A food question for host parents

[Anon2309]

Hiya, just a simple question on how much your weekly food bill increased after your au pair joined? How much do you spend on food a week, does your au pair cook or do you, and if you cook on the weekends does the au pair eat with you? Also do you pay for some treats or special things that she likes like yoghurts, ice cream or sweets?

Following....

Food bill increase - depends on the au pair. One of ours munched their way through kilos of fruit a week, could eat a loaf of bread in a day, needed 2 dinners every evening and was a bottomless pit, whereas with others we hardly hoticed an increase at all.

Does you au pair cook for you? - once again it depends on the au pair. Some genuinely enjoy cooking and are happy to do it, most really enjoyed baking with dd even if they didn't like to cook, one was so bad in the kitchen I couldnt trust her to make toast. Check during the interview process if this is something they will be happy doing.

Weekends - if the au pair is in then she eats with us, however once they build up a good social circle I find they spend most of the weekend out with friends so we often eat without her.

Special treats - yes, within reason! With most of our au pairs we always ask if they'd like anything when we do a shop and are happy to add it, with the one that was like a plague of locusts we decided it would be best if she started to get her own treats and snacks and gave her a cupboard to store these in.

I agree with everything salmiak has said. It really depends on the person, but as they are sharing family meals it shouldn't be a vast amount if, like me, you always cook a bit more than you need anyway.

I'm happy to add a few bits and bobs to shopping at au pair's request, within reason. I wouldn't go along with "I need my own personal box of magnums every week" if I was expected to pay for it, but if I know they really like yoghurt, for instance, I will try to buy plenty for the family including them.

Most au pairs I have had have instinctively drawn their own line between buying treats for themselves and reasonable additions to the shopping.