entry-meta, replace author with category

having a bit of trouble getting the category to display properly, i’ve removed the author variable and replaced it with the_category(‘ ‘) instead:

echo '<span class="posted-on">' . $posted_on . '</span><span class="post_cat">cat:' . the_category(' ') . '</span>';

but the problem is it seems to print the category BEFORE the time for some reason, here’s what is output on the page:

<a href="http://*.com/?cat=1" rel="category">misc</a><span class="posted-on"><a href="http://*.com/?p=14" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2016-04-09T01:41:43+00:00">2016.04.09</time><time class="updated" datetime="2016-04-20T01:45:08+00:00">2016.04.20</time></a></span><span class="post_cat">cat:</span><span class="edit-link"><a href="http://*.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=14&action=edit">Edit</a></span>		</div><!-- .entry-meta -->

not quite what where i’m going wrong here, anyone have any idea?