It might sound cliche, but when your pets come into your life, they instantly become a part of your family. Our senior cat, Hissy Fit, has been part of the family since she was a week old. Her mother, a former neighborhood stray, brought her to our doorstep and asked if they could stay with us. Naturally, we said yes.
Hissy’s mother passed from cancer in 2021, making 2022 our first full year of being a single-cat household. We never really kept up with what we spent on the cats prior to that. It was tough to know how much we spent on each fur baby individually. But last year was our first full year with only one cat, so keeping up with concrete expenses was easier — although lonelier.
According to Rover’s research, cat parents usually spend between $305-$1,450 on essentials for their fur babies every year. However, we ended up spending over $1,700 on Hissy last year. This is a fairly typical spending year for us, since it includes a few splurges to keep her content in her golden years.
Here’s a breakdown of what we spend on our senior cat in a year. Plus, how we keep her happy, healthy, and active.
About Me
- Age range: Late 20s
- Location: Tennessee
- Living situation: I live with my parents (rent is expensive) and we all share in caring for our cat.
- Pets: One 14-year-old American shorthair cat.
- What are we reviewing: One year of our senior cat’s expenses by category
Breakdown of Spending by Month
Food and treats — average $74.14/month
By far, food is Hissy’s biggest expense. She eats Applaws grain-free dry food every day ($18.99 per bag) and goes through about one and a half bags per month. She also enjoys Applaws wet food packets ($2.39 each) two to three times per week for a dinner treat.
Her food is on the expensive side, but we switched to this brand in 2021, and she gained tons of energy when we did. Today, she still jumps, climbs, and zooms around like a cat half her age. She also lost some of the extra pounds she’d been carrying around.
Beyond her regular food, we also grab her:
- Gravy and broth packets: ($11.66 per month) As a senior kitty, Hissy sometimes likes the added moisture of gravy or broth packets to make her food more enticing. Water could always do the job in a pinch, but she likes the added flavor.
- Squeeze-up treats ($6.99 per month): Squeezable packets are her current favorite treats. They’re messy but adorable, and I love to watch her lick them. Although if you don’t squeeze fast enough for her liking, she’ll bite the tube.
- Other miscellaneous food and treats ($3.14 per month): On special occasions, like her birthday or holidays, we’ll give her Fancy Feast for dinner. She also gets a few bags of Wellness Kittles treats in her stocking for Christmas.
Total spend: $889.64 per year or $74.14 per month.
Vet & heath care — average $37.91/month
Despite being a senior kitty, Hissy hasn’t had any unexpected vet expenses or needed any kind of treatments or medications.
Her only real vet expenses are from her yearly vet visit. The breakdown includes:
- An exam ($55)
- A round of booster shots ($88)
- Monthly flea and tick treatments ($312)
Her regular flea treatment is Revolution Topical Solution for Cats. Though it’s one of the more expensive brands on the market, other options we tried didn’t seem to bring her relief. Only Revolution totally stopped her from scratching and biting her fur.
Since she gets supervised outdoor time every week, it’s important that she stays flea-free and comfortable. So, this is worth the extra cost.
Total spend: $455 per year or $37.91 per month.
Toys — average $0.91/month
As an older girl, Hissy doesn’t play as much as she did when she was little. But luckily, her taste in toys is inexpensive when she does indulge in play.
For example, she’s content to chase after a stick from the backyard as a makeshift cat wand. In fact, she actually prefers it to some of her store-bought toys we’ve had for years. She also enjoys supervised time outside. So, she gets stimulation from climbing our trees and keeping a watchful eye over the vegetable garden.
However, we did add a couple of new toys to her collection last year, which included:
- A cat dancer toy ($3.53): She loves chasing around small, textured objects. So, this toy was an instant hit.
- A variety pack of cat toys: ($7.42) These made a cute stocking stuffer for Christmas. However, she has mixed feelings about the individual items.
Total spend: $10.95 per year or $0.91 per month.
Supplies and gear — average $30.11/month
Since she’s been with us for so long, we’ve already had most of her essential gear on standby— including an elevated food bowl, an extra wide litter box, and a cat fountain. Her only recurring monthly expense is litter ($22.99 per month) and filters for her fountain ($11.99 for 12.)
However, we did splurge on a few new items for her last year, such as:
- A fluffy cat bed ($18.99): We thought she might like the warmth of snuggling up in a cozy bed for winter. However, she only laid in it once or twice before shunning it in favor of her usual favorite sleeping spots.
- A new collar ($29.64): Since her old collar was fraying, I went to Etsy to grab her a customized collar engraved with her name. It was extra in just the right way.
- A Halloween Costume ($24.83): When spooky season was on the horizon, I took the opportunity to order her a kitty Halloween costume from Etsy — an Attack on Titan cape. However, it was too big for her, and she refused to wear it for more than 30 seconds. Oh well.
Though the numbers will vary, we do try to get her a handful of new items like these from time to time. For example, she got a tunnel instead of a bed last year.
Total spend: $361.33 per year or $30.11 per month.
A Re-Cap of Expenses
Total spend: Including both her recurring expenses and extra equipment and accessories, we spent around $1,726 on her last year, or $143 per month.
Did you notice any inflation? Absolutely! Since Hissy has been with us her entire life, she’s basically a feline inflation tracker. We recall her usual litter previously costing around $15 a box. Now, it’s $22.99.
Inflation also came for her dinner bowl. Her new dry food went from $15.99 to $18.99 last year, an 18.76% increase.
Would you have budgeted differently? In retrospect, I might’ve spent less on treats. When we’re in the pet aisle, we tend to grab a few of her favorite things that total between $5 to $10 — and those small impulse purchases can add up.
However, when she sits next to her food cabinet and gives us her best Puss in Boots impression, it’s hard to say no to treats.
Would you spend the same amount again? More or less? In all, we agree that we’re happy with our current budget for our cat. The vast majority of our budget went to her food and treats — which are admittedly on the pricey side.
However, even though inflation affected the cost of her food, we’d still rather stick with the new brand since she feels better eating it. We believe that the higher-quality food gives her a better quality of life.
If we needed to save money, we could always dial back the amount of wet food she eats or cut back on extras, like gravy packets and treats. However, considering that she’s been a steadfast companion for the better part of a decade, spending more than the average pet owner is worth it for us — just so we spoil her in her golden years.
This story chronicles the cost of being a senior cat parent in 2022. A more recent look into the costs of cat parenthood shows that the annual expenses for one cat ranges anywhere from $325-$1,600, depending on factors such as location to your cat’s health condition.