Charging us for food despite bringing in lunch

[Ggggggggggggggggyh]

Help! Has anyone experienced this before? When our nursery decided to start charging 8.00/day for my toddler's lunch and snacks, we immediately told them that we will begin providing him with his own lunch (we have always provided him with his own snacks). He goes to nursery 3 days a week so that's £24.00 per week to feed him if we let the nursery charge us for food. The first lunch we packed was not eaten because no one had passed on the message that we were providing him with his own lunch now. The second lunch he finished entirely but then the third one he only ate half. The nursery decided to give some of their food to him which he ate. We continued giving him his own lunch and we made sure he gets lots of delicious and nutritious meals. However, the invoice came and we discovered we were charged a total of £40.00 for food because my son had not eaten some of the lunches we made for him on some days he went to nursery. We were not informed about this and I was shocked to see that they made the decision to charge us without letting us know. We are trying to cut down the cost of childcare and the meals are definitely a big contributor to the expense hence we decided to provide it but I can't understand why they would tell us to pay for feeding our child their own food when we already provided him with his own. It's ridiculous.

It's clear your child wants to eat what everyone else is having. The alternative would have been they let him go hungry. Your choice

This. Don't get me wrong £8 a day is a lot however are you using funded hours? If so this will be how nursery are making the shortfall. If it is funded hours £8 a day isn't bad, ours charges a £2.50 an hour top up. If it's £8 on top of £70 a day then that is excessive.

I wouldn’t bother to be honest. The best thing by far about the days my DS is at nursery is that I don’t have to feed him!

I am using funded hours. But they charge 8.00 for top up. So, 8.00 per day for food and 8.00/hour for top up. Each week, they charge me 108.00 for the top up (13.5 hours). And that does not include meals.

Appreciate the concern.

It’s a massive pain for the nursery to deal with packed lunches - opening pots and packets - rather than everyone having the same meal. I find packed lunches expensive to make healthy so it might not actually be that much cheaper.

You can insist though and refuse to pay as you’ve not given permission (but good childcare is in short supply so be cautious about burning bridges and check their policies - ours was that all dc had food provided by the nursery).

Just tell them that from now on you only want him to eat the food that you bring in. Tell them that you're fine with him not eating all of his lunch if he isn't that hungry.

They've probably assumed that you would rather pay the £8 than him be hungry/feel left out, just confirm with them that that's not the case.

I agree it's a piss take OP - I wouldn't be happy with that at all. £8 per hour top up is ridiculous - school meals are £2.70 per day so the nursery is just taking advantage that they have parents over a barrel

Nurseries are not allowed to “top up”. They are allowed to charge for meals and consumables. I’d complain to your local authority and ask them to intervene if I were you.

@TeenLifeMum I agree with you but the fact that they have begun charging 8.00/day for meals AND 8.00/hour to top up, we are basically paying back that 15 hour free childcare and more. Me and my partner are both on minimum wage so we were really hoping to benefit from the funded hours but that’s clearly not going to happen at this nursery. Starting in September, we will be moving him to a different nursery where they charge 2.50 for food and snacks and 6.75/hour on top. Unfortunately, we are unable to move him sooner as they have no space. I’ve liked the nursery that my son has been going to but the whole steep increase in prices (no fault of their own) has really made us think on what is best for us as a family.

If you're moving nurseries in a few months anyway I'd just pay the food price and not bother sending in lunch.

I'm amazed they are allowing you to send in food, we've used 2 different private nurseries and in both it was a total no to any food from home, because of allergies.

@onefinalhurdle my thoughts exactly. £8.00 for lunch and snacks! I spend less than £5.00 to make my son’s meals and snacks each day when he isn’t at nursery so I don’t know where they got that number from. 😞

In that case it doesn’t matter if you annoy them - just say you didn’t give permission for them to feed dc the food so won’t be paying!

we had an issue that dd1 was collected at 3.15pm. At 3.30pm nursery did snack time but I didn’t pay as dd wouldn’t be there - all fine. But they kept giving snack early and told me they felt bad making dd1 sit and watch the others so gave her some snack (cheese and crackers or a few grapes - nothing substantial). Manager said it’s their fault for doing it early so don’t worry about paying… a few weeks later deputy manager throws a strop when I got there to pick up because she’d realised dd wasn’t paid for so made her sit and watch snack time happen. I wasn’t even against paying but most days they did it after she left so it was only occasionally. Deputy manager made me feel like a CF. I spoke to the manager and offered to pay to avoid future awkwardness (I was not as strong as I am now - now I’d not tolerate that bs) to be fair manager was horrified and spoke to the deputy in front of me making it very clear I want to pay for their poor time keeping and I was one of the few parents who paid invoices on time!

Nurseries are not allowed to “top up”. They are allowed to charge for meals and consumables. I’d complain to your local authority and ask them to intervene if I were you.

Way to go if you want even more Nurseries to close.
It is difficult enough in some areas to find a place as it is.

If they don't charge for top ups they'll either not offer funded hours or will close altogether. Saying that £8 an hour is ridiculous!

You’re shooting the wrong person here. I don’t make the rules.

Funded hours usually cover less than half their costs
either they make them back with top-ups
or they go bust

your call

You must be able to access funded hours fully funded i.e with no top up and no requirement to pay for consumables. @MsAsparagus is absolutely correct - complain to the LA which is responsible for ensuring the invoicing is clear and transparent and that funded hours can be accessed. Not saying that’s “fair” to nurseries either, but it is the law!

Another government policy that was dreamt up on the back of an envelope. They will need another 40,000 childcare workers for this to work and currently people are leaving in their droves and childcare providers closing en masse. Yes, complain to your LA or nursery but the only thing that will happen is, more will close.

The nursery is allowed to charge for hours not covered by funded hours though, I assume (perhaps wrongly!) that is what OP means by top up? 15 funded hours plus 13.5 top up hours divided by 3 days would make the nursery day something like 8-5:30 which sounds about right.

But they shouldn't be charging you for food if you are sending it in - it's not a case of DC going hungry if they have food in their lunchbox! They've charged you for 5 days out of 13-14 in month, that's more than a third of the days DC is in!

It’s rather like NHS dentists-yes, you might be entitled to free care for you and your family, but if you can’t find someone who can still afford to run a business on those rates, you’ll have to pay.

It's £8 for the lunch hour not £8 for every hour. £16 a day top up to funded hours is pretty average really.

I wouldn't pay this - it's extortion imo. You've sent food and informed the nursery - it's not like you sent him without any lunch!

It's well very well for people to say just pay it, but not everyone can afford to give the nursery extra money to top up their business.

Complaining to the LA would be a fantastic way to cut off your nose to spite your face.