Joined Nov 2006
L10: Grand Master
Forum Thread
How expensive is it to own a cat?
October 15, 2025 at
11:51 PM
in
Chat
I've wanted one for a long time, but fear the cost. I really don't understand how so many people have one cat much less several. How do they afford the vet bills?
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Seriously though, 5 years ago my husband and I came home and found a bag of bones cat laying in our driveway and we thought it was dead. Sooo skinny and sickly. We're not cat people (never had one) so we set food and water next the house and wished it the best. Over the next couple of months it would wander up and eat the food but anytime we tried to get close, it ran away. We noticed his eyes were all gunky and he drooled alot so we finally decided to trap him and take him to the vet. This was NOT an easy task, he was EXTREMELY feral.
Anyway, turns out he was FIV positive, had all kinds of parasites and fleas and ear and eye infection, and missing most of his teeth. We had him treated for everything we could (FIV is not curable) and that cost us about $500. They wouldn't neuter him at the time because he was so sick. A year later we trapped him again and had him neutered and that was about $400. The vet at the time said he probably wouldn't live long because of the FIV but getting him neutered would keep him from getting into so many fights (which he always lost) with other cats.
Here we are five years later, and this damned cat is the sweetest, most loving little attention whore I have ever known. Not dead, still going strong, and still costing us gobs of money.
My advice? Get a healthy KITTEN and spay/neuter it while it's young (less expensive), keep it indoors, and ONLY FEED WET FOOD! Dry food is so bad for kitties but it's cheap so that's what a lot of folks feed them.
<br />
Seriously though, 5 years ago my husband and I came home and found a bag of bones cat laying in our driveway and we thought it was dead. Sooo skinny and sickly. We're not cat people (never had one) so we set food and water next the house and wished it the best. Over the next couple of months it would wander up and eat the food but anytime we tried to get close, it ran away. We noticed his eyes were all gunky and he drooled alot so we finally decided to trap him and take him to the vet. This was NOT an easy task, he was EXTREMELY feral. <br />
<br />
Anyway, turns out he was FIV positive, had all kinds of parasites and fleas and ear and eye infection, and missing most of his teeth. We had him treated for everything we could (FIV is not curable) and that cost us about $500. They wouldn't neuter him at the time because he was so sick. A year later we trapped him again and had him neutered and that was about $400. The vet at the time said he probably wouldn't live long because of the FIV but getting him neutered would keep him from getting into so many fights (which he always lost) with other cats.<br />
<br />
Here we are five years later, and this damned cat is the sweetest, most loving little attention whore I have ever known. Not dead, still going strong, and still costing us gobs of money.
<br />
My advice? Get a healthy KITTEN and spay/neuter it while it's young (less expensive), keep it indoors, and ONLY FEED WET FOOD! Dry food is so bad for kitties but it's cheap so that's what a lot of folks feed them.