest that you can buy them a fancy bed and they'd rather chill in the cardboard box it came in...

Whatever the cost, they're the best and have hugely added to our lives.

I’m so sorry 🤍

(I thought I couldn’t do it again, but then my current boy just turned up in a bit of a state so the decision was made for me.)

Our girl had to be pts last year with intestinal lymphoma - she was only ten and it honestly broke my heart. She was the most gentle, loving girl. We have a little orange (bonkers) boy now who's an absolute joy, but we miss her so much.

They absolutely are very special. I fostered a litter with a white flame-point boy who I still miss years later. He was a tiny nutcase who tried to suckle my nose.

We used to put sunscreen on our white cats ears. We used to use a purple kids stick. Fortunately cats are colour blind 😂

Our last lovely cat was white. We used to put sunscreen on her ears for this reason which she didn’t love but tolerated. White cats are beautiful!

My only tip is to think twice before getting a white cat. My neighbours white cat
kept getting skin cancer on her ears. She was really friendly and loved head rubs, but its surprisingly unpleasant to pet a cat thats had its ears removed.

Oh and you'll need to get two, them the rules

Good point about cats protection and getting the cat neutered, chipped and vaccinated upfront from them but you will have to pay their fee

i'm absolutely sick of paying for very expensive wet food that they just don’t eat. They can have what they want as long as they eat it - which they don’t which is extra annoying in this heat

I now feed them mainly dry purina and iams dry food which they head for before any occasional wet food they are given. They rarely get treats unless I’m trying to get them in at night or my mother is visiting

I would never scrimp on insurance it’s about £20 each a month. I could raise the cash myself but would hate to be in the position of having to pay £15k on the spot for treatment if anything happened

😂😂

This is my boy giving film star vibes. Black cats are just so luxe 🖤

I think this demonstrates why his insurance is over 50% higher

Nothing unsafe about lolling at the edge of a tower 5' off the ground and sleeping with my head down so all the blood rushes to my brain ...

Good job he's castrated . Shallow End of the Gene Pool this one !

My cat generally is about £700 per year . But factor in vet bills ( he is an old cat ) I could add on another £1000

Agree - Black Cats are ace
This is our boy , gracefully draped over the top level of the tower .

His sister is identical (but female , obvs )

I think the difference between my two is about £5 per month, so I guess it’s not hugely more expensive. I notice that someone mentioned that boy cats are more cuddly and friendly than girl cats. I have one of each. They are both lovely but I would actually say that the girl one is the friendlier of the two and definitely more cuddly. I only need to start smoothing her or approach her and she will start purring. The boy one was more cuddly when I first got him but less so now. He might be going through his teenage phase though!

I think it depends on the actual cat. I know people who have female cats that are very standoffish and shy.

I think I probably pay about £15 per month for food. We got her vaccinated when she was a kitten but not again. We got her spayed but I can’t remember the cost. And it never occurred to me to have her insured.

Just to add to my post from a few days ago OP. You need to bear in mind the cost of any vet’s bills that come under your insurance excess. I had to take my smallest kitten to the vet recently. My insurance excess is £250. So as the cost was lower than this and not enough to warrant claiming on the insurance, I still had to fork out £53 for the cost of the consultation and for some medication. All because she has had a bit of on off diarrhoea over the last few day. They are worth it though and I have no regrets getting them whatsoever.

About- £20-25 a month in food, £15 in litter per month (I use cheapest Tesco one about £2.19 a bag it really doesn't make a difference as long as you clean it regularly), £18 per month for pet insurance (Mines elderly it used to be half that when I first got her when she was 2) and £30 every 3 months for monthly Flea and worming. Not that expensive really in monthy costs.

Biggest expense was restricting our house-buying choices to houses on very quiet roads, not near any big roads. As my cats are very stupid. Like to lie around on the road.

But I love them more than any money.

Let me recommend Nexgard to everyone. It’s prescription only, there are some vets that will sell it. Most online vets do it and you need to shop around for the cheapest deals. But use a trusted online vet company.
It does everything in one pipette, once a month in the neck. Seems to kill everything quickly.

Works out about £100 for 12 months worth if you shop around for it. I’d never use anything else.

£65 a month for insurance and vet plan
Probably £10 a week on food - but he is spoilt and has hollow legs!
Previous cats were less than £5 a week on cat food
I do bulk buy and look for offers
Worth every penny

For each cat we spend £100 a year on Nexgard. It’s a prescription only flea/ worm treatment but does both with one pipette.

Annual booster is about £70. Then food which is down to you what you buy and how much you spend.

We don’t have pet insurance for our cats, but there’s a risk of high vets bills whatever pet you have .

We adopted a cat when she was 9. The cost for insurance was £18 per month plus flea treatment at £15 per month. Before she died at 14 the insurance premiums went to almost £80 per month plus thyroid medication. We had made lots of claims and fortunately they always paid out. Food is variable and depends on cat. It’s pot luck I think

£30 insurance pm
£55 in food pm
£14 cat litter pm
£14 vet plan

If there’s one thing I’d say, never scrimp on insurance - I also learnt quickly £4k max claim on insurance is not enough for a sick cat and paying into a bank account monthly wouldn’t touch the sides unless you are vet free for many years

cats are brilliant, they don’t bark and they shit where they’re supposed to. I keep dry food topped up and available constantly, and they get 2 pouches twice a day, they’re on Sheba atm. The only thing I will add to everybody else’s advice is you may not have that much choice over the food your cat will eat. They can be very fussy , don’t buy big boxes of cat food until you know they reliably like it. We also have a cat flap which will only allow our cats in ( you programme the cat flap and then hold your struggling angry cat under it for 30 seconds until their chip has been recognised. ) We have it so only our cats can get in but anything can get out . We also don’t leave water out for them as they never drink it. They will only drink out of our unattended glssses.