Annual Routine Care Cost

Just calculating how much I spend on my cats and thinking that this cost is extremely high....

• Annual Wellness Exam - $135
  • Office Visit/Checkup - $57.99
  • Rabies Vaccine (Louisiana Law Required) - $30
  • City License Fee for Rabies Vaccine - $15
  • Fecal Test - $30
• 1 Year of Revolution - $180
• Senior Profile Screening - $269
  • Blood Work
  • Unrinalysis
  • Chem II Panel
  • CBC
  • T4
  • Cardiopet Heart Scan

Total is about $600 per cat, per year. (I have 2 cats so my cost is $1,200 per year)

And this does NOT include dentals (for me, it is roughly $500 if no extraction is required), pet insurance ($12 per month, per cat) or any non-routine vet visits that sometimes pop up.

Is this standard?

Realistically, $100 a month to care for 2 cats does not break the bank or anything....I just feel like most pet owners don't pay this much for their animals! Or do they??? Do you?

That's in the same range as here, at least the vet that I go to.  Dentals are actually more here, from what I have seen dentals here are definitely higher than average.  Where I live doesn't have a tag requirement for kitties.

Actually I pay 289 for just complete blood work and no other diagnostics.

I get out for less than $50 for my kitties.  It's usually around $35 for the exam and then any shots are added to that.  My vet is awesome, though.  When I took both of my recently adopted cats in for their first check up and meet the vet visit, she didn't charge me anything except $5 for dewormer for one.  A couple of weeks ago, I took my neighbor's cat in after he'd been grazed by a car, and the total bill was $22.  No charge for a visit, only for meds.  My vet's clinic isn't high tech with all the latest greatest techno gadgets, but she provides basic care and routine treatments.

When I adopted the shelter said the average annual medical care cost was $300/yr. I put that in the CPI calculator and it came out $388/yr., but since it's medical the cost has probably risen higher than the rate of inflation. For the annual, I'd estimate the following:

--$50 office visit

--$80-$100 blood panel

--$40 urine test

--$15 rabies vaccine, $30 for Purevax (no other vaccines since I keep my cats indoors)

I pay $48 for an office visit, or $60 for a house call. Rabies vaccine (Purevax) was $15, though I've stopped getting any vaccines at this point, so this was a couple years ago.  A blood panel costs anywhere from $65 to $175 depending on what's included (the basic one my vet usually offers is around $130), urine or fecal tests are $30-$35. It's been a few years since I had to get a cat's teeth cleaned, but that was usually $300-400 depending on whether they had to extract any teeth.

I don't buy things like flea meds or wormers from the vet, as I've learned over time which ones are safest and how to dose them. That means I don't have to pay the vet's inflated prices anymore.

Basically, for a young, healthy cat I only spend $50-65 per year, per cat for a checkup and possible rabies shot. 

For my oldest cat I have spent over $700 at the vet so far this year, mainly on blood tests to keep track of her kidney disease.

There is a huge difference in prices by area.  From what I have seen here the area that I am in is higher than average.  I do spend more than average for this area because I go to a cats only clinic where the head vet is a certified feline specialist.  I started going there because one of my kitties has a chronic health condition that other vets I tried couldn't even diagnose much else get a handle on.  The best way to know if you are being gouged is to call around and get an idea about what other vets in the area charge.  I know here anyway the general vet clinics all charge pretty much the same amount for care.