Any way of feeding cats more cheaply?

[JellyBelly10]

My three cats are 10 years old and have always lived in the lap of luxury (they even used to have their own bank account before we had children!)! They have always eaten quite expensive food (Gourmet Gold and Perle and Hi-Life and all the other little tins that cost an arm and a leg!) as well as Iams biscuits. In recent years I have tried to occasionally introduce a cheaper food (as the rest of the family are having to eat cheaper foods, so why not the cats!?), and have ended up throwing a huge amount away. They won't even consider Whiskas of any kind, would think I had gone mental if I suggested they try any supermarket own brand, but will occasionally deign to eat some Felix, but not if it's the basic lumps in jelly in a big tin variety, it has to have a name like Felix Sensations, or Marinades or whatever else they charge you more for. But times are getting tougher, my husband's due to be made redundant in the next couple of months, and as a family we have really reduced our shopping bill by eating value brands and cooking everything from scratch. Even the gerbils are eating Tescos own gerbil food without complaint. But the cats have not bought into the whole economising idea and refuse to take part! I really don't want to just buy some supermarket own brand and then say "Eat it or starve" as I think they would just go and live somewhere else, such is their disgust of all things cheap! So what can I do? Does anyone have any good ideas for foods that I have perhaps not come across in my usual supermarket (Tesco)? How can you make cats economise?

Marking my place. Princess Sparkling Cat will only eat Felix as Good as it Looks and only the fish varieties.

I have tried all the others but like you say, I end up chucking it out.

I dont think you can.

Fluffycat is fine on Aldi ownbrand chunks in jelly, even the vet comments on his coat.

My mom always said cats will get fixated on a food and refuse anything else, she knew a cat once who would only eat fresh liver.

There stubborn little buggers thats the problem.

You may be right Fluffy. Our last rescue cat ate Iams which was great, no smell and you could leave it down.
Our latest cat won't even eat the v expensive Felix if it has been down for more than 5 minutes.

It is a well known fact that cats will only eat the most expensive food available.

Could you try having supermarket kibble in one bowl and then just put half the expensive stuff out for them, so not quite an eat it or starve, but an eat it or be hungry.

How about mixing a small amount of the cheaper brand with their usual stuff, gradually increasing the amount of cheaper food?

I've tried mixing expensive and cheaper and somehow they manage to eat round all the cheap bits, no matter how cunningly you mix them into the rest of it! It's the same with those cat foods that (for some unknown reason!) put little bits of carrot or pasta in with the food to make them look more like posh food! My cats manage to eat round the miniscule little bits of veg as if they'd picked it all out with tweezers!

I dont think you can either, cats are soooooo stubborn.
Have you tried alternating with tinned tuna (flakes from the pound shops or supermarket own brand?)

Check the prices on mysupermarket co.uk before you go shopping to see if anyone is doing any offers then stock up that way?

Last week in tesco they had 12 Felix 100g pouches on offer for £3.00 then I noticed 12 Felix 100g trays on offer for £2.50 (eyes in the back of your head with this shopping malarky!)

btw - we used to have a GSD who would wolf all her food down then when you looked in the dish later there would be the peas (and only ever the peas) left, licked clean of all gravy!

I've just switched our cats to tinned food from sachets. They didn't eat for a few days but now are ok with it.

why not make your own wet food? You will still need to buy the biscuits for the health of their teeth (unless you have the wish to make your own cat biscuits too!!)

large bowl of rice, mixed with a tin of somethig like pilchards in tomato sauce, spoonful of powdered vitamins for cats and voila! something most cats WILL eat, as it is "human" food. Store in fridge. We used to make ours every sunday and keep it in a big bowl (We actually did it for the dog when she had a severe wheat intolerance, but the cat loved it too) we varied the pilchards, sometimes tuna, sometimes ham (though beware salt content - we cooked the ham in with the rice to give it taste) etc. As our cat was old, we also added cod liver oil.

Teanosugar, our dog used to get family leftovers and would always leave the kidney beans from a chilli! no idea how he managed it. :)

We feed our cat on Costco's own brand dried food. A sack lasts nearly a year, althought she has never been a big eater.

It can be worth getting a really cheap frozen chicken, cooking it, and then reducing the stock so that it will set to a jelly poured over the shredded meat. Much cheaper than those 'domes' at nearly £1 each.

I've also known cats that love pilchards - our annoying bugger licks the sauce off most things, and leaves the rest.