I'll be honest with you—I've been through three cats in my adult life (all still alive, thankfully), and I've probably wasted close to $2,000 on supplies I bought at completely the wrong time. That expensive automatic feeder I got in 2019? Mittens figured out how to break into it within 48 hours. The timing was terrible because I'd just moved apartments and was already hemorrhaging money.
But here's what nobody tells you about cat ownership: timing isn't just about getting the best deal. It's about avoiding absolute disasters.
My neighbor Patricia—sweet lady, terrible planner—adopted a kitten on a Wednesday afternoon in March 2021. Didn't buy a litter box first. Do you know what a tiny kitten does when there's no litter box? She found out, and her hallway carpet never quite recovered from the enzymatic cleaner attempts.
The essentials checklist before bringing home your cat:
I bought everything from Chewy two weeks before picking up my current cat, Sebastian, from the shelter. Shipping delays are real, and I wasn't about to repeat Patricia's mistakes.
Black Friday/Cyber Monday gets all the attention, but here's a secret most people don't figure out until they've been cat owners for years: Chewy and Petco run their deepest discounts in January. Post-holiday clearance combined with New Year promotion budgets means I've scored 40% off on premium litter brands. January 2023, I bought six bags of Dr. Elsey's Ultra for $63 total. That same order would've cost me $108 in October.
Late summer (August-September) is when pet stores start clearing space for holiday merchandise. This is your window for cat trees and furniture. I found a $200 tower marked down to $87 at PetSmart in August 2022, right around the third week. The box was slightly damaged. The cat tree was perfect.
Spring is interesting because nobody talks about this, but veterinary clinics do wellness package promotions—these often include coupons for supplies bundled with exam discounts. My vet in Portland (Dr. Morrison's practice on Hawthorne) ran a thing in April where you got $50 in supply vouchers with a senior cat blood panel. Ended up being basically free bloodwork.
Sebastian started limping on a Tuesday evening in February. Not badly, just... off. By Thursday morning he was barely putting weight on his left rear leg. Emergency vet visit, $340, turned out to be a sprain (thank god). But I needed to set up a recovery area immediately—she specifically said he needed a low-sided litter box because he couldn't step high.
Every pet store within 15 miles was closed or didn't have what I needed. Amazon Prime was going to take until Saturday. I ended up at a 24-hour Walmart at 11 PM buying a plastic storage container and cutting the side down with a utility knife in my kitchen at midnight. It worked, but I learned something: keep backup basic supplies on hand. An extra litter box, an extra bag of food, extra water bowls.
Chewy's auto-ship saves you 5-10% depending on the product. Sounds great until you realize you're drowning in cat litter because you forgot to adjust the delivery frequency. I had seven 40-pound boxes of litter stacked in my closet at one point in 2020 because I wasn't paying attention to the schedule.
But for some things? Absolutely worth it. I've had the same prescription food on auto-ship for Sebastian since his kidney issues diagnosis in 2022. Hills K/D is expensive—$89 for a 17.6-pound bag. The auto-ship saves me about $9 per bag, and over a year that's roughly $108. Not life-changing money, but it adds up, and more importantly, I never run out.
Pro tip: Set calendar reminders to review your subscriptions. First Monday of every month, I check all my recurring pet orders. Takes five minutes, saves hundreds.
Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp—people give away or sell cat supplies for pennies when they're moving or their cat passes away. I bought a barely-used $300 cat wheel for $75 from someone in Beaverton who was relocating overseas. Met them at a Starbucks parking lot, inspected it thoroughly, drove it home in my friend's pickup truck.
Things I've successfully bought used:
Things I will never buy used:
I tracked prices on Chewy for common cat supplies for two years using a spreadsheet because I apparently have too much time on my hands. Here's what I found:
Litter prices: lowest in January and July. Highest in October and December. The difference can be as much as 25% on premium clumping litters.
Food prices: most stable overall, but manufacturer coupons are most common in March and September when companies are trying to hit quarterly sales targets.
Toys: dirt cheap after Christmas. I bought $140 worth of cat toys for $38 on December 27, 2021.
Cat trees and furniture: best deals in August (end of summer clearance) and January (post-holiday clearance).
My previous cat, Toulouse, developed chronic kidney disease at age 16. From diagnosis to the end, we had about 14 months. During that time, my supply needs completely changed—special food, subcutaneous fluid bags, smaller litter boxes, heating pads, non-slip mats for the hardwood floors because he became unsteady.
I bought most of this stuff from Chewy because I'd built up points over years of regular purchases, and they have incredible customer service. When Toulouse passed in December 2020, I had unopened bags of prescription food. Chewy refunded everything and told me to donate the food to a shelter. The customer service rep sent a handwritten condolence card.
Buy supplies for your aging cat before you desperately need them. It's easier to plan and budget when you're not in crisis mode.
Is this overkill? Maybe. But Sebastian eats expensive kidney food, and I'm not making $150k a year. Every dollar matters.