food expenses!! Advice please.

[BarkAtTheMoon]

Hi there. Please can you tell me how you record you food expenses.
I use the ncma account book, and I used to put in an actual sum per child for food and snacks. Eg Mary, food, £1.50. So put a set amount per child for the week. At 75 p for snacks and £1.50 each dinner.
Some one told me a whild back that the tax people don't like estimated figures and need the exact amount per child per week. I have been puttin in receipts with exact figures.
Does that make sense, little one due to wake so hurrying!
What do you do on your weekly food accounts.
Would be interested to know.

Tax say they will accept reasonable estimates without receipts for food. Eg. 1.00 juices and snacks. 50p breakfast. 1.50 lunch 2.00 tea average about 5 day for full time child

When I first started minding I found that doing it via allowances was actually generating a much higher allowance than I was spending on food. Then I started adding up my receipts and soon found that minding food came to approx 1/3 of bill on regular basis. Now I just use 1/3 of all grocery shopping receipts.

Having just read a recent HMRC factsheet that confirms allowances are okay I plan to return to this method in the new tax year.