How much lunch money do you give your dc for secondary?

[bramleyappole]

Mine gets £3. I checked with a friend who has had 3 children at this school and was assured this is the norm. Now dc2 started secondary so am looking at £30/week. What does everyone else do?

£3 here too! That's for DS.

Daughter has packed lunches.

I am horrified by this. Have forced mine into packed lunches until Y12 (which often means they don't eat) but it is ridiculously expensive and they just buy pasta every day, given the chance. I allow them £50 a term and lots of tasty and healthy things to take from home (if they can be bothered). They say they need £3 a day, so for two, that's £6 x 5 per week = £30 which is dreadful, while dh and I are eating up scraps. Don't do it unless you are rich/it's the only hot meal they get.

I put money on their account on line. They spend about £2.50 a day.
As others have said they end up buying pasta or sandwiches. I make them take packed lunch at least twice a week and take their own drinks.

well, i give my dd a cheque for £20 to put on to last 14 days. her school is cashless! funny how we took money day in day out and now they can put x amount on and voulah!

None - they take packed lunches

This is because they
a) hate queueing
b) are happy with a sandwich and fruit when they know they are getting one of my delicious hot meals AND pud for tea!

DS1's school has the system where you can pay online and also see what they have bought.

I top up as needed but reckon about £2.50/day. That will buy him a hot meal plus fruit or cake. He often has panini or pasta plus fruit/cake, that's a bit cheaper.

£1! If she can organise herself to get out of bed on time, she's got plenty of time to have breakfast and take a snack with her. If not, it's her problem! She'll learn. Or maybe she won't, she's in Yr11, it maybe too late!

She usually phones me at work at around 7.30 to say she's running late and is there any loose change lying around in the house somewhere!

£3 here too, not sure DH tops her card up every week though.
This is what she would need for a snack and dinner. Dinner queue is awful, so I think she just has snack and cooked tea when she gets home.
The main thing we found was to take drinks, they eat into dinner money very quickly.

£3.50 a day now he's in sixth form and they can go out at lunchtimes. Previously he took sandwiches in summer, a flask of something hot in winter.

It is working out to be quite expensive, I give him £17.50 at the beginning of the week and he quite often runs out by Thurs but then he has to take something in from home, I don't give him any more cash.

DD takes £20 for two weeks. they are cashless!

Mine are both at secondary: £2.50/day each.

DD gets FSM. FSM gives them up to £2.10 a day. Unfortunately, since the prices of the food have gone up this year, £2.10 doesn't cover a full meal. I am having to give DD an extra £1 a day, so she spends £3.10 a day. She usually gets a pasta pot and a fruit pot, or a panini and a fruit pot - she takes her own drink too. She also takes a cereal bar for breaktime, and she has a proper dinner at home. I'm dreading when DS1 goes up, as he will eat twice what DD eats!

£3 a day.

Mine get £2 per day: it's enough to get a basic hot meal plus a small dessert or fruit, if they drink water.

They also have pocket money/allowance, so if they want more or want to buy a drink, they have to spend their own money.

DD takes packed lunches and I give her £10.
Her lunch break only lasts for 40 minutes, so by the time she gets to the front of the lunch queue she would have about 10minutes to enhale her lunch and get to her next class.

The £10 she normally spends on drinks, or the occasionally hot soup. Mostly her £10 last a couple of weeks, or if she is feeling chilly and having a lot of soup or hot drinks, then it only lasts a few days.
It works out roughly £10 a week tho.

We have a money jar in the kitchen that everyone in the family uses for anything they need cash for - I put about 25 quid a week in it. That pays dd's lunch if she doesn't take a packed lunch, something to eat if she's staying late for a rehearsa, extra fares if necessary, parking meter money, milkman, sweets for ds on Wednesday's when he walks to football- all that sort of thing.

My DD has just gone in to year 8, at a grammar school. Last year I was giving her £2 a day for lunch until it transpired that a drink was costing 80p which didn't leave enough for lunch apparently, so then I changed it to £1.50 per day and her taking in her own drink.
Fastforward to the beginning of this year when we went to look around all the academies for DS. I looked at their menus and they could get a hot meal there for 60p, when I questioned this it transpired that their lunches were subsidised. DD was so annoyed and said she only gets a pasta pot for her £1.50 so we have now gone on to packed lunch.

Wormshuffler what do you expect and un subsidised dinner system to provide your child with for the princely sum of £1.50?

Id DS eats at school it costs £3 or more to buy enough dinner to fill him up. He and DD2 both take pack punches often as they have activities /hate queueing etc

I'm very annoyed to hear that FSM allowance doesn't actually allow you to eat a proper dinner though in some schools. At both my kids schools the traditional "meal of the day" deal is such that FSM kids can afford it.

I tell them I am not buying them drinks out of the meal money though! Take a carton from home, drink water or buy your own!

Just for comparison DD1s "fully catered" uni package allows £5.20 for lunch and if she uses it wisely at the right places she can get a sandwich, smoothie and several items of fruit/crisps (or a "fixed meal" eg stir fry and fruit). She almost finds it too difficult to spend that much! I feel that is loads for lunch I must say and would find it difficult to spend it for my self buying a lunch for work!

I suppose that covers boys, Thea, who would eat 2 lots of sandwiches!

Wormshuffler, I asked DD how much a pasta pot costs in her school (also a grammar school). DD's response lucky girl, our school are a healthy eating school, which means no pasta or sausages. I then asked what the price for a mainmeal was. Apparently it comes in a meal deal, dinner, pudding and a drink £4.55. The price along with a 40 minute lunch break = DD has packed lunch and £10.00 a week for drinks and soups.

A standard meal is £2, I give DS £2.50-£3 per day so that he can get an extra snack at break; lunch isn't until 1pm and he could starve to death if he didn't eat for 5 whole hours

DS lives on Subway meatball marinara. You also get a drink and something else all for £3 which is pretty good.

Unless it's Chippy Tuesday.