People That Feed Only Wet Food, How Do You Afford To Do This?

saleri

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For people that feed exclusively wet food in cans, is it not exorbitantly expensive? How do people afford to do that? For example if we look at a good brand like Wellness Complete Health Minced Grain Free Canned Wet Cat Food (Pack of 24) 5.5 ounce. To feed a 12 pound cat, you would need to feed him/her 3 cans a day. And that's $2 a can. So that's $6 a day for just one cat? And a lot of people have two cats. So that's $12 a day to just feed two cats??? How do people manage to afford this?
 

game misconduct

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theres no way graycie can eat that much and keep it down i have tried she pukes it up. so i feed both a good dry and canned food at the same time. at the same time graycie is like my kid with some good budgeting on expenses on my part cost isnt an issue to me i will spoil,feed her the best possible way i can just like i do my gf they both deserve the best i can provide if i have less for myself its ok
 
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saleri

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Besides expensive I alternate with ff classics. I have started feeding my cats cooked ground meat their last 2 meals. Saves $30! Though I admitt,ez complete is $30 bot it lasts more than a month for one cat.
Not going to lie, I'm kind of blown away by how much food that is. One can is 5.5 ounce, so a 14 pound cat could be putting away one pound of food in one day? That seems like so much??!
 

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For people that feed exclusively wet food in cans, is it not exorbitantly expensive? How do people afford to do that? For example if we look at a good brand like Wellness Complete Health Minced Grain Free Canned Wet Cat Food (Pack of 24) 5.5 ounce. To feed a 12 pound cat, you would need to feed him/her 3 cans a day. And that's $2 a can. So that's $6 a day for just one cat? And a lot of people have two cats. So that's $12 a day to just feed two cats??? How do people manage to afford this?
Ground meat is a pound for $6. For my 7pd cat it makes about 12 meals. She does not eat much
 
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saleri

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I'm looking online now and people say you should feed 2-3 percent of a cat's weight? That would change it for a 14 pound cat from 3 5.5 oz cans a day to 1 5.5 oz can a day? That seems like a huge change???!!!
 

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Peaches is small. She cannot eat much so she is fed 4 meals a day. My cats mostly eat less than 5.5 oz can a day. If your cat needs to lose weight do not follow what you read. Other people will chime in to help you out. Male cats usually weigh more especially maincoons.
 

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We feed Wellness, and mostly wet, and we do the pâté in the 12.5 oz cans. We have two cats, and one can usually gets them 3.5 meals, and we do three meals a day (refrigerated in between with a saver lid). Each can is about $3.80, so it probably averages about $3.50 per day for two cats.

The bigger the cans, the better the deal!
 
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saleri

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We feed Wellness, and mostly wet, and we do the pâté in the 12.5 oz cans. We have two cats, and one can usually gets them 3.5 meals, and we do three meals a day (refrigerated in between with a saver lid). Each can is about $3.80, so it probably averages about $3.50 per day for two cats.

The bigger the cans, the better the deal!
Yeah I'm confused with the wellness feeding instructions. According to them, a 14 pound cat should get three 5.5 ounce cans, but now I'm hearing it should only be one 5.5 ounce can?
 

arr

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One 5.5 oz can would definitely not be enough for a 14 pound cat. My 14.5 pound cat eats 8.5 oz a day of wet food and 3 tablespoons dry. If he wasn’t eating any dry, he would be eating maybe around 11 oz a day of wet. I have him at 25 calories per pound of body weight a day. I ignore the feeding instructions on the bags and cans. Just add up the calories.
 

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Yeah I'm confused with the wellness feeding instructions. According to them, a 14 pound cat should get three 5.5 ounce cans, but now I'm hearing it should only be one 5.5 ounce can?
I've found that cat foods in general say to feed way more than cats actually need. Ours are like 10 or 11 pounds and I'd say eat about 6oz each per day. So for a slightly bigger cat, I'd probably do one and a half 5.5oz cans per day. One might be too little, but two might be too much and three would be a ton.

Now one of our cats probably would like to eat a pond a day! But she'd get super fat.
 

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re: affordability- I second Lari Lari re: bigger cans, better deal. still trying to balance economics of this myself. some helpful cost cutting things I've discovered along the way:
1) selecting brands w/ large size options really helps, there aren't many premium brands out there that does 12oz but I did find nulo which does in their turkey/chicken flavor so that helps. (though my cat is allergic to chicken/turkey, so it didn't help me personally much).
2) not overfeeding cat is also wise. apparently 1 in 4 cat is overweight, so I've been really keen on not overfeeding korra. it was a struggle at first figuring out all the caloric math, but we seem to have a good system down now. so keeping her lean which helps her health long term and also helps the cost of food, so win-win.
3) finding deals and then loading up on the food then
4) avoid shipping cost by order more in one order to meet their free shipping minimums
5) ordering by the case only
6) ordering direct (if possible)- I sorta stumbled on this idea. theres a local mum and pop store near me, and since covid I've been really wanting to support local small biz; I randomly called them up inquiring about special orders if they didn't carry the food- and long story short, they were able to provide our food options much less than competitors. our ziwi venison we ordered was only $45 compared to the $62 listed on chewy's website, so ultimately saved $17 a case...which really adds up!

re: wellness feeding amount; korra is 8.5lbs, and I give her 5oz of food a day divided into 4 meals. it works out to be 200 calories, a little more on treat days; so ultimately 23 calories per lb of weight; similar to arr arr suggestion. per chewy's site, wellness 5.5oz can for chicken is 186 kcal/can; so for 14lb cat it would be 1.8 cans per day (14lb * 25 calories= 350 calories per day; 350 calories / 186 kcal per 5.5 can= 1.8 cans of the 5.5 oz can). theres some give to this per their activity level and treats but I think you get the idea.

hope this helps!
 
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saleri

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re: affordability- I second Lari Lari re: bigger cans, better deal. still trying to balance economics of this myself. some helpful cost cutting things I've discovered along the way:
1) selecting brands w/ large size options really helps, there aren't many premium brands out there that does 12oz but I did find nulo which does in their turkey/chicken flavor so that helps. (though my cat is allergic to chicken/turkey, so it didn't help me personally much).
2) not overfeeding cat is also wise. apparently 1 in 4 cat is overweight, so I've been really keen on not overfeeding korra. it was a struggle at first figuring out all the caloric math, but we seem to have a good system down now. so keeping her lean which helps her health long term and also helps the cost of food, so win-win.
3) finding deals and then loading up on the food then
4) avoid shipping cost by order more in one order to meet their free shipping minimums
5) ordering by the case only
6) ordering direct (if possible)- I sorta stumbled on this idea. theres a local mum and pop store near me, and since covid I've been really wanting to support local small biz; I randomly called them up inquiring about special orders if they didn't carry the food- and long story short, they were able to provide our food options much less than competitors. our ziwi venison we ordered was only $45 compared to the $62 listed on chewy's website, so ultimately saved $17 a case...which really adds up!

re: wellness feeding amount; korra is 8.5lbs, and I give her 5oz of food a day divided into 4 meals. it works out to be 200 calories, a little more on treat days; so ultimately 23 calories per lb of weight; similar to arr arr suggestion. per chewy's site, wellness 5.5oz can for chicken is 186 kcal/can; so for 14lb cat it would be 1.8 cans per day (14lb * 25 calories= 350 calories per day; 350 calories / 186 kcal per 5.5 can= 1.8 cans of the 5.5 oz can). theres some give to this per their activity level and treats but I think you get the idea.

hope this helps!
Thanks for sharing! Just curious, 4 times a day is a lot, isn't it recommended to feed your cat 2 or 3 times a day? For scheduled feedings?
 

Babypinkweeb

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For people that feed exclusively wet food in cans, is it not exorbitantly expensive? How do people afford to do that? For example if we look at a good brand like Wellness Complete Health Minced Grain Free Canned Wet Cat Food (Pack of 24) 5.5 ounce. To feed a 12 pound cat, you would need to feed him/her 3 cans a day. And that's $2 a can. So that's $6 a day for just one cat? And a lot of people have two cats. So that's $12 a day to just feed two cats??? How do people manage to afford this?
Edit: I looked up your wet food which is 147 cal/5.5oz can, so if your boy is 12lbs and let's go with the average of 20cal/lb, he would only need a tiny bit over 1.5 cans a day to meet his calorie needs. Unless he's very active cat he would not need double his calorie intake which is 3 cans a day.

I don't know about that food but one of my boy is 11-12lbs and he cannot eat 3 cans of food! His calorie needs are about 20 cal/lb of weight so he eats 240 calories a day. So at most that's maybe 1.5 cans if the calorie content per can is low. His affordable option (purevita turkey) is like 195 cal/can so if I feed him exclusively wet that's only 1 and a quarter of a can. That means about $2.16/day based on the price of where I get them and how much I need per day. My other cat is 8.5lbs but even if they both had the same feeding amount it would total to at most $5/day for 2 cats. If he was less active I'd feed less calories per day. It's not even a cheap brand. I can only imagine feeding something like Tiki Cat requiring so many cans before meeting calorie needs due to low fat content. Maybe calculate how much calories your cat needs and how much are in the can to make sure you're not over feeding them?

A popular option that has good ingredients and is cheap is Fancy Feast Classic Pate in chicken flavor. For 240cal per day feeding it would be about $1.70 per cat per day, so with two 12 lbs cats would be about $3.44 a day.

If you're ok with some dry, which I am, I supplement their calorie needs with Dr. Elsey clean protein chicken dry food which is the only dry food I think is good enough. With this I can afford to rotate some better wet food such as Rawz in their diet.
 
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Willowy

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The recommendations on the can are WAY too much for most cats. Spayed/neutered sedate indoor adult cats only need about 15-20 calories per pound per day (now, feeding an 8-12 month old teenager is a different matter!). And most pate type canned foods have about 30 calories per ounce, so, yeah, a 10-12 pound cat may only need one 5.5-oz can per day, or possibly a little extra. And buying the larger cans helps too, if your cat isn't so picky that they refuse leftovers.

But absolutely, it's not cheap no matter how you look at it.
 

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saleri saleri I’m not sure, I haven’t read that anywhere but I also haven’t specifically researched either; figured if it’s the same calorie count shouldn’t matter how often she’s fed. Sorta like humans who snack all day versus those who only eat meals? Lol

we used to do three feedings but this made her morning meals extra large and bc she so food obsessed she would just swallow all this whole (not literally, but eat way too fast) and then vomit. She used to be a stray so I think there’s some defending her food sorta mentality she’s still stuck on (even though we’re a one household cat). I give her smaller portions to avoid the eating too much, too fast spit up scene.It’s been working and she seems to be less “food! Food! Food!” When I first see her in the am.
 

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I think two meals a day is too little for most cats. Unless they are outside and supplementing their diet with prey, which was common in the past.
For convenience, many cats have dry food left out for them which is not the healthiest option.
Microchip and auto feeders are useful for feeding wet food for cats when people are away during the day.
Good quality wet food that is more protein dense vs carb dense, tends to fill cats up more than carb heavy foods which are harder for their bodies to process.
You may find cats eat less on a good quality wet food diet.
Partly feeding raw along with wet can be economical with a nutritional supplement ( completer added) or using premade raw.
 

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I feed Friskies, Fancy Feast/Tiny Tiger, and throw in some Purina Pro Plan True Nature for variety. They do get some dry food during the week, but about 75% of their meals are wet.
 

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I feed about 50% Zupreem Exotic Feline canned, which is about $0.30 per 100 calories. It’s marketed for exotic cats, and many breeders use it for hybrids such as Savannahs.

Cheap and allows me to add in premium foods such as Tiki Cat, Koha, Rawz, etc for the other 50% of diet. Total per day for 400 calories is about $2-$3 (can be less if you feed a greater portion of Zupreem).
 
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