What's your cat food budget per month?

My friend and I were talking about pet food budgets, and I realized I had no idea what I was spending on cat food per month. 

So I wrote down what I was feeding the cats everyday, and how much. Then divided the cans and bags into meal servings, and figured out how much I was spending per meal, then I totaled all the meals to get cost per day. Then multiplied it by 30 days.

I ended up with $96 per month for 2 cats. That's for each to have Wellness canned in the morning and Primal Freeze Dried Raw at night, plus a small Merrick LID Turkey kibble snack right before bed. This is obviously based on servings so the exact amount might change between one month and the next, depending on when I order food and how long each case/bag lasts. 

Basically I'm just super curious if that's about the same as everyone else. There was an old thread about this, but it was from 2008 and I know cat food has increased majorly since then. So I figured I'd take a survey.  

How much do you spend on cat food per month?

How many cats do you have?

Cost per cat?

Also include what brands you/types of food you feed. 

My budget is around $30/$40. I buy big sizes and in bulk since we ha e two cats. I try to buy them Origen but my dad likes fancy feast ( the cars live with my dad and I see them all the time they are family pets that we both take care of) I get a discount at my food place since I'm a member and I also get free samples of very good grain free food.

Usually between $100-$125 a month. I have 3 cats on a wet only diet. They eat

Friskies pates

Soulistic Good Karma and Harvest Sunrise

Merrick pates (both regular and LID)

Fancy Feast pates

Purina Muse pates

Nature's Variety chicken and LID turkey

Pride by Instinct chicken, duck and rabbit

About $150 for two indoor and one outdoor feral. I feed canned and Purebites treats. I only feed Merrick kibble as a treat. Feral gets Friskies pates. Indoor cats get Merrick pates, Pride rockstar rabbit, red barn tricky chicky, tiki cat chicken or gourmet carnivore, nutro natural chunky chicken, Sheba pate, FF classic liver & chicken, Iams purrfect delicacies liver & turkey. This is my TNR Kitty who lives outside and eats 2 cans of Friskies a day!

I'm averaging around $30-$35 per month for my only cat. She normally gets fed wet food twice a day, unless I'm traveling in which case she gets dry. To save money, I buy cases of the 13 oz cans from Chewy - usually Wellness, Dave's, and I recently added Holistic Select. For dry, she gets EVO. For treats (mostly used for training), she gets Blue Buffalo and PureBites (I get the large bags for dogs). 

I don't really have a budget, but I know I'm spending more than $500 a month on "pet related food costs" which includes food for my dog, too. 

I have 10 indoor cats right now. 3 are foster kittens that are 4 months old. 4 are kittens that are 8 months old, and the other 3 are older. I also have 5 in an outdoor colony.

Right now I'm feeding:

Soulistic 

Nutro Natural Choice

Ziwipeak (both canned and air dried)

Rad Cat

Raw food I make

Orijen Cat & Kitten kibble 

Tikicat

Weruva 

FF classic chicken 

I add and remove different brands all the time so some of these come and go.

The feral's eat: 

Friskies pate

Sheba

FF 

I spent almost $30 dollars a month for Macha now Mia here so it will double the cost :-)

I have 2 young kitties around 2 yrs old.  I feed all wet and spend around $125 - $160 a month.    That's a lot for me and I wish I could reduce it but its tough on an all wet diet.  I also have one sort of picky cat who seems to only eat brands that come in 3 oz size.   They are young and playful so they eat around 6 - 8 oz a day.  My Rainy would eat more than that if I let him. 

Brands I alternate

Nutro Natural Choice chicken, turkey

Pride Instinct rabbit

FF chicken/liver, Turkey/Giblet

Tiki carnivore 

Earthborne chicken

Redbarn chicken

Weruva (though last month I bought an entire case of the chicken paw lickin chicken and they both refuse to eat it. Ugh!)

Sheba chicken, turkey

My one more picky cat won't eat these so I only buy these occasionally for my other who will anything

Natures Variety rabbit

Merrick LID duck

Lokhismom said:

I have 2 young kitties around 2 yrs old.  I feed all wet and spend around $125 - $160 a month.    That's a lot for me and I wish I could reduce it but its tough on an all wet diet.  I also have one sort of picky cat who seems to only eat brands that come in 3 oz size.   They are young and playful so they eat around 6 - 8 oz a day.  My Rainy would eat more than that if I let him. 
Brands I alternate

Nutro Natural Choice chicken, turkey
Pride Instinct rabbit
FF chicken/liver, Turkey/Giblet
Tiki carnivore 
Earthborne chicken
Redbarn chicken
Weruva (though last month I bought an entire case of the chicken paw lickin chicken and they both refuse to eat it. Ugh!)
Sheba chicken, turkey

My one more picky cat won't eat these so I only buy these occasionally for my other who will anything

Natures Variety rabbit
Merrick LID duck

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Mine love Earthborne chicken jumble, but it is very pricey!

Lokhismom said:

 
I have 2 young kitties around 2 yrs old.  I feed all wet and spend around $125 - $160 a month.    That's a lot for me and I wish I could reduce it but its tough on an all wet diet.  I also have one sort of picky cat who seems to only eat brands that come in 3 oz size.   They are young and playful so they eat around 6 - 8 oz a day.  My Rainy would eat more than that if I let him. 

Click to expand...

Will they eat Pate? Wellness comes in 12.5 oz cans and comes out to $2.40 per can if you order a case online. I could feed both my cats for around $50 a month if I only did canned. Dave's also comes in the 12.5 oz size and is even cheaper than Wellness. 

Lokhismom said:

 
I have 2 young kitties around 2 yrs old.  I feed all wet and spend around $125 - $160 a month.    That's a lot for me and I wish I could reduce it but its tough on an all wet diet.  I also have one sort of picky cat who seems to only eat brands that come in 3 oz size.   They are young and playful so they eat around 6 - 8 oz a day.  My Rainy would eat more than that if I let him. 

Brands I alternate

Nutro Natural Choice chicken, turkey

Pride Instinct rabbit

FF chicken/liver, Turkey/Giblet

Tiki carnivore 

Earthborne chicken

Redbarn chicken

Weruva (though last month I bought an entire case of the chicken paw lickin chicken and they both refuse to eat it. Ugh!)

Sheba chicken, turkey

My one more picky cat won't eat these so I only buy these occasionally for my other who will anything

Natures Variety rabbit

Merrick LID duck

Click to expand...

Mine did the same thing when I bought a case of the Paw Lickin Chicken.    It's like they KNOW that you bought a bunch of it and then decide they don't want it. What I did was keep it out of the rotation for a while and then add a can in here and there so it became a novelty in their diet. It worked. They ate it.    

Mine actually prefer the Soulistic Good Karma from Petco over the Paw Lickin Chicken despite the fact that the GK and the PLC are made by the same people and are almost identical. I put a can of each side by side once to see if there was any difference. The only thing I could tell was that the gravy on the PLC looked a touch thicker but it might have been my imagination. 

My cats are all different levels of picky. Lilith is a super diva and is extremely picky. Her sister Sophie is very picky and Henry is mildly picky. When I first brought him home, he wasn't picky at all. Then the diva sisters got a hold of him and that was the end of that. He took lessons and joined team picky although he's still better about food than they are.   

We have 3 adult cats, and one kitten on a wet dry combo diet and we spend approximately $160- on food and another $20 or more on treats... so I will go with a nice round $200 a month, or $50.00 a cat.  But they eats good.  I will also add that they are between 3 months and 3 years in age.  We have one with multiple health issues so she must be on a special diet, and we have one that was feral prior to moving in with us and having her kitten, so she has been eating more than the average kitty cat and hopefully that will continue to level off as she gets more comfortable with having food available, but for months, she has eaten every scrap of food that gets put out.  Even her kitten will try to eat everything in every dish and if he can't finish it off, he will scratch at the linoleum like he is trying to bury what is left of the food... and that piggy has never known hunger! And then we have one scairdy cat that gets fed with the other cats, but is to worried to eat right so she also gets fed when no one else is around if she asks really nice.

Kat0121 said:

Mine actually prefer the Soulistic Good Karma from Petco over the Paw Lickin Chicken despite the fact that the GK and the PLC are made by the same people and are almost identical. I put a can of each side by side once to see if there was any difference. The only thing I could tell was that the gravy on the PLC looked a touch thicker but it might have been my imagination. 

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Mine prefer Soulistic too. 

Yes, my more pickier cat eats mostly pate but I tried Wellness once and he wouldn't eat it.   He ate the kitten food when he was a baby but now he's a bit more stubborn      I've never tried Daves but perhaps I will give it a try.  My local store does carry it so I can test it out.

 Mine actually prefer the Soulistic Good Karma from Petco over the Paw Lickin Chicken despite the fact that the GK and the PLC are made by the same people and are almost identical. I put a can of each side by side once to see if there was any difference. The only thing I could tell was that the gravy on the PLC looked a touch thicker but it might have been my imagination

Click to expand...

Argh! Same thing here!  My both loved Soulistic I buy from my local Petco so I thought I'd buy a case of the Weruva since it's cheaper than continuing to buy the 3 oz cans(My store never seem to have the larger cans in stock and to buy them online is more expensive than the Weruva)

I figured they were the same exact formula but something must be different because both of mine turn there noses up at it.   I can only get them to nibble at it if I sprinkle Pure Bites on top of it.

just for my Luna, I spend about $32.00 a month.

I buy her food twice a month,

12 friskies canned wet food, that always last her 2 weeks&

1 80z bag of friskies hard food that lasts her all month.

she eats as she pleases, I leave her dry food out all day, but only feed her the wet food

in the morning, afternoon& before bed,

her treats are turkey& milk.

Lokhismom said:

 
Yes, my more pickier cat eats mostly pate but I tried Wellness once and he wouldn't eat it.   He ate the kitten food when he was a baby but now he's a bit more stubborn 

    I've never tried Daves but perhaps I will give it a try.  My local store does carry it so I can test it out.

Argh! Same thing here!  My both loved Soulistic I buy from my local Petco so I thought I'd buy a case of the Weruva since it's cheaper than continuing to buy the 3 oz cans(My store never seem to have the larger cans in stock and to buy them online is more expensive than the Weruva)

I figured they were the same exact formula but something must be different because both of mine turn there noses up at it.   I can only get them to nibble at it if I sprinkle Pure Bites on top of it.

Click to expand...

I have the same issue with my Petco. They always run out of the Good Karma and Harvest Sunrise. The last time I was there, I was searching the shelf for them and the manager came out of the back room. He asked me if I needed any help and I told him what I was looking for. He went in the back and found about 10 cans of GK. I took all of them. I told him that he needs to increase stock on those flavors because they are always the first to go especially when they are on sale. Get rid of a flavor that sits around and get more GK and HS. It's not rocket science. 

After I said that he said, "Yeah, we sell a lot of those."   Um..  I know. I JUST SAID THAT.       



I can never be without Pure Bites. When Lilith wants some, she'll sit on the table and stare at me. I know what that means. As soon as she does that I tell her, "OK. I'll get you some chicken." 

just for my Luna, I spend about $32.00 a month.

I buy her food twice a month,

12 friskies canned wet food, that always last her 2 weeks&

1 80z bag of friskies hard food that lasts her all month.

she eats as she pleases, I leave her dry food out all day, but only feed her the wet food

in the morning, afternoon& before bed,

her treats are turkey& milk

Lokhismom said:

 
Yes, my more pickier cat eats mostly pate but I tried Wellness once and he wouldn't eat it.   He ate the kitten food when he was a baby but now he's a bit more stubborn 

    I've never tried Daves but perhaps I will give it a try.  My local store does carry it so I can test it out.

Click to expand...

My cats liked the Dave's that say "pate" on the label. The other ones had chunks of carrots in it which they picked around. They prefer Wellness though. Did you try different flavors of Wellness? Cats are weird. Mine prefer chicken, and turkey... but aren't a fan of the red meat flavors like beef. 

My cats stopped being interested in any brand of wet food so they are really cheap now. I barely ever have to buy treats since they just get them for after teeth brushing or nail clipping. I buy a 13 pound bag of Nutrisca cat food for $24 dollars. It lasts about two months feeding my two cats. So it costs $6 a month per cat.

I bought some turkey canned food for Thanksgiving, hoping that maybe I'll be able to pique their interest in it again.

I spend around 40-60$ per month for my one cat. He is fed wet only, and brands like Nature's Variety, Wellness, Avoderm, Soulistic and Canidae. I shop sales and buy in bulk to keep it cheap.