How much lunch money?

[MollyHuaCha]

D.C. age 16 at 6th form college gets £3.50 lunch money per day from me. He chooses not to use the college canteen (apparently it's expensive & not nice food). Instead goes to local supermarket for a £3 meal deal. How much does anyone else give for lunches?

13 year old still has small appetite and just spends £2.10. Friends with older and hungrier kids seem to get no more than £4 a day for school canteen.

DD1 gets £50 per month 'college money'. She only goes in 4 days a week and travel is paid for by a season ticket. But actually she gets the money by standing order, so months with half term or holidays it equates to a bit more. e.g. She breaks up on the 13th this month so will have been given £50 for only 2 weeks in college. We are quite tight on pocket money so any extra is there for her discretionary spends.

DD2 at school seems to spend around £3 per day on a cashless finger system. She takes a snack in for break time, and isn't meant to buy drinks with the money but stick to water.

dd2 gets £2.40 a day which seems to cover everything, and she usually has change from this
dd1 (at a different 6th form now) has money randomly put onto their system and I top up when it gets low. I can see that she normally spends about £1.70 - £1.90 on a main meal. She's not a big pudding person so loses out in a way from when she was at school and had actual cash she could keep if she didn't spend it.
When ds was at school he always managed a full dinner and a pudding.
Either way I think £3.50 is very generous. No problem if you've got loads of money of course.

I top up dd's card £9 per week and that covers her lunches. She only has 1 course and no pudding though so it costs about £1.80 per day