by John Durant

Created on: February 03, 2008   Last Updated: October 02, 2010

How can you love your cats and save money at the same time? I'm going to share a few tips I've learned over the years that will help you provide a wonderful loving home and quality care for your furry little feline buddies on a relatively small budget.

Cat food will probably be the biggest expense in your weekly budget. Do your cats need the most expensive food on the market to live a healthy life? Pet stores will preach to you about the many benefits of feeding your cats the ultimate pet food, but I tend to believe that they're more concerned about profits than about the health of your pet. Frankly, I think it's crazy to feed my cats better food than I eat!

I've never used the cheapest pet food on the market because I don't trust the quality of the ingredients. I've always had pretty good luck with the mid-priced pet foods that most grocery stores offer, and I look for sales and use manufacturer coupons whenever possible. I mix different brands of dry food in a large bucket so the cats have a nice variety, but aren't subjected to sudden changes in their diet that may adversely affect their digestive process.

I leave a bowl of dry food for our cats to graze on during the day, and they always look forward to getting their portion of wet food in the morning and evening. I split a can (or pouch)of wet food between our two cats, and that has always been plenty for them to eat without waste. Our veterinarians have always liked our idea of feeding them both wet and dry food, but suggested we cut back the steady supply of dry food during the day if the cats get overweight.

Cat treats can be very expensive, and I really didn't realize how expensive they were until I looked at the price per pound. Typical pouches of cat treats weigh about four ounces and cost about $1.50 on average. If you figure out the price per pound, you're paying about $9.00 per pound for pet food! I rarely eat steaks that cost that much!

A little trick I've learned is to mix the expensive cat treats with regular dry food; I then place the "treat mix" in a different location than where I feed them their regular food, and believe it or not, they actually think it's all cat treats! I was so thrilled with myself when I discovered this effective little deception, but my wife was quick to shoot me down for feeling so smart about outsmarting a cat!

I've always fed our cats "table scraps" without any apparent problems. Scraps of chicken, chicken livers, turkey, beef, or fish are a lot cheaper than cat

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