How much do secondary school dinners cost you a week?

[MsWalterMitty]

My son has just started yr7 and at the rate he’s going it’ll be approx £20 a week.

How much do your dc spend weekly and do you have spending rules?

We had to get the school to limit his spends, he blew his weeks dinner money in a couple of days on snacks & junk in the beginning!

But yes, for a meal and drink it was quite costly, add a break time snack on & it was £20-£25 a week.

We have proper dinners rather than a buffet, (and they all cost £2.75.

No fizzy drinks, water only, unlimited fruit.

I have a spending limit of £15 a week.
The food is shite.

Between £2.50-£3.00 a day. It adds up 😕

Yeah, ours is between £2.75 and £4 for a meal and a drink.

We can put a daily cap on. DD spends £30 a week, but that includes a snack at first break.

I'm topping up £15 a week so budgeting £3 a day.
Meal deals here are £2.40.
DC hasn't been using the canteen at break.

I felt terrible pulling my dd up on it because I didn’t want her to feel she couldn’t have something to eat or drink when she needed, but she absolutely took the piss when she first started school, she was spending about £6 a day. We can see what she’s buying on an app though, so when I had a look she was buying all kinds of cookies and crepes and pizzas with fizzy drinks just on her break times, as well as a full meal with dessert and more drinks for her lunch. She’s limited now to a snack and water at break and a meal deal for lunch (still £3-£4 a day).

Looks like it's £5 per day. With a snack too.

Ours would be about £3-4 for a meal with a drink.
DS had a burger (£2) and a cake (85p) one day last week but had his own water bottle. I put £15 on each of my kids school dinner accounts per week and they take pack lunches some days or take a drink and a snack then buy something more substantial. It's a compromise, there is always food at home to take for pack lunch but they like getting canteen dinners sometimes.

@SukonthaM

I felt terrible pulling my dd up on it because I didn’t want her to feel she couldn’t have something to eat or drink when she needed, but she absolutely took the piss when she first started school, she was spending about £6 a day. We can see what she’s buying on an app though, so when I had a look she was buying all kinds of cookies and crepes and pizzas with fizzy drinks just on her break times, as well as a full meal with dessert and more drinks for her lunch. She’s limited now to a snack and water at break and a meal deal for lunch (still £3-£4 a day).

This is my worry, it’s new and exciting. He has some autonomy over it.

But I ask him what he’s had and it’s bacon sarnie or cheesy bagel at break and then chicken nuggets or pizza at lunch with a pudding.

The meal deals are £2.50

It’s the money and the bad eating habits which are a bit shocking

If they have what's called a main meal, it's a decent size main course and dessert which was £2.35 per day.
They take fruit / bun / flapjack from home as snacks and a meal at home in the evening.

Our school has a £4 a day limit

My DD will happily spend about £4 every day but that wasn't affordable. Now she has a monthly limit and takes a drink and snacks from home to go with the baguette or whatever she has and packed lunch the rest of the time. Once it's gone that's it.

If it's any consolation my DD (year 11) used to love the canteen (although I've always set a fairly low limit so she had to take some pack lunches) but I dont think she had any canteen food last year. She cant be bothered with queuing or finding out theyve run out of something, she would rather take her own food and sit with her mates and chat the whole lunch time rather than waste time and effort queuing!

So glad I don’t have this anymore as DS was a nightmare! He’d spend up to £5 a day!!! Then I told him is was packed lunches only which was fine for a bit, until he stopped eating them and then I felt like I was starving him. So of course I had to top up his dinner money account again, it was like this never ending circle. It wasn’t so much the food that was expensive I found but they’d charge about £1.50 for a can of Coke when you can buy a pack of 8 for between £3-4.50 in the supermarket 😂

I think it's a waste of money to have school lunches every day so my DS has packed lunches except on the days he has to carry extra kit, when he has a canteen lunch. So I spend £10 a week on school lunches plus packed lunch stuff from the supermarket.

Mine don't have school money they take a packed lunch. They do know that they can phone me in a emergency and I will put money on if they forgot their lunch etc

Dd really varies, sometimes just 90p for a panini, other days £2 odd. Today she spent £5 odd but had bought her friend lunch as her mum hadn't topped up her account. She would be coming home if she dared spend £5 everyday.

I had to get DS to reign it in a little when o realised that he’s spent £100 in a month! Now he gets a hot snack at break time with a drink and takes a packed lunch.

Yes we had to have a chat about it
Being able to see online what they’ve bought is really helpful
We talked about limiting puddings/snacks/drinks (she has a water bottle)

My ds started secondary and so far all he has bought is a drink for 70p! Hes really shy and anxious so dont think he wants to go in the canteen. I've budgeted £3 a day, they school has a cap at £5 a day. Main meal and drink is £2.35. I remember getting chocolate donuts at break time for 25p!

Mine take a packed lunch and I give them £5 a week to spend on snacks. Otherwise it's just too expensive.

£20 a week.

£11.50 a week for meal deal (main hot, pudding and drink). Just been increased by 10p a day due to increased costs.