What is 'reasonable' in terms of food expenses when travelling on business?

[irambo44]

I'm working for a start up company, there is an element of government funding involved.

Have to travel on the odd occasion, need lunch as it's a full day out and hours from home and on my feet so can't really be carrying stuff. Have only ever worked at big corporates before with proper expense policies.

Was told here to just be 'reasonable' as there is no policy yet. Is £12 for a bowl of noodles reasonable? I just got tap water as a not to be cheeky. But previous jobs have had everything from £15-20 a meal to just whatever you fancy.

What's 'reasonable' to you, and what's not?

This ^

Though I'd encourage you to talk to your colleagues, too. I was taken to one side and told that my expenses claims were making the others look bad so could I please claim a bit more.

My work (public sector) is £5 once away more than 5 hours, £10 if away more than 10 hours and £25 if away more than 15 hours.

Same here. You have to ask what they consider reasonable. Public sector workers unless they're MPs are allowed to claim up to £5 if they're out less than 10 hours, which barely buys a coffee let alone any actual food. My union is currently trying to get it increased.

However, this appears to be in line with HMRC rules, but I haven't read the whole section as there's loads of it.

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim30240

So I don't know how that fits in with people who say they can claim much more than this, up to £30/40 a day.

I travel with my co, a small startup. I typically spend £6 on a sandwich lunch and drink.

Evening meal is whatever is on the menu of the hotel where I am staying, plus one glass of wine. Typically about £25 -£30

We usually book 'breakfast included'.

We can claim without receipts, £5 for breakfast (if out before 6am), £5 for lunch (if you have been out 5 hours) and £12 for dinner if you are out 12 hours.
If you provide receipts, I have only had issues when my receipt showed chocolate (HMRC rules apparently ban confectionary even if its a meal deal and it was cheaper), and once when my colleague and I were celebrating a big deal in an expensive city and spent £75 each for dinner. As we didn't have customers with us we got a nastygram on that!

Ok not a UK company but my mate has just managed to get £150 for one day for food and drink! I used to get £25 per day I used to love it back in the day when we were allowed first class on the train and you got free wine and nibbles.

HMRC rates are ridiculously low and need revising. The problem is that many companies use it as a guide. I think if you can provide the receipt then £12 is not out of order.

Mixed bag then!

And for those saying the obvious 'ask' - I thought I said I had done, was told by the one person who currently oversees everything to do with it just to be reasonable. She didn't know figures or a policy and that's why I'm hoping £12 was as it's far less than previous jobs would have capped it at.

No way I'm lugging a sandwich around 3 separate train journeys sans fridge and eating whatever state that is in 😅😅

I did also Google to see if there was some kind of average but couldn't find much. They do have a modern office in a very central touristy place in London so hopefully they can accept £12 without giving me a slap on the wrist! Too late if not, it's on my corporate card not my own one.

When I worked for a charity a few years back it was £25 for an evening meal and £10 for lunch

This is what we get at our charity.

We can't claim for lunch except under some random circumstance I can't remember. Can only claim for breakfast if you leave home before a certain time. I think it's £30 for dinner. Cannot claim for alcohol under any circumstances. I think you can claim for one snack.

If I’m away from my office for more than 3 hours I can claim £10 for a meal. Up to 24 hours is £50 which also includes being fed a hotel breakfast. I don’t have to travel for work often but when I do I’ve never gone overboard with the company credit card, £50 is more than reasonable for me to buy lunch and dinner based on the places I go to.

Ask the finance dept (or whoever does expenses) what for a copy of the company expense guidelines (they do have those, don't they?) that should tell you what they regard as reasonable. If not, just ask the finance dept the sort of money people usually spend and what they regard as excessive.

Just seen there's no policy. Tut tut. Hope they don't have an expenses audit coming up.

People are telling you to ask because the definition of reasonable is so varied.

Say you spent £20, some employers would be happy with that, others would say its too much and refuse most of the claim, others would laugh at you for only spending that little.

£12 sounds reasonable. I’d say in your circumstances something like a chicken burger and drink in Nando’s and a coffee here or there would be ok.

For lunch it used to be a sandwich/baked potatoe or similar so cost wise £8 even in more expensive parts, meal deal from the supermarket was suggested. Only exception is if meeting a client for lunch. What would you consider a normal amount to pay if buying lunch near your office? I personally nip to greggs or Waitrose myself

I can't believe charities pay for peoples lunch?!

We get £5 for lunch. Anything else comes out of our pocket

Our allowance is $100 a day for all food and drink, excluding breakfast which would be included in the hotel expense.

I work all over the place, lots of times I'm away overnight, travelling in my own time and bringing a packed lunch just isn't possible. Why shouldn't I be able to claim my meal back?

Why not? The people are employed by them? Do you expect staff to also fund their own computers and travel? Even reasonable expenses for volunteers is ok.

I suppose an easy test of reasonable is would you normally buy this for lunch at the office and/or if you were told you had to pay would you still have made the same purchase?

I've never worked anywhere that a claim for lunch would have been paid if you'd started the day in your own home regardless of the time you left at so I might have a lower estimate of reasonable.

I don't think it would be unreasonable to take a packed lunch, even with three trains. Or at least some provisions of your own, like a bottle of water, an apple, maybe a few sweets to supplement a bought sandwich.

I do very little business travel but if I go into the office and don't have a packed lunch, I would go to somewhere like Pret and buy a sandwich (but I don't need more because I take an apple etc with me even if I don't take a sandwich).

If you added a bag of crisps and a drink to that, it would easily be around £10. So I think £15 is a sensible limit for lunch in the UK.

So after all that, £12 is fine!

I don't think employers should be making you do meal deals either. Unless it's M&S, the sandwiches are yuck.