Cat food on a tight budget

The cost of keeping a pet can be very expensive, very very expensive if you want to feed them some of the more costly foods on the market. People who can afford to buy pedigree cats and dogs might not be bothered about how much cash they part with when it comes to choosing which gourmet food to serve up. Animals with dodgy tums might need specialist food which can work out to be quite expensive. My cats are bog standard moggies, and get the run of the mill bog standard food. I would not be able to afford fancy food for a fancy cat.

Like my own food, I also shop around when buying for my cats. They are quite happy with Felix and Whiskas, my seventeen year old Bugsy has had a lifetime on Felix, and is still plodding around the house and garden in his own sweet way. He has only had two visits to the vet in his lifetime, he has been a very healthy cat, so he has done ok on Felix.

Today I have been out and stocked up, this little haul cost £74. I went online this morning and checked out where the special offers were. Pets At Home have Felix pouches on at £2.50 a box of 12. Sainsbury's has this on at £3 a box, in Tesco it's £3.68. I got the Whiskas pouches from Tesco at £2.50 a box. In Sainsbury's it's 2 for £6, in Pets At Home it's £3.69. The Whiskas dry 2kg bags were £3.50 from Tesco. At Pets At Home it's £5.49, and at Sainsbury's it's £4.49. So no contest.  

Other supermarkets within my town were checked. I never pay full price for cat food. The special offers rotate around all the supermarkets in turn, so I stock up when I can get it. This will last me a while, but when it starts getting low I will check prices again, and find the offers.

The cat litter I am getting from Poundstretcher at the moment. This is a cheap clumping clay based one at £1 for a 10kg bag. It's a bit of a mixture when you open it, sometimes a bit dusty but I can put up with it. It's the cheapest one I can find, it's a bit like the supermarkets own brand which Tesco sell at £1.55. I have four litter boxes dotted about the house, two upstairs and two downstairs. They are just starting to use them again now the weather is cold and wet. I am sometimes woken up in the night by the pong of a freshly dropped poo which they haven't bothered to cover up. Yuk. Sweet little darlings, ha ha. I have to get up and move it.

This is Mayze's preferred place to eat. Every time she hears me moving about in the kitchen she dashes in at 100 mph and dives onto the window sill. Her saucer is always there, ready for whatever morsel I might put onto it. She won't eat wet cat food, has the dry Whiskas from the bowl on the floor, and sometimes gets a little treat of cooked ham on her saucer.

I did spend a little bit of money on my own food today. I was a bit early for the third markdown on the yellow stickers at Tesco, but I got a few with a second markdown, which was still a good saving.

I've just done the draw for the make it yourself shopping bag. Ten names went into it. I did the eeny meeny miney mo thing, and Debbie in Canada was the name to come out tops. So, Debbie, if you send me your name and address either email, or in a comment which I won't publish, I will get it off to you pronto. You mentioned something about putting a logo on it, best to do that before you sew the two sides together. Well done, and thanks to everyone for taking part.

It's very windy tonight, but I am snug and well wrapped up. No heating on yet, just the fleecy dressing gown over the top of my clothes. Hope you are snug where you are.
Toodle pip.