How to Save Money with pet costs
If you follow me on Instagram @mrsmummypennyuk you will know that we have a new addition to the family. We have a new kitten called Trev. We decided now that I have made the permanent move to working from home I wanted some company. A cat was that choice of company.
We visited the local Blue Cross Re-homing centre and went on the waiting list to get a kitten. Three month later we received the phone call that our kitten was ready to collect. Trev is black cross breed kitten; we were to visit to check he was right for the family and then collect him a couple of days later.
To prepare for the arrival of Trev we needed a few things and as ever I am keen to keep pet costs down. We headed to Pets At Home to get a few essentials, kitten food, wood litter, litter tray, poo scooper. We had everything else at home (pet carrier, bowls.
Trev is a very cute, placid and friendly kitten. He likes to sit next to me all the time, in fact that’s where he is now. He had his mad moments where he runs around like a crazed thing. He is brilliant with the boys and plays with them and their toys. And he doesn’t mind when Jack, my littlest boy picks him and carries him around like a baby.
Now its 4 weeks on there are other costs to think of, so I have been trying to save as much money as possible with investigation and advice from fellow kitten & cat owners.
Insurance
Trev came with 4 weeks’ insurance with Pet plan. They have been rather insistent on me upgrading my insurance 
and carrying it on with them. I called up for a quote and was rather surprised to be quoted an annual cost of £150. I say surprised as at the same time I was using the insurance comparison tool on Topcashback which told me that an equivalent policy online was around £4 to £5 per month.
My top tip is to use comparison sites for pet insurance, like you would with car insurance or house insurance. My insurance policy is costing me £40 after cashback rather than £150. Excesses and cover checked and it’s not so different from Pet plan.
Food
We have another cat who is a feral cat that lives outside, she just comes back for food every day. But when feeding her we noticed that Trev was fighting for her food as well. She gets Aldi pouch food which is £1.75 for 12 packs, so we figured it was fine to give Trev this pouch food rather than expensive Whiskers kitten food (£6 for 20 packs on special offer). This is the food we get now and both cats love it and wolf it down. I have also been told that Wilko is a bargain place to get cat food from.
I also give Trev leftover ham, fish and chicken for a bit of a fresh contrast.
Toys
We made these and the boys had lots of fun doing it. We have tied bells to ribbons, attached balls to lengths of wool. We have turned boxes into play areas. You do not need to spend money on toys for a kitten.
Bedding
In the early days Trev had to stay in an enclosed room, like his boarding cattery. His room was our utility room where his litter tray and bed and food was. It worked well as he quickly worked out this was his room to sleep, eat and go to the toilet. His bed was his cat carry case with a towel inside. Now its 4 weeks on and he is litter trained he sleeps on the sofa. I feel lucky that we have only had one accident in the whole time of having him.
Vets Treatments and bills
For simple flea and worming treatment, I have purchased the products from Amazon. For anything more complex I have discovered a new option PetGP. A worry with a pet is when things go wrong and the could be expensive vet bills. This service is something that may help avoid some of those costs.
You can pay for a one-off phone call at £12.50 or a monthly subscription of £4.50 per month to the service where you can call up the trained vet nurse team for advice. This will help you to put your mind at rest and could avoid some unnecessary vet costs. Maybe you need a second opinion or maybe something is concerning you.
There are of course some things that we must go to the vets for, injections and neutering are the things on the list for the short term. For injections, I will go to our local village vets, I am not sure there is a cheaper way of doing this. For neutering I have a voucher from the Blue Cross that means it will be free of charge.
Please comment if there is something glaringly obvious that I have missed.
This post is a sponsored post in collaboration with PetGP.
