For as long as Chris and I have been together, we have planned to get a cat. We never got one in Britain because our flat in Brighton was barely big enough for two humans, much less two humans and a cat, so that set this plan back several years.
We had thought of waiting until we had somewhere with outside space here in Arizona, but as I think we are at least a few years off from that, we decided to go for it anyway. Some of the desire to wait until we had outside space came down to what I think may be a cultural difference. The Brits I have spoken to about this seem much more comfortable with outdoor cats. In particular, Chris grew up with outside cats who did their business in the backyard rather than indoors. Some of this preference may come down to less inside space, like our flat in Brighton, or just down to less intense winters than much of the US and fewer big, scary animals that eat cats like coyotes and hawks. It might just be a bit less dangerous to be an outside cat in the UK than in most of the US.
On the other hand, nearly all Americans we have spoken to, including our friends Ashley and Emie, were deeply uncomfortable with the idea of outdoor cats due to predators and other dangers out of the house. For instance, most of the lovely plants in our apartment community are actually toxic to both dogs and cats and you are not allowed to keep your cats outside at this property or most others. 
We had been gearing up to get a cat for a few weeks, doing things like covering dangling wires in tubing, when I saw an ad for no feline fees at the local humane society. This sped things up considerably given I saw the ad on a Tuesday and the offer was for the next day. Ashley, who has two cats, agreed to take us shopping, which was very useful as we were quite unprepared. Chris had only had cats as a child, never as the adult in charge, and I had only lived with cats when I was in Brazil in 2006. They were never my own pets, so though we had a vague idea of what we needed, it was fairly incomplete.
Here’s the video:
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