Help I'm new! Expenses question. How much do you allow for meals?

[hickory]

Hi I'm very new and have three part time mindees already. I've been reading up on all the things that I can claim on expenses for for my tax bill, but I am a bit confused by food. So I thought that perhaps I would allow a set amount per day/meal per child depending on their age/appetite. How much do you consider to be reasonable?
Or have you got a different way of doing this.
By the way my fees include all meals and snacks.
Many thanks!

i claim £2.50 per child per day to allow for lunch, tea, snacks, juice etc.

I put £1.25 per evening meal at the mo but must admit my system is flawed, as this doesn't cover breakfast things, fruit, snacks, juice, which I remember to put in sporidically.
I am planning to record how much I spend over a certain amount of time, ie a week and then use and average daily expense per child like bonkerz suggests.

I'm not too sure who it is - I think its Saltire or DMO... anyway, when they do their shopping they put through all the food for the mindees seperately to their own shopping so everything on the receipt is for mindees and can just go straight into the tax book.

i clam £2 per child per day. I also include all meals etc in hourly rate

Thanks for your help! I don't think I could put receipts for childminding through seperately because they are eating the same as my own children.
£2.50 sounds about right to me and maybe a little extra for breakfast?

I must be doing something wrong then as I just keep all my shopping receipts and then put down what's roughly for mindees. It's a right PITA but when I came on here when I first registered (nearly 2 years ago), I didn't think we could just make up a figure like that. But if we can, I'm going to do that as all the shopping receipts are a nightmare!!!

I write out a month menu including breakfast snack lunch and afternoon snack.

Then I go on the tesco site, make up a wish list of all the things on the menu, with prices, add it up and divide it by the amount of children I having the meals and snacks.

i actually have my food fee separate from my minding fee. That way its what the parents give me to spend specifically on food. Some weeks its alot more and other weeks its less but it definately evens out.