Cat ownership costs
How much does it actually cost to own a cat? We looked at real-life monthly expenses.
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00:00 With the cost of living on the forefront of everyone's minds, I wanted to look at how
00:10 much it actually costs to own two cats.
00:13 This is Rupert, he is 11, he is a bi-colour British Shorthair and he's very, very friendly.
00:22 This is Oliver, British Shorthair, he's 8 at the minute, he'll be 9 in June and he's
00:29 quite a nervous character.
00:37 Now I've owned both of these cats since they were kittens and I'm going to be having a
00:42 look now at how much it's costing me in insurance to feed them, for cat litter, vet bills and
00:50 the one-off things that happen every year like their immunisations.
00:55 Moving on to food, I have for both of my cats, I've just recently started on Katkin which
01:00 is what you can see ahead of you and it comes frozen in pouches like this and it's actually
01:06 raw food which I'm trying out because when you read about it, apparently all the vets
01:11 reckon that this is the best way for them to eat, it's the most natural way for them
01:14 to eat and so I'm trying it and honestly they actually like it.
01:19 My cats are very fussy and both of them like it.
01:23 So what you have to do is you've got to take it out of the freezer when you want it and
01:28 let it defrost, I put it in the fridge to defrost.
01:30 Yeah, they actually really like that but I've just gone and had a look at how much I'm spending
01:35 on that because I'm out of the enticing trial offer now and £122.25 a month for both cats.
01:46 They have one each so that'll be breakfast for both of them and then this will be their
01:52 evening meal.
01:53 So no dry food with this, just that and some water obviously.
02:00 Before having this Katkin which is only like I say very recently, they were on the Royal
02:05 Canin dry food which for 4kg, I've just had a look, is now cheap online for £38.99 so
02:14 nearly £40 and that'll probably last you a month.
02:18 And then I've got to admit I am a little bit fussy about what I'll feed them so I was giving
02:24 them the higher quality wet cat food and that was in boxes.
02:32 I mean people will say that Royal Canin isn't the best and you've got to get more than 4%
02:37 meat in there but anything that's decent that isn't the likes of your supermarket own brand,
02:46 we're talking £15 a box of 12, more than that for Royal Canin which I think is just
02:53 outrageous to be honest, that's gone up a lot.
02:57 So you're easily spending lots and lots of money, probably the equivalent of what I'm
03:02 spending on Katkin.
03:04 And now onto cat litter, so both of my cats are house cats, they're predominantly inside
03:10 although they do go outside in the nice weather.
03:13 So they've got a litter tray and this Kat San smart pack stuff is from trial and error,
03:20 this is the best that I can get.
03:22 So I'm paying a little bit more for convenience, however the smart packs aren't that much more
03:28 expensive now than just the bags of cat litter and the eagle eyed amongst you will have seen
03:34 that the last time I ordered 3 bags, so there's 2 in each one so that's 6, was on the 13th
03:40 of January.
03:41 Now I need to order it again, so I reckon I'm going through about £40 worth of cat
03:47 litter a month.
03:50 Then we've got the cost of insurance which for these 2 cats combined is just over £30
03:55 a month and we've got vets bills, now that's once a year for their annual check ups and
04:03 vaccinations and for 2 cats at Christmas time it was last time, it cost me with some of
04:10 the flea and worm treatment about £80 for that.
04:15 So all in all taking into consideration the cat litter, the food, the insurance, the bills
04:21 and the one off things like the scratching post, the cat litter tray, the food bowls,
04:27 all that kind of thing, the toys, the grooming brush, I reckon it's about £200 per month
04:33 for 2 cats so if you've got 1 cat £100.