Kittens, Kittens Everywhere!

Oh I want this furball soooooooooooo bad! Look how cute that little nose is! And all it does is want to play and love and be HAPPY in a cozey warm home!!! CAN WE KEEP HIM??????

I’ve been asking my wife this going on three days now with no luck ;) But let me backtrack a little…

If any of you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know exactly what this is about. For those of you who don’t, here’s the breakdown of the awesomeness that’s been happening around here – a nice change from the car crashing idiocracy a day earlier:

  1. Baby money and I are enjoying some fresh morning air on our steps, when around the corner – 3 feet away – we hear these itsy bitsy cries from something that could only be as adorable as a cat.
  2. And it was! This little baby cat, not older than a few weeks, putters right up to us and starts purring around our legs!
  3. We play with him, feed him, and then realize that we may have a problem on our hands – he has no home :(
  4. Is he stray? Lost? Where’s his mommy and daddy?? Where are his owners??
  5. We play and check on him every few hours outside while we call around a few places (we can’t bring him inside because we’re not sure how our cat will cope with him, and if he’s a stray we don’t know what type of diseases/etc he may have), and then we lose him.
  6. Yes, the lost cat is now lost again!!
  7. Fast forward until the evening when a neighbor comes by and asks if we lost a kitten? “YES!!! I mean, no – it’s not OUR kitten, but YES! We didn’t know where he went off to!”
  8. It turns out he wondered a few doors down and our nice neighbor brought him into her house to care for him until they could figure out what to do (they have 4 other cats and are no strangers to them). After taking him to a vet down the road, they got confirmation that he is indeed a “he,” but sadly has no microchip to point us in the right direction :( They’ve been going up and down the block looking for his home, but sadly have had no luck.
  9. My wife says we cannot have another cat as we’re already overloaded with responsibility and our money isn’t what it used to be any more (sad, but true), and we need to help find him a home.
  10. So we post up a “lost kitten” message on Craigslist, and we get two replies back right away.
  11. The first (and I kid you not): “Is his balls shaven? If so, it’s ours. We just had him neutered and we’d like him back please.” Umm….. no, he’s not shaven there. “Are you SURE?? You have to really poke around with your fingers around his nuts and look for the tiny incisions” “No. No incisions and no shavings – stop!” Haha…
  12. The second: “We saw a little kitten who was lost just yesterday around your area, and we’d like to give him a forever home!” Awwwww!!!!! That’s fantastic! “Wait, did you say he was a *boy*? Oh… the one we saw was a girl. And my husband said it’s best to have girls as indoor cats” Ummm…..

And that’s pretty much where we are today. Waiting to see if we have found him a home as yet (the person hasn’t committed one way or the other), and we’re also waiting back to hear from one other person possibly interested.

So as of right now it could go one of three ways:

  1. The CL emailer #2 could give him a home
  2. A friend on Facebook could give him a home
  3. The neighbor who already HAS him can potentially let him stay?
  4. Or we can give him a home as long as I can convince my wife ;)

And that’s the tricky part here – COULD we take on more responsibility right now? And DO we have the money to be able to do so comfortably? The answer might be yes on the 1st one, but the 2nd is far from absolute.

While calling around the shelters and vet earlier in the day, we learned it would cost us around $500 just to get him up on his shots and neutered and all set to go and everything for the first year. A shocking reminder again at how expensive cats can be :( And that’s if there’s nothing wrong with him.

But, interestingly enough, a kind friend on Twitter mentioned that sometimes if you tell the vets you found a stray but would like to give ’em a home, they sometimes discount it and so it MAY just be more affordable!

We call a few places back later that afternoon, and each of them say they’re sorry but can’t offer any support. “This is the time of year where kittens come out of the woodwork. The babies are being born from all the strays over the Summer, and then you have the owners of the house cats dropping them off on unexpecting people too. That’s probably how he landed on your door – the kittens are everywhere right now!”

Wow. Who knew it was such a problem? (Don’t answer that – I’m sure all of you pet lovers do and I’m the naive turd that doesn’t). LUCKILY though, she gives us a place to check out online who *does* offer discounts if your application is accepted and they’re not full. Which of course is a very likely situation considering the “kittens everywhere!” epidemic apparently going on right now.

We check out the website, and after adding up all the costs on the list we think there’s a good chance of it coming out to around $180.00 if we could pull it off. A MUCH do-able number than $500.00.

So that’s the spot we’re in right now – a limbo one while waiting if the others will give him a home, or if WE should be the ones to do so. I wish it were black and white to help make the decision easier (“If you don’t adopt him, he will go to a kill shelter”) but at the moment that’s not the case. And thankfully so ;) I guess the best case scenario is for the CL #2 family to give him that “forever” home, followed by the neighbors keeping him if at all possible. Something we haven’t directly asked them about, but I can’t imagine them sending him away with a bleak future.

Financially speaking I know it would be dumb to take on the extra expenses. We’re already trying to recover from this perfect storm that hit us this Summer, and we need to be MAKING more money and not spending more. But on the flip side, our hearts are saying DO IT!!! Take the poor little guy in – Baby $ and Money Cat will love playing with a new friend! It will be awesome!!!

Haha… I think I should stop there – I’ve rambled on enough :)

What would you guys do if you were in this situation? Or maybe you HAVE been in this situation before? Do any of you Virginia lovers want to come over and love him for us??

At the end of the day, that’s all I really want for our new friend – a loving home. As long as he gets that, I’ll be fine with however it plays out. He’s just a baby and still has his whole life ahead of him!

——
PS: You really do need to be following me on Twitter already – you’re missing out ;)

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50 Comments

  1. Aimee September 20, 2013 at 6:45 AM

    Maybe the local 4H will know what to do to find him a home? Advertise in a 55+ community? Make a secret cat chamber in the basement where your wife won’t find him?

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:10 AM

      Hahaha… you’ve been taking your smart pills this morning I see ;)

  2. a terrible husband... September 20, 2013 at 6:45 AM

    That’s a cute cat. It would be hard for us to let him go. I think we would set a number – say $100 – to get him all set up with shots, etc. and then hustle to get the number down. Gofundme, twitter campaign, calling vets for discounts, reaching out to shelters, etc. – whatever we could think of. If we could get it for $100 it was meant to be. If not, then we’d find him a good home somewhere else. This way, we could find out if it was “meant to be,” so to speak, or just a cat in the neighborhood who was the first living creature to enjoy having its nose close to my feet. :)

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:21 AM

      I actually did consider trying to raise money on this site and see if people wanted to pitch in like $5.00 to have a BudgetsAreSexy mascot, haha, but ended up scrapping the idea :)

  3. Mysti September 20, 2013 at 6:49 AM

    Oh he is darling!!!

    As a cat person (we have 3….one who was a stray and adopted us), I would probably just bit the bullet and keep him. Ask the vet if they will allow you a “payment plan” or something like that if the total is too high. Once you take the start up cost out of the equation, going from one cat to two won’t be that much more expensive.

  4. SB September 20, 2013 at 8:02 AM

    I’m in Virginia and would LOVE to take him :) Unfortunately, we’re in the same boat money-wise. My fiance and I have seriously been going back and forth about getting a kitten, but we have a dog who is having some health problems and is costing us a small fortune at the vet. So we’ve told ourselves we’ll have to wait until we get her sorted out before bringing another animal into the house. It’s a shame pets are so expensive! And also a shame that most people don’t realize how expensive they are until they’re in over the heads and have to give the animal up. Thanks for bringing awareness to the fact that kittens are everywhere right now (spay and neuter your animals!) and that pets cost a lot!

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:22 AM

      I got excited for a quick second that you may have wanted him!! But totally understand of course – they ARE more expensive than people realize, esp once you consider food and yearly check-ups etc – and that’s BEFORE they get sick which they always do :( My wife said if we ever hit the millions we’ll just build a small farm where they can all go and hang out one day :) I’d be down for that.

  5. Michelle September 20, 2013 at 8:28 AM

    Do you have a Petco or Petsmart near you? The local ones around here offer VERY cheap shots on the weekends. You can get all of the shots for around $50.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:23 AM

      Yeah we do, but it’s the neutering too that’s the biggie :(

  6. Brian September 20, 2013 at 8:49 AM

    Cute cat! I would defiantly find the resources to get the kitty the shots he needs and set him up with a good home if I couldn’t keep him. I’d keep searching there must be places that offer help for strays. ASPCA should have a list of local shelters.

  7. MrsPoP @ PlantingOurPennies September 20, 2013 at 9:03 AM

    Call around for discounted shots and neutering programs. Some of the shelters might even help you out there if they know you rescued him and want to keep him. Cats don’t have to be expensive – Kitty Pop runs about $250 per year. =)

  8. Carla September 20, 2013 at 9:10 AM

    I was just in your place in July. My boyfriend found a cat in the woods, and I told him if he wanted to keep the cat, they could both sleep in the woods. But, a few affectionate headbutts and amazingly loud purrs later, we have a second cat. Who has already needed several rounds of worm medication and antibiotics…. and that’s before shots and neutering. And we just dropped $1,100 for surgery on our 2-year-old cat. But every time one of them climbs on my lap and purrs, it’s totally worth it. Some things don’t have $$ values.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:25 AM

      Awwwww so nice of you guys!!! And your bf for bringing him/her back too – despite your threats ;) But they sure ain’t cheep like you know!

  9. Emily Hornburg September 20, 2013 at 9:22 AM

    I’m not really a cat person… but that kitten is super cute. If I lived there and my dog didn’t freak out around cats I would be tempted.

  10. John S @ Frugal Rules September 20, 2013 at 9:27 AM

    I think it would be hard for us to turn down a cat, especially if you were to ask the kids….but I think one is enough for us. I’d second Michelle, I’d try one of the local pet stores as they can often offer quite reasonable prices on shots.

  11. Heather @ Just Another Betsy September 20, 2013 at 9:37 AM

    Wow! You’re vet fees up there are quite expensive. I have two cats and was able to get them both fixed and all of their first year shots for less than $100 each. I’m sure there are some low cost vaccination pop-ups or sterilization programs. Or maybe it really just is that much more expensive there.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:26 AM

      I have no idea really – just that we called like 4-5 places and $170 was bet it seemed we could get :( But considering how housing and everything else in life is pretty expensive here compared to other areas, it very well be the location keeping the costs high!

      PS: Love your blog name :)
      PPS: And also your tattoos.

  12. Kali @CommonSenseMillennial September 20, 2013 at 10:02 AM

    If I were in your situation, I would keep the little guy – going from one cat to two cats will not have a significant increase on your pet costs. I second the folks who said to check with Petsmart/Petco to see if they have any deals. Also, do you live in an urban or suburban area? If so, and you’ve been calling vets in your area, I would suggest seeing if you can find a rural small/large animal vet. We live in the suburbs and just to take our cats to our local clinic starts with an office fee (about $50) and an exam fee per cat. That doesn’t include what the vet actually does as far as shots or medications! But I also have horses, which are kept with my parents’ horses on their land in a rural area. The large animal vet that we have for the horses also takes care of my parents small animals (cats and a dog), and I also use him for our cats when it’s something major because he is WAY cheaper than the city vets – he spayed and neutered ours (2 girls, 1 boy) for $170 total, and microchipped them for $15 each. The cat clinic by my house, on the other hand, wanted to charge me $200 PER CAT for the surgeries and $50 each for the microchips. It’s totally worth it to make the 45 minute drive to his clinic to save so much, so I think it’s definitely an option worth looking into – many of the vets in rural locations who care for both large and small animals are a little more no-frills and therefore cheaper than the vets who have specialty clinics in the suburbs.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:27 AM

      That’s a damn good idea actually! Hadn’t thought about that – running it by my wife when she gets back to the house! :)

  13. Heather September 20, 2013 at 10:06 AM

    I’ve had a cat since before my “frugal” days, back when I didn’t think about my spending. Now I can never go back. The shots and everything are a lot up front but the annual exams are a lot less after that. I think you can find a lot cheaper clinic too, such as PetSmart etc. I’m a cat lover so I say keep the little dude!

  14. Topher September 20, 2013 at 10:46 AM

    Banfeld (clinic at Petsmart) has an insurance plan where for one year, you pay around 380 and it’ll include check ups, shots, and neutering. It’s actually a great deal since I was initially gonna have my dog neutered but it would have been 500 for it alone. My ex and I had our dog under this Banfeld plan and it really saved us a lot of money.

    I would say keep it but I can understand how pet costs add up (having owned a boxer puppy for one year now). But at least you have options with the CL folks and the neighbor. Keep it though :P

  15. Staralfur September 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM

    We were put in that situation last week. We were at our complexes pool, and heard a kitten crying in the bushes. It was slightly dishevelled looking, so we assumed she never had a home and was probably the runt. We looked around for the others, but couldn’t find them (more on that in a minute)

    Anyway, we’re cat people so decided to at least take her to the vet to get checked up. $300 later, she had her shots and they de-flea’d her. We took her home to see what we could do. Our cat looked her suspiciously, then came over and licked her. Within an hour they were curled up sleeping together

    Now we have two cats.

    As for the rest of the litter? They were found over the next few days, and various people in our building adopted them. As for the mother? Who knows.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:29 AM

      Awwwww so cute!!!! Way to go on giving her a loving home!!

  16. Rebecca @ Stapler Confessions September 20, 2013 at 11:03 AM

    Ah! Sorry the CL post turned up a weirdo (Weirdos on CL; who knew?!) We don’t have any pets because my husband is allergic, so finding a new home for a kitty would be a no-brainer to me even though our preschooler would love having a kitty. If you can’t afford the kitty, I would try to find a home for him; he doesn’t need to be neutered right away, does he? It’s a good threshold requirement for a new owner: Whether s/he would put up the dough to get the procedure done. Hopefully that indicates that the new owner would be able to care for the kitty.

  17. Nick @ ayoungpro.com September 20, 2013 at 12:04 PM

    I would be doing the same thing you are doing, trying to convince my wife to let me keep him. :)

    In fact, we were just at a pet shop getting our dog groomed and I had my two year old daughter give mom the puppy dog eyes and ask for a cat. :)

  18. jen September 20, 2013 at 1:08 PM

    Craiglist cracks me up. hahaha

    I actually found a stray in MD and I’m trying to find her a home. Anyone in MD want a cat? (I had to try haha)

    Check out Luvmypet.com. They are a great company that drives around to different PetCo throughout the week to give affordable vaccinations. I take my dogs there all the time and I think they’re fantastic.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:34 AM

      We need a commune for them all :)

  19. Christine @ ThePursuitofGreen September 20, 2013 at 1:34 PM

    I don’t have any cats so I’m not the best one to offer advice on this! Haha…I have no idea what it takes to feed/pay/care for one. I’d imagine it can add up. Good luck with this one! Hopefully you get to keep, or if not find a home you can visit him in!

  20. Cat @ Budget Blonde September 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM

    I have to try so hard to not take in the stray animals here in Grenada. I have totally cried on the way to work more than once at having to pass up these poor sick babies. :( The reality is we live in a tiny place and have 1 dog and can’t fit any more animals.

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:37 AM

      Are cats and dogs considered pets there? I know when we were in Greece dogs weren’t so they just roamed the streets and were treated poorly :( The second you pay attention to one they follow you along everywhere like your best friend :) Very cool as a visitor, but also very very sad too :(

  21. Christina September 20, 2013 at 2:14 PM

    Depending on your state, a vet may need to give the rabies shot, but you can do the rest yourself for around $5. Of course, you’ll still need a vet for everything else, but you’ll at least save some money.

  22. Micro September 20, 2013 at 6:40 PM

    I think I would have a hard time turning the little guy away. It reminds me growing up we had a bunch of wild cats all around our farm. Every once in a while we would come across a litter of kittens and start playing with them once they were old enough. Nothing is more entertaining than laying down and having a dozen kittens climb on you. :)

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:38 AM

      I bet!!!!

  23. Andrew September 20, 2013 at 8:42 PM

    That seems really expensive! We adored a kitten that snuck into our apartment and it cost less than 50 dollars to get spayed and shots at the city animal shelter. They subsidize it to keep the start population down. Definitely not as nice as a very, but more in line with our budget…

    1. Andrew September 20, 2013 at 8:48 PM

      *Adopted and stray… typing on a phone….

      1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:40 AM

        hey, that’s pretty hardcore reading my blog and commenting on a phone – thx! :)

  24. stephanie September 20, 2013 at 10:26 PM

    Okay J$$$, there are certainly options to your problem-we have VIP Pets that give “kitty packets” (all the first shots, de-flea, etc) for $55. Like others have mentioned, you’ll find them at various locations like PetCo, and PetClub. ALSO, if you look hard, you will find FREE spay/neuter clinics. We have 3-4 of them a year here.
    Also, you have one cat. Another is not going to shoot up your monthly costs. Kitties are sweet and swell little pals. Mine is a feisty 7lb Siamese who acts all uppity but loves it when mommy comes home from work. She’s all over me with her Siamese talking and swirling around my ankles. She has been mine since she was 3 weeks old (the vet was afraid to tell me he didn’t think she’d survive a week with me); I took her to work, fed her from the bottle, slept on the floor next to her bed so I could feed her whenever she was hungry. She instinctively knew how to use the litter box (Thank you Supreme Cat Goddess) and the clincher. She’s totally blind in one eye, and only has about 50% sight in the other eye. I would never have abandoned here and to this day, she is my faithful little Nati (short for Natasha). She purrs like a steam engine when she’s really happy and I think you and your family should have the happy experience of a 2nd cat!!!!
    Not like I have an opinion or anything…

    1. J. Money September 21, 2013 at 9:42 AM

      Haha… glad to hear your little Nati is doing so well! :) Another fear we have is w/ our baby – like if the cat has some disease or scratches bites cuz he doesn’t know better yet and our baby gets hurt :( But we’re not crossing it off our list yet – just doing a little more thinking and researching until we come to a decision.

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your story with us – a nice happy ending!

  25. Daisy @ Young Finances September 21, 2013 at 12:50 PM

    What a precious little kitty! I have a hard time with animals because I’m in the habit of taking them home and then I have an animal farm. Though here’s the thing: Kittens are really easy to re-home. I’d find him another home and then if I wanted to get a cat, I’d find an old one at a shelter that nobody else wanted to adopt. There are so many of those.

  26. hannah September 21, 2013 at 2:57 PM

    I’d find a cheap way to get his shots and neutering, and keep him if I were you. My spouse and I found our first cat at an animal shelter and paid about $100 for her, with all shots and such taken care of.
    However she turned out to be sick, and we ended up paying $500 on her – money we couldn’t afford to spend! She’s been fine ever since though, and since she’s an indoor only cat we don’t have to worry about rabies shots, worms, and other things outdoor cats deal with. ( I know, I grew up with outdoor cats)
    We just adopted a second kitten from a shelter, and they were running a special – just $9! We would have loved to take one of the older cats, but our existing cat has such a domineering personality – a tortoiseshell – that it would have never worked. And indeed, the new guy has been here two weeks and she still hisses, growls and attacks him.
    If you have an existing cat, unless it’s a laid-back personality, you’ll have much better luck introducing a kitten than a grown cat.

    1. J. Money September 23, 2013 at 9:12 PM

      $9!! Now that is a deal!

  27. KK @ Student Debt Survivor September 22, 2013 at 4:54 PM

    How adorable! If a little one happened to wander to our home it would be really hard for me not to let him in. We ended up with two cats because I saw a post on petfinder that broke my heart (aunt died, nieces’ house got foreclosed on, she and the cats didn’t have a place to go). If I could have taken her and the cats I would have. But we ended up just with the cats. Bf is allergic so I told him I’d re-home them. 4 years later bf loves them (allergies and all).

    1. J. Money September 23, 2013 at 9:13 PM

      You have quite the exceptional boyfriend :)

  28. Claire September 22, 2013 at 5:58 PM

    Keep the Cat!!!!

    Call shelters, and charities etc, sometimes they do neutering drives where it’s $20 or something to de-sex. A de-sex-athon or something.

    KEEP THE CAT….

  29. Kerry September 23, 2013 at 1:45 PM

    We dealt with this same issue this summer. Unfortunately for us, we found a kitten that was near death and had loads of things wrong with it! Two intestinal parasites, ear mites, a crazy awful upper respiratory infection (that we are still seeing remnants of) and was so malnourished he was half the weight he should’ve been for his age (8 weeks). We had some interest on FB about adopting him out, but we had to put so much money into getting him well (probably close to $1,000 at this point 6 weeks later) that we need to get a return on this kid! So we are keeping him.

    I am sure your kitten doesn’t have all these issues, so I would say keep him and consider yourself lucky that your little dude is pretty healthy. Where with our brood of three other cats that we got suckered in to keeping over the last five does the madness stop!? Ours fit right in… after one cat, what’s two? After two, what’s three? After three, what’s four? Lol, they are all great and now that we are expecting our first child, I’m sure they’re going to get along just fine! It’s like one big happy family over here!

    1. J. Money September 23, 2013 at 9:15 PM

      Awww so cool of y’all to keep him! Especially with all those problems the poor guy had :( Def. something in the back of our minds too – as much as I’d like to think we could spend the money on a cat, we really REALLY have to be better about watching stuff over here… the perfect storm we’ve hit needs to clear up more for us to drop that kinda money :(

      1. Kerry September 23, 2013 at 9:18 PM

        Well we definitely have cat insurance on our other cats and will be adding it on him asap. It’s something to think about.

  30. Revanche September 23, 2013 at 6:45 PM

    Augh, I would have the worst time giving up the kitten .. but PiC’s allergic so that’s a definite no. Perhaps the shelter will do a discounted “rescue” neuter? It would kind of be hilarious to have everyone pitch in a few bucks to make this happen – after all, we all want YOU to keep it :D

    1. J. Money September 23, 2013 at 9:15 PM

      Are you saying you’d be the first to donate? ;)

      1. Revanche September 25, 2013 at 2:55 PM

        I got a few bucks for you and a cute kitten :) I’d expect to see some kitty updates though.