snacks: do i put on expenses

[zoeuk1]

does anyone put the snacks/meals down on their expenses? in my hourly fee i tell the parents that includes all snacks, so can i still claim for the food they eat. it isnt a great deal but when there are 5 mindees all having toast/fruit/breadsticks etc it does mount up. only one mindee has an evening meal and i charge £1 for this but can i then put it down in my expenses even though the parent has paid a pound for it already?

Definately - you are likely to be spending more than £1 on the mindies dinner so don't claim what you are charging the parent but instead look at what you spent to provide the meal.

I go down my tesco receipt & highlight all the things that I only bought for snacks/mindies dinners. If there were 4 items that will be split between mindies & my own family then I'll claim for 2 of them. some people prefer to work out more precisely the proportions that were eaten by mindies but I don't see why we can't claim for the wastage as well. Wouldn't have bought so many if I wasn't childminding.

Things like tissues, washing up liquid, wc paper etc I usually claim for every other purchase.

ok. well ive started to put down 50p for each child for snacks and £1 for the evening meal in my expenses book. i was wondering if this would be acceptable?
so for example, on wednesday i have 5 children after school and they all have various snacks and drinks, so i write their names in my accounts book and then 50p next to each one in the food/drink column. do you think that's ok?