All inclusive fee

[KateyCuckoo]

Does £5 per day sound reasonable for all meals, snacks, nappies, wipes, sunscreen etc?

Yes very

Sounds cheap

That’s far too little for all the above!

Sounds really cheap

Ah really? Wow I'm surprised!

Too cheap. What's the meal like?

Very reasonable, school lunch is about £2.50 in our primary school, you say all meals so assuming 3 plus sunscreen etc I'd expect that to be more than £5.

Cheap, our nursery charges £10 and we have to provide the nappies

very cheap our nursery is £7 for 3 meals and 2 snacks!

Sounds really cheap! I pay £6 for extras on afternoon 3 hours session, includes lunch and resources but no suncream or nappies.

Thanks for the feedback. You've got me thinking!

Dinnera are things like spaghetti bolognese, roast dinners, pasta bake, fish pie etc. No breakfast, but lunch and 2 snacks.

Who are you paying it to. If it's a nursery who can buy everything in bulk then possibly fair enough. If it's a grandparent and that's all you're paying them it's not enough.

Context is everything here.....

Cheap! Our dinners alone are £3.30 and we have to provide nappies x

What would you like to know? Happy to clarify anything....
I'm just interested if you think £5 per day is good/bad value for money for the items listed.

I'm a childminder trying to work out a new fee structure going forward.

It costs €3.80 per day just for lunch for reference at Ds nursery. It’s provided by local government meals on wheels type equivalent so mass catering (Ds doesn’t stay for lunch so I couldn’t tell you if it’s nice, but majority do and it’s two courses)

We have to send all other meals and snacks and things like suncream or nappies if they have

What would you like to know? Happy to clarify anything....

I'm just interested if you think £5 per day is good/bad value for money for the items listed.

It would depend on the setting eg.Small childminder Vs larger private day nursery Vs smaller private day nursery, and how much the daily fees are before the extra charge.

More expensive childcare then £5 is probably about right because they're covering some of those costs in their daily rate.

Childminder with fewer children, not got the same scope to buy in bulk, then I'd say £5 isn't enough.

Your’s are good and expensive meals. Our childminder would cook her family salmon etc and then serve up her mindees Tomato pasta. My kids loved salmon so were sad when that happened!

Maybe I am being dim, but surely you cost it out:

Spag bol costs X and serves Y: X/Y = cost per portion
Lunch = Z per portion
Snack a = 50p, b = 20p and c = 30p, averages 33p per snack, X2 per day = 66p.
Nappies are 20p each or whatever, on average get through however many per day so this is another whatever.
Suncream - you mind 4 kids, get through 1? Bottle a week or whatever in the summer and it's £8. So £2 per child per week, divided by 5 days gives you 40p a day.

Add it all up, round it up a bit and you're sorted.

Is this what you will charge parents?

I ask because then you might get into refunds etc if kids off etc which is just tedious.

I would charge a fee then claim it all back as expenses for your tax return.

I’m confused, surely you mean £5 per hour not day? Where I am even that would be cheap (£7ph is normal for childminder now) but £5 a day is bonkers and just not even worth considering. You could earn more doing a babysit for a few hours for considerably less work and hassle.

You make it sound so simple! It's really hard doing that as a childminder and cooking for my family too. Maybe I just don't have the brain space for it 🤣

This is a really good point.

It's per day, just for the consumables part of my service. Parents can provide their own and not pay if they choose.