How do you manage school dinner money at secondary?

At first he just ate rubbish every day. Then I cut it down and gave enough for a sandwich a day and 2 treats a week. When he started just buying rubbish and no sandwich (2 cakes and a soft drink a day), I moved him to pack lunches.

4 packed lunches a week - which I ram full of good healthy stuff. And he eats.

One school lunch when he can buy what the heck he likes, which thankfully is always a hot savoury meal. And then followed with junky treats. But once a week so I’m relaxed about it.

I use Parent Pay and top up 12.50 a week I love that I can view what the money has been spent on, whether it's a meal deal or snacks

My ds is now in the sixth form part of the school and since yr 7 has had roughly £20 a week on his cashless payment system.
He'll get a snack mid morning and then a hot lunch.

We have fingerprint and out £3 on a day, he can't have it put on weekly because he'll spend the entire lot in two days. Some days he spends the three pounds, others he doesn't.

DD1 is about to start and they use parent pay and fingerprints. She has cousins already at the school who get £3 per day and that seems to do them so DD will be getting the same. If she blows it all then she can take packed lunch.

My DD's school has the fingerprint system and I can see what she buys when I top-up on ParentPay.

I gave her a few weeks at a higher amount to try things and go crazy with her new independence, then dialled it down to about £14-15 a week and she knows if she's silly with it I will dial it down to just the bare basic amount for school meals. She takes in a snack for break and a water bottle so a lot of the extra spending she was doing at first was eliminated.

I imagine this will be an issue with ds. Dd dislikes the canteen as she cba to queue so has spent about £30 as she is now at end if yr 8. She does take fruit from free breakfast club and eat it at break rather than carry fruit to school.

Seem to be a massive range in pricing between schools

We have a £5 cap per day and I think DD spends around £3.50/day. I give her a snack like fruit or cereal bar or similar some days.

Packed lunch is a nightmare as they have to keep the packs in their lockers and in the worst case have to walk from the furthest building to their lockers and then to the canteen, loosing around15 minutes of a 45 minutes lunch break plus the treck back.

I have an automated top up for her card, saves me time and hassle. I can monitor the usage online but hardly do.

Ours have Squidcards so can see online what they have eaten and cost. I have it on auto top-up and don't have a daily limit but if you contact school office you can have daily limit set.

DS (y7) is super-sensible with money - he's ASD, thin, very restricted diet and I'm just glad when he's eaten but does at least eat lots of fruit. He gets very obsessed with price of every item, questions staff on it - he dropped Yorkshire puddings as they were 50p each and pasta sauce as that was 1 pound both of which he said were 'school rip-offs'. He told me yesterday 'there has been unreasonable apple inflation at school and apples have risen in price from 35p to 40p whilst halving in size'. He says he is therefore boycotting apples and instead getting oranges which the school have miscoded as ketchup and only charge 10p for but you have to get there quick as there are only 15 oranges a day.

It costs me £50 a month. Dc1 normally has a main (panini etc) and a biscuit. Dc2 has main and a sweet drink.
They have a proper meal in the evening

Ds gets £10 a week plus a couple of quid if we have change. I think he gets chips most days but we don’t monitor it. He eats healthily at home and is insanely active so I figure overall he’s doing ok.

When DD1 went through a phase of not spending the money sensibly I put her onto packed lunches (hat she had to make) for the rest of the half term. That cured her!

I top my dd lunch account up with £5 a week she sometimes takes packed lunch. After the first half term she realised that if she took a drink from home and a snack (usually fruit and biscuit) she could get something for lunch each day suck as a sandwich, pasta pot or burger.

How is £10 per month enough? Or are they taking packed lunch and this is just for snacks?

My kids infant school is 11 quid a week, so I'd imagine secondary to be at least 15

Mine ate all sorts at first but now has mostly a mix of meal deal and milkshakes or muffins. Costs about £4 a day- the card limit is £6. I think their tastes and needs are changing and they need the autonomy - we encouraged making your own lunch but that was a disaster!

School dinners at secondary have really expanded what DS1 eats. He's always been fussy but now he's eating proper meals, even vegetables. So I turn a blind eye to the croissants and cakes that he also has every break time. I just add the money to parentpay when he asks.

On the other hand I only used to eat cake at school. Many years later I get diagnosed with sensory processing difficulties and realise that the combination of unfamiliar food and too much noise in the canteen meant I was getting overwhelmed and grabbing a familiar and high calorie item so I could scuttle off to a quiet corner away from it all.

Im going to do what my sister does. The school has a prepayment card system, im putting £20/£25 a month on it and when its gone ds will just have to bring sandwiches from home.

Give them rules and threaten with packed lunch of they keep eating junk food.

Luckily my DD is pretty good, but I can see this being an issue with my son. I am going to get him to have junk on alternate days or something and only one thing. That seems the most realistic as he's a sugar fiend.

DD is starting secondary school in September and they recommend £5-7 per day for hot food. She's taking a packed lunch with £5 per week for treats. She can choose if that is spent on the school canteen card, in the supermarket or the corner shop on the way. She'll soon learn value for money.

My ds left school yesterday and never once ate there, preferring to take a packed lunch.

In year 8 they changed to a thumb recognition scheme which meant setting up an account and topping up the machine using the thumb print method.

I ensure she has money in her account and I can view what she spends on food daily. It's generally pasts and odd days a cake too.