starting to feed them set meals

after free feeding my kitties for over a year now, i'm trying to switch them to set meals. i have 4 cats in the house and 2 are mine. when i free fed my cats i found my flatmates cats would come and eat thier food too.

so now i've started putting my kitties on the innova which costs me about $45 a bag. i don't want to sound mean or anything but because it costs so much i only want my cats to eat it, so to stop haylees cats from eating my cats food i'm starting to only feed my cats at set times(so far they are getting confused because they are used to grazing and they will nibble and when they come back the food is gone!)

what i wanted to know is, is it okay to feed my cats early in the morning about 7am, and then feed them at 9pm? is that too long inbetween? its because on thurdays i have uni that doesn't finish till then (9pm)

another thing is i wanted to ask is, do you think cats know what foods are better for them? say i put a premium cat food and say, friskies out in bowls will cats eat whats more nutritous or do they just go by what tastes better?

the reason i am asking this is because my kitties aren't too fond of the innova i brought them and since i'm feeding them at set times inbetween those times i was wondering if they might eat haylees cats food (since she free feeds hers)

Cats don't go for what tastes better, they go by texture and smell more than anything else. Have you thought about investing in an automated feeder like the furry feeder? You can set it up to dole out little bits or large amounts at certain times, so the cats can eat morning noon and night.

so are you saying that if they like the smell and texture of friskies better they will eat that instead of a premium food?

thanks for your help, maybe i'll try and feed them 3 times a day on the thursday i'm home late, other than that 2 times a day (the 2nd time about 6pm)should be alright, right?
yeah i figured they will proberly graze my flatmates food, oh well i guess i can't really do much about that unless i move out!
guess i'll just have to buy haylee a box of friskies to make up for what mine are eating!