New childminder - charging for meals on days she doesn't mind

[BarefootBaritone]

Our beloved childminder is giving up and the new one is very different. I grant you that that particular bar was set ridiculously high and i need to make some adjustments, but there it is.

Anyways, she ticked the box on the contract that says "no minding service is available on public holidays " but i failed to spot the note underneath it that said "full fees charged" and signed the contract. I know i have to just suck that up, it was my mistake, but she has furnished me with invoices for until next August on Baby Days (so we can work out an average monthly figure) and i see she has also charged for meals on bank holidays.

Is that legal? Can she charge for meals that she does not actually provide if they are classed as "extras"?

Feel a bit done over tbh - as we have really struggled to find anyone who can take DS all day and pick DD up from school (as if losing the current one wasn't bad enough the first one we tried we had to ditch before the kids even started there as she almost let DS get run over on his "settling in visit"! )

Is it not just an oversight? Have you actually asked her?

I feel meals should only be charged when they are provided. Legally I suspect they can do as they like.
It may purely be down to the billing software not knowing a particular date is a bank holiday.

Make a list of the days concerned and ask for the payments to be amended.

Are meals extras ie could you provide your own food? If not she may see them as part of the full fees you agreed to pay for bh when you missed that part on the contract.

you;ll probably find it's an oversight. in that she just added up all the days he's with her for and gave you the invoices without remembering to deduct meals for public holidays etc.

or it could be as eeorye states and that she includes meals in her advertised fees.

we chose to have her feed the kids for an additional £2 per meal (2 for DS as he's there all day, 1 for DD after school), there was an option to send food for them but i would like them to have at least one cooked meal a day and DD already takes a packed lunch to school.

I haven't asked yet, because i wanted to check if i had a leg to stand on before i waded in with it! I don't know her well enough yet to know if she is pulling a fast one on me, but my gut feeling was she couldn't charge me for something she wasn't actually providing. And "Full fees apply" could be interpreted many different ways unfortunately.

I will point it out and hope for the best. Still kicking myself very hard for not spotting the hand written comment that now means we're paying for days when they won't take them even if we wanted them to!

(apologies if being a bit ranty - this is not the only aspect of my world crashing down at the moment!) Hey ho, on we go...! Lets hope she's real good and that makes up for it.

In that case yes I would see it as an extra to the fees but she may see it as the amount you pay her including food is her full fee. Good luck.

Just to give you an example - I invoices one of my mindee's parents and completely forgot to deduct the meals for mindee's holiday dates. The mum sent me an email to ask if she should still be charged for meals even though there was no attendance and I apologised and immediately deducted the fees as it was a genuine oversight on my behalf!
Working full time as a childminder and then staying up till all hours doing paperwork can make you so many silly things

I would think she genuinely has made a mistake as no childminders I know charge for meals if the child has not attended on that particular day.