Au pair kitty money

[Halfawife]

Hi, I don't know if I am being petty but we haven't had this issue before with other au pairs but if the au pair chooses to have lunch out with the children, does she pay for that with her own money or the weekly Kitty fund? Also our au pair is eating us out of house and home. At the beginning we told her to put what she wanted to eat on our grocery list and we would pick it up but now she is going through multiple diet cokes a day, eating all our snacks (full bags of crisps in one sitting). For normal food this is fine but would it be unreasonable if I now told her she needs to purchase her own snacks? Our other au pairs did naturally and our friends clearly set this out with their nannies so I may have missed the boat on this one!!

I would still provide snacks but up to a certain weekly amount. If she wants more she can buy it herself. 99p store has some cheap crisps, coke and sweets.
Eating out - I would say that you don't want your children to eat out. Tell her she should pack some snacks/sandwiches before she goes out. That clears it and if she wishes to treat them it's up to her. You can tell her it's costing you too much.

How often.is she eating out?

And how much are we talking?

I'm not an au pair but I am a nanny. If the parents ask me to take the children out to lunch then I would claim it back, but if I decide to take them out or if I would rather not lug numerous packed lunches out then I would pay out of my own pocket.
I have never had kitty money though, I just claim it back every few weeks or so with mileage costs. I hate having to ask for money even when it's fair and square so it puts me off spending it!!

If I'm working then parents pay for everything so yes you need to pay for your au pairs lunch if she is taking your kids out

We have a Live in Nanny at the moment- but it isn't much different.

We order our food online and agreed with the nanny that she would have an additional £15 a week for her own food outside the evening meal she has a share of in the evening- if she doesn't want what we are having on a certain night we add another £1 to that. Anything over and above that comes out of her own pocket but we haven't had an issue with her or ones in the past.

We provide a monthly kitty (works better for us as we budget per month not week) for whatever expenses she has with the children- trips out, meals, petrol etc- we decided on an amount at interview and have stuck to it. Again- if she goes over this it comes out of her own pocket.

Feel this is more than reasonable- have done it for 17 years and not had anyone complain.

Thanks for the advice. I told our au pair to take a packed lunch today but they went out instead (!). I had a chat with her about it and said since I take my lunch to work everyday and don't eat out to save money, she should do the same. She agreed things are expensive so I told her no more lunches out!

It's a delicate matter, but I think you were fair in this scenario. It's always important to keep a good relationship with the Au Pair!