Third cat? Talk some sense into me

The bug is upon me again. Over the past few weeks, I have been considering getting a new kitten more and more. As many of you know, I have two cats right now: Memphis (1 1/2 years) and Tails (4.5 months), who I adopted 4 and 3 months ago, respectively. They get along very well and they don't cause any problems.

This isn't a question of IF I'm going to get a third cat, but WHEN. My hesitation comes from me being in grad school right now. I graduate this spring, and I am interviewing for jobs that I would start over summer or in autumn, but right now I am living on student loans and some help from my parents. However, this is the perfect time time-wise for me to get a new kitten. I am taking four classes, which is only 16 hours per week I'm gone including travel, while a job will take up at least 50 hours per week with travel. It sounds like I a being impatient, but I am thinking about this long-term. I know a kitten is a large chunk of time right away until they mellow into adults and I fear I won't ever have the time for a rambunctious kitten again until I am at least married and possibly have kids (to split the time and responsibility up).

I understand one, maybe two emergencies would completely drain my emergency funds, and I wouldn't be able to afford it if all my cats got sick at once, but I do have enough emergency funds to cover some big problems.

In all honesty, this would be an addition mostly for my benefit. I would never do this if I thought it would be detrimental to my cats in any way, which I don't, but the desire for another cat comes from me and not how my cats are acting is what I'm trying to say.

I am thinking about getting a young female kitten to add some variety and drama to our situation. Right now I am on the look out, but I'm in the mood where I need to find the perfect kitten before I make any moves. On one hand I feel impatient, but on the other I will not make a decision without fully considering all the consequences and repercussions.

So after hearing my reasoning and situation, what do you all think about me getting a thrid cat? I'm trying to figure out if I'm not thinking about all the issues, or if I am understating ones I did bring up. I really want a third cat, and I know it would complete our house, but I don't want to do something that will end up harming my current cats.

This is probably the wrong place to have some sense talked into you about adding another cat?

I trust the people here to look after a cat's needs over mine. After explaining my situation, I would hope anyone that thinks I'd be in over my head or that it's a bad idea would say so, since I don't want my financials to come back and bite me in the butt.

Only you can answer that question. As you know, there are no guarantees with any of our cats that they will remain healthy and live long lives.

Good luck with your decision.

If you'd take a sweet 1yr old male... There is a cutie desperately looking for a home on the blogosphere due to the daughter being extremely allergic to cats... Transportation to you would be paid for... His picture can be seen here, as well as the contact info underneath his picture (scroll down to his picture, his name is Scar).

Because I'm considering 1 more kitten, while these 2 are still kittens, I say go for it

Originally Posted by rad65

I trust the people here to look after a cat's needs over mine. After explaining my situation, I would hope anyone that thinks I'd be in over my head or that it's a bad idea would say so, since I don't want my financials to come back and bite me in the butt.

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I don't think financially you are ready to give a home to another kitty. I would wait if I were you.

If you had an emergency with the cats that required your parents' help, would they?

I agree - only you can really decide financially if you're comfortable.

But timing-wise, it does make much more sense to adopt another kitty now. If I remember correctly, you're a finance grad? If you're getting a job IN finance, it's highly unlikely you're working 40 hours a week.

From discussions w/ my buds that have cats, relationships between two kitties are a lot easier to manage than with 3+, and if income devoted to cat care is a fixed amount, then you have to weigh the benefit of spoiling one or two versus spreading it out between many which means less of the slice of pie for each so to speak.

I would get your cats wigs and do play dates where you pretend you're strangers if you want to spice things up with something new.

"Oh hey gorgeous, you new around here?"