Moral Dilema

[Loveacoseynightin]

Hi, I've got a bit of a moral dilema and asking the good folks of Mumsnet for their opinion on this.

I have 2 daughters who will be spending the half term week at their dads. I am in receipt of free school meals vouchers for them.

Should I give dad the vouchers or use them for my weekly shop?

AIBU to use them for the shop when I haven't got them?

@dramaticpenguin

slight hijack but I'm a childminder and we have been sent the money to get the parents entitled to the vouchers gift cards from their preferred supermarkets and give them out. I feel like that's a weird way to do it and it feels a bit uncomfortable, but did the same at Christmas so, OK. However, I offer childcare all year round and all 3 of the kids entitled come all year round, so as such, they are with me for 3 out of 5 lunches anyway! seems a bit daft. not to mention the fact that its £30 to feed a toddler 5 lunches, even the parents are a bit surprised its so generous. I don't begrudge anyone the money but if that's specifically what its for and nothing else, why so much??

Where in the world are you that parents of toddlers qualify for fsm vouchers? Or that the vouchers are worth double what everyone else gets?

I'd keep the vouchers and use them when the dc were home again.

I might be wrong on this, but isn't support over the half-term provided through the Covid Winter Grant Scheme rather than the usual FSM programme?

It says this on the government website: The £170 million COVID Winter Grant Scheme will be made available in early December 2020 to support those most in need across England with the cost of food, energy (heating, cooking, lighting), water bills (including sewerage) and other essentials.

Also this...

Authorities have the local ties and knowledge, making them best placed to identify and help those children, families and individuals most in need. It is important to stress that this covers a wide range of vulnerable households including children of pre-school age too. Targeting this money effectively will ease the burden faced by a wide range of vulnerable households across the country worrying about paying the next utility bill or the next food shop due to the pandemic.

If so and the voucher does come from the scheme, the reason that the OP has received this money is not for her children's lunches per se but because she and her children have been identified as a vulnerable household.

My half term vouchers came from EdenRed. The same as always. From what I've read about the Covid winter grant scheme you have to apply for it separately.

Ask him if he wants them. If not stock up on food that you’re kids are only going to eat anyway!

This is one nasty thread with some extraordinarily stupid people on it, or at least people who are so blinded by their resentment towards people who are in receipt of benefits of any kind that they are unable to think straight.

The resident parent pretty much always spends way more than the non rp as a proportion of their income on the dc, and certainly will in cases like this where the rp's income is low. The amount of concern about the man who 'may be struggling' is shocking. He pays just under the 20% CM, though in reality it may be 20% as the OP's figure of £2500 for his income may have been an approximation. I'll bet everything I've got the OP spends more than 20% of her income on the dc and, as a tax-payer, as so many on here grandly describe themselves, I would prefer to see the money stay with the parent whose low income has created the entitlement rather than going off to some bloke who then is subsidised for having his own kids. OP can spend the money on food for when they come back.

And, to the poster who kept desperately trying to make this about men's right not to support their own kids if the mother is 'wealthy', I would certainly say the same if the sexes of the parent were reversed.

^
THIS DEFINITELY

@looseddaughter

This is one nasty thread with some extraordinarily stupid people on it, or at least people who are so blinded by their resentment towards people who are in receipt of benefits of any kind that they are unable to think straight.

The resident parent pretty much always spends way more than the non rp as a proportion of their income on the dc, and certainly will in cases like this where the rp's income is low. The amount of concern about the man who 'may be struggling' is shocking. He pays just under the 20% CM, though in reality it may be 20% as the OP's figure of £2500 for his income may have been an approximation. I'll bet everything I've got the OP spends more than 20% of her income on the dc and, as a tax-payer, as so many on here grandly describe themselves, I would prefer to see the money stay with the parent whose low income has created the entitlement rather than going off to some bloke who then is subsidised for having his own kids. OP can spend the money on food for when they come back.

And, to the poster who kept desperately trying to make this about men's right not to support their own kids if the mother is 'wealthy', I would certainly say the same if the sexes of the parent were reversed.

Exactly this 👍