I buy cat food at Dollar General for $0.25 per can (chicken, tuna, and salmon flavors) and my cats like it just fine. I serve it to them on "paper plates," but not the cheap absorbent paper ones. Instead, I pay a little more and get the plasticized nonabsorbent ones. I take these inside, wash them off, and reuse them. I buy 50 plates for $2.39 at Dollar General. Plus I save meat packages and other flat store packaging to use for as cat plates. The plates cost $0.0478 each, but with at least three uses per plate, I get the average cost per plate down to around $0.016 per use.
