To be excited-Dinner money related:)

[ErinnW]

A bit of a silly one as its nothing major but ah well. I have three kids, two dd's age 12 and 13 and ds age 4. Ds is about to start school tomorrow, so today I sat down and worked out my finances for the month (as I do every month) factoring in dinner money for all three of them and then it hits me lol, ds's dinners are free as he's going into reception!

Now I know this is nothing new and it's common knowledge that children in Ks1 now get free lunches but I honestly and genuinely completely forgot! I budgeted £20 each a week for my dds so £160 a month as usual and there I go budgeting the £10 odd a week/£40 a month for my ds and then I realised I won't be payin it after all and I swear I got giddy lol. I know it's silly but after paying nine years worth of dinner monies for two children I'm ecstatic to be getting my son's meals free of charge:)

I love a nice surprise like that! Like the months you don't pay council tax. It's like being given the money back, even tho you didn't pay it in the first place iyswim!

Yeah !! That's a bonus x

Lol I know that's how I feel too come February and March with the council tax. Like I said it sounds daft as it's only £10 a week but it would have meant I'd be shelling out £50 a week or £200 a month and that's extortionate lol so I'm made up.

I'm in Scotland and dd gets free meals for 3 fucking years I am not thrilled as we are lucky enough to have two good wages ( 45000 p/a ) coming in, and dd eats free, but my lovely neighbour who was just made redundant has to pay for school meals for her kids because they're a couple of years older? I would rather be means tested and not qualify and let her get it.
Thrilled for you OP treat yourself. 3 kids can't be cheap so it's a bonus.

I totally agree with you in the fact that infant children getting them but not junior children is utterly ridiculous. As a family currently we only earn 20k as I'm a sahm but we used to earn more or less what you do now when I was at work full time too. We easily afforded dinner money for the children then and for the last couple of years we've managed but only just, so for us to now get our youngest's free for a couple of years well, I'm really grateful.

Erinn that's what I mean. Why give it out to everyone whether they need it or not when it could be spread around more evenly or fairly. Crazy. My neighbour is wonderful she's the police, childminder, and watchman of the street ( she was born in this street ) and I hate seeing how stressed she is. I'd happily have paid dinner money if she could have saved it every week.

We've just come to the end of DD's free meals - it will be packed lunches for her as she only has a jacket potato, and I'm not paying £2.20 a day for that