Q tip cotton swabs, wine corks, bottle caps and rubber bands.

One of my kitties loves cotton balls (she used to put them in our shoes) but they are unsafe for cats who try to eat them.

And the "red dot." It's not free, but no cat owner should be without one.

Paper grocery bags (handles removed). These don't make it home very often, but once every few months or so they do, and it provides hours of entertainment.

Don't let your cat play with rubber bands... it's essentially string and can get very badly trapped in their digestive systems! Also, the string the cat in the picture is another dangerous toy. Please stop using either right away.

My cats love paper bags or boxes, especially if they have a toy hidden in them. Same for a toy hidden under a blanket. I have a long box with a hole just large enough for their paws and I often hide a toy in there and they love searching it out. I have a long strip of fleece tied to the handle of an old fishing pole style toy that they love- it's like a snake and they like to chase it around the corners. I've hidden toys inside those little balls with jingle bells in the place of the bells so they can work to get the bell out.

My cat's favorite toy is a drawstring out of an old pair of sweatpants. It's too wide for her to eat, so I don't have to worry about it like I would smaller string. (She's also never even tried to eat anything that wasn't food. I know I'm lucky in that regard.) Next best toy is one of those bendy sticks with feathers on the end.

I second the q-tips. But watch you cat when they play with them. A cat can choke on them if swallowed. Rubber bands are dangerous too—they can get twisted in the intestines.

Our cats like random things. A ribbon that came on a gift (their favorite, strangely), a piece of hemp twine, the ties from hoodies, pony tail holders (again, don't leave them out unattended), tinfoil balls, balls of paper, most caps and lids, pens and pencils.

In fact if we buy our cats anything, they ditch it after a week. They seems to get more mileage out of the free stuff!

They also prefer sleeping in bags, paper box lids, and in & on cardboard boxes.

Floss. Fresh from the container, she can't get enough of its minty freshness (because catnip is a member of the mint family, I guess?). Plus, it's fun to chase.

One of my cats will go nuts for twisty ties. I used to worry that he'd swallow them, but I'm pretty confident that he just likes to throw them around.

Also, boxes are a favorite. Especially boxes that are just a little too small to fit into.

My Dekker doesnt really play with things. He will play if engadged though. Clementine: old satiny curtains, boxes, anything small that she can pick up with her mouth. She also loves water bugs/spiders anything that can bite her and cause over 500 bucks in vet visits.

Honeysuckle pieces. Also not free, but it has catnip-like qualities.

Also shoelaces of any kind. Basically anything on a string that you can drag across the floor reeeaaaaalllly sloooooowwwlly. ;-)

Me. Chibi likes to grab my legs and wrestle (yes, this hurts and yes, I'm trying to break her of the habit) and Squall will wrestle my feet. Otherwise, they love shoe laces, bottlecaps, balls of tin foil, computer cables (ARG!), my shoes and invisible floaties. Chibi-chan loves to get into my butterfly chair, too, and then I'll drag a finger sloooooowly around the outside and she'll chase the indentation. It's a ton of fun for both of us.

Feathers (crow, magpie, pigeon) I find outside. Put them in the freezer overnight to kill any bugs. Tape to the end of a long twig for a chase toy or just hand it over to kitty.

I thought our crazy cat was the only one who loved milk rings. Guess not! She also loves paper bags, boxes, and bugs. The bugs don't really like playing with her, though. Not so much, no.

holycrap my fatcat LOVES the ring on milk jugs...he positively FLIPS over it.

i had to pull my entertainment center out yesterday and we found alllll sorts of fun stuff the kidz scared under there... crumbled up klondike bar wrappers, my hair things, milk jug rings, coins, bottle caps, pen caps, pieces of popcorn, some candy hehe, and SO MANY HUGE CLUMPS OF CAT FUR hehehe

my cat's favorite toy of ALL TIME though is simply a crumpled up piece of paper. fatcat will come running from anywhere if he hears that sound. it's hard to get paperwork done with him around :)

Balled up pieces of paper about the size of a post-it note. Great use for subscription cards but other paper will do, too! I consider this an instance of "reuse" in "reduce, reuse, recycle." And of course I recycle them when they are in tatters.

The key to making these balls (which we call "crumples") exciting for cats is to either flick them with a finger or toss them in an arc over the cat's head. Our girl cat likes the former, our boy cat the latter. Flicking from a high surface is extra fun for them.

Drinking straws!!!! My cats love to play with straws. :)

twist-ties and plastic deli forks! I now have chilewich rugs, which allow for great sliding of the forks and twist-ties!

Tissue paper! My cat will go nuts over it. She bites it, trashes it and then sleeps on it.

She also loves raw green beans and if I'm preparing some for dinner, she'll meow until I give her one to play with. I'm sure to find it on my bed later on.

- balled up paper
- balled up tinfoil
- toilet paper rolls

I don't give my cat anything small enough to swallow, because he eats things. Also, I don't ever give my cat string because some cats will eat it and it gets caught in their intestines.

My cat LOVES those pipe cleaners used in crafts! I just twist em up and he spends hours chasing them around.

My kitty Fonzi once discovered a tampon in my purse and had the greatest fun opening it (something about that crinkly packaging), finding the toy surprise inside and then carrying it around by its "tail." I confess I sometimes give him one (unopened, unused!!!) to play with when he's bored. I know it's weird, but as long as the "toys" get picked up before company comes, who cares?!

Another cheap & fun cat toy is a shower pouf. Cats with front claws can actually catch those wads of net in mid-air, a very impressive stunt.

oh, my cat LOVES the milk jug rings!
her other favorites:

tissue paper

zip ties (she goes nuts)

chasing car lights across the wall (she will patiently wait for hours)

those tiny fake mice that come about 6 to pack

honeysuckle spray on her scratching post

paper/cloth bags and cardboard boxes

Rainybeth: the tampon idea is hilarious! i may even have to try it with chica!!

Guitar strings. That's probably dangerous in some way, too. But I don't give them to the cats on purpose. They seek them out on their own time.

Those puffy balls that (used to?) come on the backs of bootie-type athletic socks.

Paper bags. Yes. Hours of fun.

Newspaper.

Basically, anything that rolls around or makes noise when they jump on it.

When I was a little girl, I would take a scrap of cloth and sew it into a little pillow with catnip inside. I'd rub some catnip on the outside, and my cat would be entertained for hours.

My cats when they were babies loved the pen caps that fell on the floor (hardwood) or were on the edge of the table or metal Pellegrino lids (kitty hocky). My mom would make yarn balls and SEW them to keep them from unravelling and 11 years later, we still have them! Cashmere loves the CatDancer with the paper ends, Macchiato loves the feather on the end of a bendy pole. My dad got those--the kiddies will play with anything free!

My Szechaun sneaks hair ties out of drawers and purses (not my fault!) and loooves to bite paper. All the paper in the house looks like we took the world's tiniest hole punch to it.

Cheri had this weird thing with chasing a golf ball that, for some reason, was inside a wooden shoe that we have by the door. She got it out once and was super p.o.ed.

She loves anything paper-related. I have a low cardboard box in my living room right now, filled with paper to go out to recycling tomorrow... she thinks it's her bed. I catch her sleeping in it almost every night.

... Oddly enough, someone gave us a bed for her a year ago and I think I've seen her in it ONCE. Maybe if I lined it with paper she'd be more interested in it.

She also loves bendy straws - she'll swipe them right out of my drink. They have to be the bendy kind, though.

She went to stay with a colleague of my (now ex-)boyfriend's over the winter holidays last winter... they sent her home with lots of stuff that she loved but her cats wouldn't touch anymore. Free to us, I suppose. One of the things they gave her is this little jingly ball... but it doesn't have a bell in it, just some sort of ball bearing. So it doesn't jingle, it just clacks quietly... and it has a felt-ish covering. She goes nuts for this thing. Every once in awhile I fish it back out from under the couch where it inevitably ends up, and it's like Christmas and her birthday all rolled into one.

The reels from the middle of 120 (roll) film. I usually have a few kicking around and both cats love 'em - they bat them about for hours and are the only thing they will go back to without my intervention.

Lovin' all the cat love :)

Unfortunately, my cat's favorite toy is the cap to my USB drive. I have to be careful not to leave it out.

And my cat's favorite place to sleep is on the keyboard of my laptop when I forget to close it. I can walk away from it for 15 seconds and she's on it already. And then my computer starts going crazy. She always turns "narrator" on which I don't even know how to do and it makes my computer start talking.

Ping pong balls - packet of 6 for around $3 australian.

The holly berries that fell off my Christmas garland. Poe has no interest whatsover, but will chase them around the house for hours! I guess they roll *just* right!

One of my cats is obsessed with those milk jug rings! If you shut her out of the bathroom, she'll bat them back and forth under the door with you. She also takes them to the top of the stairs, then attacks them step by step all the way down a floor and a half (carpeted). Makes for great hilarity!

Peacock feather are a great toy to play with your cats, too. My other cat literally figured out how to get under the closed bathroom drawer and slide a paw into the gap on the side to pull out my hairties. It was an enigma how she kept getting them, until I caught her in the act! They are a choking hazard, so watch your cats when they play with them, but they really like them.