Primary school emails - getting a touch annoyed

[MrsHouseMouse]

Oldest DS enjoys school dinners.
I pay for his weekly lunches every Monday evening so there's a few hours from lunch to the evening when the account is minus.
I recieve 2 emails in that time stating I need to top up his account...

... in red font.

It's only been this school year. Previous years have been perfectly fine.

I'm getting a little annoyed with this!

Just here to find out why paying on Sunday, or any other form of financial organisation is not possible.

It's an extra 2.65.

There's no entitlement to a school meal unless she meets the criteria anyway. If she can't afford it she should send a packed lunch on a Monday. Not expect the school to give her credit.

1. It will be an automatic email.

1. People not paying for lunches is a real problem for schools.

1. I know it's only a few hours but imagine every parent did it. The school has to pay the suppliers. That makes a huge shortfall.

Just pay on time and stop moaning about something that you cause.

I work in a school office, so let me tell you we get 'a touch annoyed' by people like you

If you really have to wait until Monday evening to pay then pay a week plus a couple of days the next time you pay. That way it won't keep going into negative every Monday.

Surely she IS BU?

Schools do not run for profit - they need that money to pay for the meals. When at the end of the year children leave, they don’t have the capacity to send debt collectors etc. It is the office staff that have to do the chasing (along with the 101 other things they have to do). How difficult is it to ensure there is enough money in your account to pay for your child’s food?

Where did the OP say she can’t afford it? She clearly can. Nowhere did she say that she expects the school to give her credit so you’ve just made that up.

Just to clarify, OP said ‘I pay for his weekly lunches every Monday evening so there's a few hours from lunch to the evening when the account is minus.’ The account is on minus from Monday lunch which has already been paid for. HTH.

OP is annoyed at the automatic texts she gets when the account is on minus for a few hours. Unfortunately, the school can’t do anything about that as it’s automated. Why you’ve decided to make something up, when the OP is very easy to comprehend, is beyond me

Top up by one extra meal next Monday. Sorted with no additional impositions on your schedule and the server doesn't need to generate another debtor's email.

After all, it looks like it's working - you don't pay, they feed your kid out of the goodness of their hearts (rarely works like that in Secondary, by the way) and then you pay on receipt of the emails.

I don't get why you don't just pay a day earlier either. As someone else pointed out, assuming your child is primary, secondary schools are a lot less lenient.

You have a simple solution, pay on the Sunday evening. If your budget is tight and you don’t have the money until the Monday then pay it on Monday morning.

So she needs to bite the bullet one week and pay for 6 days instead of 5, which will carry her account over to include the following Monday. From then on, she can still pay on Monday evenings for 5 days Tuesday to Monday.
Child benefit and other benefits are paid just after midnight on the Sunday if they are due on the Monday.

Just add a bit more one week so it doesn't go minus. It's not rocket science!

Pay on a Sunday or add a days extra the week before so you never go behind.

So, the school kindly let your dc have lunch even though you haven't paid for it every Monday, and rather than pay in advance and think 'that's bloody nice of them, I'll sort that out to not be so irritating in future' you've gone with complaining about it, getting upset with an automated email, caused them probably a tiny smidgeon of extra work, and they're to blame. This is incredibly entitled behaviour which only causes upset to yourself

Pay six days this week, then you're always a day in credit.

Its 2 emails 😳

Bugger! Yes, sorry 😆

I'm going to assume there's a good reason why you can't pay on Sunday evening, otherwise I'm sure you'd be doing that already.

So based on that, yes it's mildly annoying, but I wouldn't get that worked up about it as they are obviously automated emails so I'd just ignore them.

Absolutely agree, but if it really irks her she could pay an extra lunch on Monday and therefore never be in this situation again.

Please tell me you are not that entitled about everything. Show a bit of respect to the school and the school office.

HOW is the automated system, or the person wasting time chasing non-payers, supposed to guess you are planning on paying 3 hours later?

She is expecting the school to give her credit - for the Monday lunch that she gets without having paid for it yet.

It would BU if the school was refusing to feed your kid on Monday for the sake of a few hours, but a red text email is a perfectly proportionate response to OP’s lackadaisical approach to organisation.

Of all the pointless posts, this has go to take first prize…

Pay for it on the Sunday- before your child eats.

Um…pay on the Friday night, or Saturday morning, or Saturday night, or Sunday night, or Monday morning.

This is a really easy problem to resolve. Don’t go in to the red and then the emails will stop!