Is it enough lunch money?

[PILHELP]

DH and I are having a disagreement over DD's lunch money. She started at secondary in September and chose packed lunches initially, made them herself, all great.

She's switched to school lunches now and one of us thinks £4/day is too much on top of still taking two snacks from home and the other thinks the £4 should include snacks and drinks (if she forgets her water bottle) or it should be dropped a bit to £3/day. For reference, a main meal is about £2.50 and so £4 would buy a meal, snack and a drink.

YABU - £4/day is too much with taking food from home
YANBU - £4/day should include everything for a 12 year old

I may or may not have swapped the options to the interests of not disclosing which one I am!

One reason I haven’t even asked exh to pay towards lunches (even though he reckons he has her 50:50 - spoiler he doesn’t really) is that I know he’d be trying to put limits on it, and the last thing I want is to give her food issues

In my day we used to get lunch money, bring food from home and spend the money on cigarettes....could she be saving or holding back some money?

I also took £3 a day 25 years ago! £4 a day doesn’t sound crazy

I would never spend 4 quid a day for lunch myself! Packed lunches all the way in this house! So wasteful and often the school lunches are burgers/pizzas/chips etc. I'll probably allow a day a week school lunches but that's it.

I also agree to teach your daughter the value of money and budgeting skills. So many parents don't and their kids turn out awful with money!

Pack up and water bottle "cost" her mental energy to plan/remember, and "cost" time & "cost" physical effort to sort out each day. So it's much more convenient for her to get lunch and a bottle of water at school.

Assuming no unmentioned difficulties/disabilities.
I'd take her through the breakdown of the monetary costs for buying food at school vs making/taking pack-up and keeping the difference to spend on something else
If she's taking snacks from home, the cost of those snacks should be coming out of the weekly lunch money - and honestly at that age I'd be saying that if she forgets to take a bottle, the cost of a replacement drink can come out of the money for snacks.

Real life types of budgeting decisions like these will be more valuable to her in the future. Many many kids hit university with large loan payments hitting their accounts and little experience in balancing costs (both fiscally and in terms of effort/time) so it's not just about if you - her parents - can afford the money for her to do it, but if she can afford not to get this experience in a safe environment.
(all the schools I know have a system where a pupil can still get a meal if they have run out of money on the prepay, or have forgotten their pack-up ymmv)

I give my son £20 a week for school to budget himself for lunch, drinks and snacks. He doesn't really do dinner school though and goes to the supermarket mostly. Usually he has some extra money on a Friday for something better or to pick up weekend snacks. Hes 15 now but been doing this since he was 12.

@user1471538283

My DS ate like a horse so I had his card loaded up so he could get whatever he liked. Years ago this was £5 a day. It is expensive.

It's only expensive if you do it like that.

I don't even spend £5 a day on my lunch and I tend to work 9 hour shifts.

OP, did what PP does and loaded the account with £15 per week. If he spent more on some days, he'd take a packed lunch towards the end of the week when the money was running out.

I think if you can afford it it's fine. I don't think food during school should be an opportunity for a lesson in appropriate spending.

@WorraLiberty you're not a growing pre-teen though, presumably? They do tend to eat a lot more than adults, there's always loads of threads about it!

[quote Bobsyer]@WorraLiberty you're not a growing pre-teen though, presumably? They do tend to eat a lot more than adults, there's always loads of threads about it![/quote]
I grew 3 pre-teen boys into adulthood. The youngest only left 6th form 6 months ago.

They managed their dinner money accounts with the money they were given and as I said, if they ran out towards the end of the week they'd take food in.

School was only a 6 hour day. They'd eat breakfast at home, lunch at school and dinner again at home.

No growing pre-teens were harmed during this period

My 12 and 13 year olds get £12.50 put on their school lunch accounts every week. This gives them a budget of £2.50 a day. The ‘hot meal’ option is £2.10. A sandwich and a cake is £1.65. The 12 year old usually has spare to treat himself to a bit extra on a Friday whereas the 13 year old is sometimes running a bit short. They don’t take snacks with them and they’re welcome to have breakfast at home but usually have it at school where it’s free. We are up north though so perhaps a bit cheaper. We did start by topping up whenever money was needed but in Year 7 our oldest went a bit mad to begin with and was buying all sorts so we capped the amount each week and then did the same when his brother started the following year.

I used to get 10p a day for lunch. This is nearly 50 years ago lol, but I used to spend the 10p in the shop on the way to school, I bought 2 packs of crisps and 4 blackjacks, until my cousin told on me, then I had to take packed lunches!

@EllaVaNight

I would never spend 4 quid a day for lunch myself! Packed lunches all the way in this house! So wasteful and often the school lunches are burgers/pizzas/chips etc. I'll probably allow a day a week school lunches but that's it.

I also agree to teach your daughter the value of money and budgeting skills. So many parents don't and their kids turn out awful with money!

This. £4 a day is £20 a week, over £80 a month or £1000 a year, assuming she has similar expectations in the school holidays that she'll always buy lunch, a coffee or a milkshake or whatever when she's out with her friends.

Fine if you can afford it, fine if you only do it once or twice a week for example, but a massive amount of money that can make a huge dent in your budget if you do it every day and you don't have loads of money.

Drinks and snacks etc especially are hugely more expensive when bought in canteens etc compared with the supermarket or cordial/tap water in a reusable bottle. There's all the plastic waste to consider too.

Truly if £4 a day plus snacks from home is a “drop in the ocean” to you, and your DD is healthy then just let her spend £4 and take snacks as she pleases. I’m absolutely with your DH. I’d say differently if you were struggling to afford it. But you are not.

Not everything has to be an opportunity for a child to learn. Sometimes buying lunch can be just that. Buying something to eat that you fancy. I feel sad that there are children for whom worrying about budgeting for their daily food at school is a source of concern. Your DD does not need to be one of them.

My son gets half an hour for lunch and a 20 minute break in the morning ,where do kids find time to eat a meal plus snacks ?
I give him sandwiches because that's all he has time for .

What have you taught you DC about budgeting? Because it's not a natural skill for most. And it is incredibly important.

Our kids fixed lunch price was €5.90 so yours seems comparatively cheap. Nothing from home ever though.

I'd insist on packed lunch. I work in schools and what you get for your money is a rip off. And why buy a drink?

Your posts are so confusing. All of your options are the same . But yes, I'm with your husband, £4 a day is fine. Secondary lunches are expensive imo, especially when you add a drink and a snack in. If you can easily afford it I've no idea why you are giving something so trivial any headspace

And why buy a drink?
Maybe because you're thirsty? Have you never bought a drink during the course of a working day

No I never buy a drink. I drink water. It comes put the tap. If I forget a bottle I borrow a cup.

@XiCi

And why buy a drink? Maybe because you're thirsty? Have you never bought a drink during the course of a working day

But from school canteens, shops etc, buying drinks individually is very expensive.

An 18 pack of Coke Zero from Asda is £6.75.

The school canteen is likely to charge around a pound a can, possibly more.

Unless you're very very well off, you'll always find a better use of the two thirds saving by taking a can from home, or even more if you switch to tap water in a water bottle most of the time.

Savings like this go a long way to explain why some people can make not very much money go a long way, while others never seem to have any money and think they can't ever afford anything nice. They're often wasting hundreds of pounds a month because they can't be arsed to plan ahead a little.

The meals at my sons school aren’t great and its too expensive. They take a pack lunch and have £5 a week to spend as they please. I make their lunch and they are nice with ‘good snacks’

Mine takes 2 snacks from home and I ask her to stick to £3 a day where possible but if she goes over on occasion that's fine. Just £3 a day is £60 a month which is a lot of money for me to find, she used to have packed lunches

My kids at Secondary have £3 a day. They take drinks with them. That gets s decent snack at break and something at lunchtime. I put £15 in weekly though, they seem to make it last better that way, instead of feeling rich at the start of the month and spending too much for the first couple of weeks. I do put the drinks next to their bags myself so they don't forget, drinks seem to really add up if they're buying them at school.

My DD buys what she likes but never spends more than £15 in a week. Meal of the day is £2.25, a panini is £1.95, cookies 70 for example. She takes a hydro flask with water. It might depend on prices in school but I think £4 a day is a lot. What is she buying? If it's a hot meal then fair enough, if it's drinks and snacks not so much.