Au Pair-How much to leave for food?

[whooosh]

We are going on holiday for 2 weeks and will be leaving the Au Pair house-sitting while we are away.

We will of course still pay her usual money but how much should we leave on top for food?

Oh I'm so glad of this thread!!!

My AP has taken to eating all my almonds and the kids strawberries & grapes...

I found one pack of strawberries was only lasting 2 days!! when it usually lasted a week. I had to say these were a treat and she has to buy her own!

She asked me to get her almonds she eats a handful everyday so those little packs from Tesco are no good but was too much cost wise. SO I've stopped.

My household shopping comes to £80 and thats 3 adults and 2 kids so if she shopping for herself £20-£25 is enough as the essentials are in the house already pasta rice, meat in freezer, potatoes etc she only needs to but the perishable stuff and thats more than enough to cover it.

When we went away for 2 weeks last year I arranged for tescos orders to be delivered once a week with all her favourites and gave her an extra £10 a week for extras. This worked well.

We had an aussie nanny once who was lovely, but she ate GIGANTIC amounts of food, and never seemed to be without either a mouthful of something or a plateful of something. Multiple breakfasts, snacks, lunch (lamb chops anyone?) and supper before she left at about 5:30pm. Augh.

I confess it drove me totally nuts.

It seemed so unnecessary. How many meals does anyone need in a day?

Agree, don't shop for her, leave a fair amount (£40/week?) and let her get on with it. You will be blissfully unaware of what, where and how she is eating it.....

I want you all as my AP bosses!
When my AP family go away I don't get paid nor do they buy food for me. I am also expected to do 'things' around the house in order to earn my keep (no rent, bills etc).

I have never asked for anything on the shopping list.

Hi Whooosh!

For 2 weeks I'd probably leave at least £100 but make it clear that this is to cover emergency spending as well as food. When I've done this with our APs I've left the money in a kitchen cupboard rather than handing it direct to the AP so she didn't think it was just extra pay! I've also made it clear that if e.g. window cleaner comes and needs paying then this is to cover it.

I gave £30 to our current AP a couple of weeks ago when we were away for 5 days and she gave me £20 back. However, I did leave the fridge reasonably stocked but she bought fresh milk and bread for our return.

Oh muffin-that's sad.

Maybe the copious amounts of food is an Aussie trait?

Our AP had 6 sausages for dinner last night along with a whole heap of vegetables.Where I used to shop for veg once a week,I am now having to do it three times!

£5 per day

I made up a meal for each day we were away and froze it and left lots of frozen veg, potatoes and pasta all labelled and numbered so that she could have a nice dinner and cooked lunch every day if she wanted. Plus enough cereal to feed an army then left £15 a week to pay for bread, milk, fruit, yoghurts and lettuce which I costed up at about £10. It was a lot of work but I thought if I just left £50 per week it would all go on rubbish processed food and she would then still clear out all the cupboards.

When mine leave me to it they don't give me extra for food as I tend to just go buy super noodles and things as a treat for myself at lunch time and we have so much bread/pasta/etc. I keep stocked up on soy milk (I'm the only one who drinks it!) in the weekly shop and I eat bread with soup only really! And don't get me started on soup! Me and MB are terrible at controlling our soup-making, we have loads of varieties of homemade soup in the freezer! One takeaway tub easily does two or even three lunches! I made some today, have a saucepan with about 10 bowls worth of soup and 5 or 6 extra takeaway tubs in the freezer now... Also have some acorn squash soup left over in there from yonks ago!

Would love our Au Pair to cook soup-all she will cook (for herself as we don't shouldn't eat them,are cakes and biscuits.
She knows myself and DP are on a diet and DD isn't allowed them.She ate a whole batch of muffins in 2 days last week.

Whoosh, Just thought you should know that in Aus alfalfa sprouts would be considered a totally normal, ordinary salad or sandwich ingredient, so she would be v surprised to know that you considered this odd.

Aha Bubbaluv-now that makes sense! Thank you.

My goodness, I cannot believe how tight some of you are! I do not think any of the food stuffs listed (red meat - everyone needs this for iron,alfalfa sprouts - granted not average, but what do they really cost?, raspberries - if out of season buy frozen, puff pastry - not expensive can be frozen in small portions, muesli - erm??) are unreasonable, and why should she not eat what she likes, within reason? She is infact paid a small wage which reflects that she has all food covered. For example; if you buy organic for your family, she will rightly expect this for herself.

I'm sure she would be mortified to see you speaking like this. If you do not like what she is putting on your shopping list, I'd suggest you change the rules and always give her a set amount for food. Let her do her own shopping, and top up with her own money if she doesn't have enough. This way she will as others have said, realise the cost of things and have to budget.

You wouldn't expect to go to a friends house and be told that you couldn't eat what they were having because its too expensive.

I understand where they're coming from, this isn't just a one off thing, it's a constant weekly thing which could end up costing a lot more than a normal shop. Live-in staff can be more accomodating sometimes, just as employers oculd be shrugs

We rarely make cakes but I must admit, when we do they tend to disappear faster if I'm home! I made a smallish 6 piece cake the other day with leftover cake mix from cake-sale-cakes and managed to have 4 of the slices myself (over the course of three days!) without even realising it

PinkFairySparkles-Our AUPair os not paid a pittance and works way less hours than a typical AuPair and with a car for her to use off duty-she is hardly impoverished or a slave.
We don't eat organic and expect her to eat Tesco Value-we merely expect her to eat as one of the family-as per Au Pair definition.
We eat very little red meat-plenty of chicken and fish and soft fruit,out of season is for DD-even I don't eat it.
She is not starving,has range of 8 different breakfast cereals and when asked at her interview "are there any foods you don't like?" said "No,I eat everything"...which is very true.

I only eat one,maybe two meals a day-I expect (planned for) the AuPair to eat three meals a day...not 6

I think you have mis-interpreted things-we are far from "tight" just not able to shop 3 times a week for the AP's benefit.

Oh and Pixi-any time you fancy a change-we would welcome you with open arms!

just wanted to say, to whoever was saying that it appears to be typical for australians to eat like that, it is not generally the case.

Why in all of the flying fucks of the world have you raised a 3 year old thread simply in order to make a meaningless comment?

I got extremely confused reading posts I made under a username i haven't had in years, thought someone had started using it!

re aussies eating loads, I've lived with tonnes of them and most have seemed to have massive appetites, nothing wrong with that of course, I could compete with any of them!

Why resurrect the thread though?! Bit petty!