If you have more than 2 cats…

[User2319]

If you have more than 2 cats what kind of food are they on and do you have insurance? How much does having multiple cats cost? I’m just wondering how people afford it. Is it just simply a case of having a high enough income? I have two cats and they have insurance, one of them is on normal supermarket cat food but the other one has a Gastro food for a sensitive stomach which is expensive.

I would so love another cat but we can’t afford it. Food, insurance, plus yearly vet bills for health checks and boosters and flea and worm treatment… some people have 4 or 5 cats and I can’t even imagine how much that costs. Especially because insurance premiums go up each year 😱

We have 3 cats.. 2 on standard dry food and 1 on a renal diet from the vet. No insurance we just budget monthly for vet costs and emergencies.. It does add up but we’ve made cuts elsewhere because they’re part of the family.. I totally get how it can feel out of reach though especially with specialist food and rising premiums..

3 cats and they are extortionate tbh.

£30 each pm to be on the vet plan, about £20 each pm insurance, one is on a veterinary diet and two are getting on in years so more vet visits, illnesses, conditions etc.

They are a lifestyle choice at this point. Wouldn't change it though.

We have 4 cats, 5 until very recently 😢
its really expensive…. All are insured and on the vets healthy pet plan. Plus food, litter, collars etc.

I think all the insurance and pet plans total about £100 p/m, flea & worming and annual vaccinations are in that. Food is about £60 p/m and litter about £10 p/m. As they’re all old now the insurance has a co-payment as well as excess.

I don’t think we’ll have more than 2 cats at a time in the future, once our current ones aren’t with us anymore.

a year after my old girl died at 19 I took on 2 cats from CP.

I was and still am shocked at how much they cost.

obviously wouldn’t change them for the world, but excluding family cats I would absolutely take on now in a heartbeat, I’d never get more than 2 cats going forward

Amazed that people manage to feed them so cheaply! I only have 2 cats and probably spend close to £100 per month on food. Greedy fuckers.

My two can have whatever they want as long as they eat it! They don’t. I waste a fortune 😀

I do give them some wet food but they prefer purnia or iamms dried food. The vet asked what I fed them due to their shiny coats

doesn’t have to be expensive cat food

I have 3 and they cost a fortune to feed. Their monthly food bill is way more than mine.

Mine aren't as expensive as all that.
I'd say ... per cat ...
£5/month parasite control
£12? /month food
vet bills (mostly jabs) works out as (?) £6/month average but higher when something happens
£25/month per cat I suppose, as baseline.
Nobody is on a special diet but anosomic cat only eats tuna right now... cheese, maybe Dreamies too.
The young cats hunt A Lot so that keeps their food bills down.

We can afford random vet bills so not insured

We have 3 cats and budget around £60 per month for food and cat litter (wet food twice a day, litter from costco). Then insurance is around £30 per month for all 3. They’re indoor cats and don’t mix with other cats at all so don’t bother with fleaing or worming unless needed. We also don’t vaccinate, they had their original vaccines but the risk is much lower for indoor cats for the diseases that they vaccinate for. 2 of our cats are adopted and find the vets really traumatising so it’s the best decision for us.
(I know this invalidates our insurance if they catch a disease that is covered by the vaccine but again we accept that risk)

I think £100 for 3 cats is quite affordable on a monthly basis

We have 12 cats (used to be 18) we probably spend around 200-250€ per month excluding vet bills (which are cheaper here, we’re not in the uk)

You're not wrong about the costs. We have 3 cats (used to be 4) and only manage it because of high income.

Cat charities will sometimes have a scheme whereby you can foster a cat in your home, or adopt but have some vet bills covered (e.g. the Cats Protection Golden Oldies scheme). This might help reduce costs, if it's something that would work for you.

Four cats - feed them Felix agail bought in bulk when on offer from Zooplus etc.
Don't insure them, don't have pet plans and only do worming/flea treatments as a cure rather than a preventative (we've had no fleas at all since 2019).
Had a few large vet bills over the last 5 years but we just pay them.
Food works out at roughly £80-100 month for the four of them. Cat litter about £40 a month (Costco a bag a week). So normal running costs of about £30-35 per month per cat.

I have 4 cats, 2 are fat grubbers so are on specialists diets (one regular diet food and one kidney diet food), the other two are an ideal weight so they have microchip feeders to stop the fatties scoffing all the food.
Food £140 a month
Litter £40 a month
DCat1 is always at the Vets, we don’t have insurance, I save £50 a month but DCat1’s bills mean the Vet Bill account is always empty!

All indoor cats so I maybe work and flea once a year in the height of Summer

Yes I spend £90 a month on food for my two!

I have six fat cats. Roughly £150 per month on food, treats and cat litter. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Never more than £200 max. Supermarket cat food - felix, Sheba, whiskas, go cat and dreamies, lik e lix, catit treats etc.
no insurance, not on high income.

My nineteen year old year was stil insured. Her final treatment was £1.500

We have 4 and yes, they’re expensive. We feed them supermarket wet food, but sometimes I buy cans online which is cheaper still. The two girls are a bit picky but the the boys are gannets and will eat whatever comes their way. We have insurance and Pet Plan from the vet. DH occasionally buys treats.

I suppose we afford by eating cheapest food ourselves, lots of veg. Lots of prepping and cookings but we’re both good cooks so the food’s good. We also save by buying clothes from charity shops, having few outings, growing some of our own veg, not having holidays. Were content, and we love our cats.

We have three cats - no vet plans and the oldest isn’t insured.

Food probably costs £50 a month - they get Sheba wet and Iams dry. The oldest has Metacam everyday for arthritis which costs £26 every 5 weeks or so.

We’ve got 3. All on dry food. No insurance but we have an emergency fund.

I have recently found this site for cheaper cat food. I have had some real bargains.

Helps with the two street stray cats I feed. Luckily they eat anything!

rhubarbstreet.co.uk/

Three here. All on dry food and one also on wet - I buy standard dry food and felix and I wait for the supermarket deals, it’s under 40 a month. None are insured, but we pay for the vet plan for flea treatment etc. The cost of insurance is very high for three and it’s not cost efficient for us at the moment. only one uses the litter tray and again I wait for deals and buy in bulk.

Last month one needed dental treatment which was about £240! But insurance would not have covered it anyway. The real price is all the destruction to our furniture!

What on earth are you buying for £90?!

I only have one, but would like more, but can't afford twice the cost.i have high level insurance as I don't have the income to supplement high cost treatment. I'd have 4 otherwise. 😉

Three cats.

not insured. I pay for flea and worm every three months. Food is fairly expensive.

Regarding food you do have to bear in mind that some have to be fed a fair bit more expensively. Tobias has a lower intestine issue so must be grain free for his wet, but has a tendency to get very fat so needs mostly light weight dry food. Girlcat however has developed a tendency to hairballs over the last couple of moults so needs dry that helps with that.

My beloved Boycat (RIP) developed CKD very rapidly and we put him on a kidney diet - that cost over twice as much as their usual food, plus Girlcat turned into a barrel within a few weeks. But the local rescue was very grateful indeed for the remaining dry and tins/pouches when Boycat had to be PTS!

I have the view that if you feed a good quality dry, you can get away with any kind of wet rubbish assuming they have both and provided there's no dietary requirements