How do you manage school dinner money at secondary?

[Taswama]

DS is in Y7 and it’s still a bit hit and miss, some days he’ll have 3 cakes, other days he’ll have a proper meal.
I’ve said no drinks as a waste of money (and empty calories).
He takes a packed lunch some days but then buys something in the canteen instead.
How do other people manage it?

Ds gets £10 a week plus a couple of quid if we have change. I think he gets chips most days but we don’t monitor it. He eats healthily at home and is insanely active so I figure overall he’s doing ok.

Wow thanks for all the responses!
We have the fingerprint payment method as well. A standard meal is £2.30 and that’s what FSM kids get daily. I’ve no idea if there is a maximum daily limit. There is pizza at break for 70p. He originally said he would stick with pack lunches, then after a few weeks discovered the pizza so was having that at 11, not eating packed lunches but starving by teatime or eating his pack lunch when he got in at 3 but then not eating tea. Then he discovered fish and chips on Friday and so we said fine, £5 / week for Fish and chips plus some snacks during the week. But he’d spent it all on snacks by Friday! Like PP he decided to try curry on a a Thursday (not very adventurous with food previously) so now I’m topping up on a Weds eve (£7.50) and it’s up to him to see what he has left for the beginning of the following week. DP and I take pack lunches every day and have discussed with him that it’s expensive to pay for food out all the time.

It costs me £50 a month. Dc1 normally has a main (panini etc) and a biscuit. Dc2 has main and a sweet drink.
They have a proper meal in the evening

Ours have Squidcards so can see online what they have eaten and cost. I have it on auto top-up and don't have a daily limit but if you contact school office you can have daily limit set.

DS (y7) is super-sensible with money - he's ASD, thin, very restricted diet and I'm just glad when he's eaten but does at least eat lots of fruit. He gets very obsessed with price of every item, questions staff on it - he dropped Yorkshire puddings as they were 50p each and pasta sauce as that was 1 pound both of which he said were 'school rip-offs'. He told me yesterday 'there has been unreasonable apple inflation at school and apples have risen in price from 35p to 40p whilst halving in size'. He says he is therefore boycotting apples and instead getting oranges which the school have miscoded as ketchup and only charge 10p for but you have to get there quick as there are only 15 oranges a day.

We have a £5 cap per day and I think DD spends around £3.50/day. I give her a snack like fruit or cereal bar or similar some days.

Packed lunch is a nightmare as they have to keep the packs in their lockers and in the worst case have to walk from the furthest building to their lockers and then to the canteen, loosing around15 minutes of a 45 minutes lunch break plus the treck back.

I have an automated top up for her card, saves me time and hassle. I can monitor the usage online but hardly do.

I imagine this will be an issue with ds. Dd dislikes the canteen as she cba to queue so has spent about £30 as she is now at end if yr 8. She does take fruit from free breakfast club and eat it at break rather than carry fruit to school.

Seem to be a massive range in pricing between schools

DS could easily spend £5 / day given the chance, especially as they now do food before school and slushies and hot drinks.
But I’m trying to balance him enjoying his independence vs encouraging sensible choices and not spending a fortune!

My DD's school has the fingerprint system and I can see what she buys when I top-up on ParentPay.

I gave her a few weeks at a higher amount to try things and go crazy with her new independence, then dialled it down to about £14-15 a week and she knows if she's silly with it I will dial it down to just the bare basic amount for school meals. She takes in a snack for break and a water bottle so a lot of the extra spending she was doing at first was eliminated.

DD1 is about to start and they use parent pay and fingerprints. She has cousins already at the school who get £3 per day and that seems to do them so DD will be getting the same. If she blows it all then she can take packed lunch.

We have fingerprint and out £3 on a day, he can't have it put on weekly because he'll spend the entire lot in two days. Some days he spends the three pounds, others he doesn't.

My ds is now in the sixth form part of the school and since yr 7 has had roughly £20 a week on his cashless payment system.
He'll get a snack mid morning and then a hot lunch.

We use parent pay too and it’s a minimum £5 to add at a time so I can’t control it on a daily basis. Frankly that would be a real pain as well.

I use Parent Pay and top up 12.50 a week I love that I can view what the money has been spent on, whether it's a meal deal or snacks

4 packed lunches a week - which I ram full of good healthy stuff. And he eats.

One school lunch when he can buy what the heck he likes, which thankfully is always a hot savoury meal. And then followed with junky treats. But once a week so I’m relaxed about it.

At first he just ate rubbish every day. Then I cut it down and gave enough for a sandwich a day and 2 treats a week. When he started just buying rubbish and no sandwich (2 cakes and a soft drink a day), I moved him to pack lunches.

We use parent pay too and it’s a minimum £5 to add at a time so I can’t control it on a daily basis. Frankly that would be a real pain as well.

I am not sure if it is on parentpay or through the school, we are on the thumb print system, all payments are made on parentpay so there is no cash in school.

We were definitely told on both induction evenings for my children that you can put a limit on their daily spends.

Oddly sometimes the system shows me what they have had but the cashier puts it through as something different. So it will say cookie when they have had a crumpet at break. They regulate what they eat rather well so we don't say anything about a cookie.

We just put £50 on and then top it when needed, parentpay alerts us to when it goes below £10. They are very sensible with money.

I wonder why parent pay has different minimum limits, ours is no where near £5.

We use parent pay too and it’s a minimum £5 to add at a time

Just to clarify, I think the poster means you can't top up by less than £5, which seems reasonable as there might be costs associated with topping up.

Whereas maximum spend limit per day per child can be set by each parent, with schools usually setting a default.

When ds turned 11 we opened a debit account for him and deposit £100/month which he spends on school lunch/phone/sometimes netflix, pocket money etc.

He keeps parent pay topped up from that account himself.

He quickly learned £100 (sounds like a lot of money for an 11 year old!) doesn't go very far if he buys expensive drinks/cakes/treats daily in school (or too many PS4 points) and he'll have no money left to go out with friends/pay for a giff gaff goody bag with a reasonable amount of data etc.

Switching to a monthly budget which he manages and makes decisions what to spend on instead of it being endless handouts during the month saves us money and makes him realise how lots of little daily spends that seem insignificant soon add up.

Forgot to say, he buys a roll in sausage at break for £1 and a salad/ham or chicken roll at lunch for £1 and tops up his water bottle for drinking.

I load £15 per week on my DD's lunch card - I can see what she orders and mostly it's junk (sausage rolls, cakes, pizza, chicken nuggets) i just make sure she has plenty of fresh and homemade healthy meals and snacks at home to compensate.

I don't mind her high calorie choices at school, she is very skinny so filling up on a bit of stodge and not being hungry at school is important.

Teentimestwo and Citadel , yes it was in response to Citadel saying she puts on £3.50 per day. I can put on £17.50 per week if I want to, but not £3.50 per day.

Fingerprint system here too. We can top up in units of £10 so I put £50 on and hope it will last about 4 weeks.

DS has packed lunch one day a week and school lunch the other 4. Food is available before school (Cooked breakfast, croissants etc) and at break (sandwiches, cakes, cooked breakfast, croissants etc) at lunchtime (full range of hot and cold meals and sandwiches) and after school (snacks).

We manage spending by saying DS can have 1 main meal per day. He is allowed 1 pudding and 1 snack per week and no drinks. He also takes a carton drink and chocolate biscuit or fruit for a morning break snack.....so most days is just buying a main meal, which is in the region of £3. I can see what he has had electronically and there haven't been any real issues because he's had clear boundaries. If he's forgotton his break time snack, he is allowed to buy something but knows this shouldn't happen much.

I remember lots of parents at the start of Yr7 saying they topped up £50 and it was gone in a week or so. With the fingerprint system kids aren't always aware of what they are spending or prices. They get carried away with the choice and especially buying stuff beyond their main meal....so expensive drinks or extra snacks at break. Easy to spend £8-10 in a day if you're not excited by all the options.

Best way to manage it is to clearly set out what they are and aren't allowed to have and carefully checking in the early days.

I also like the ideas of having a monthly limit and after that they have to have packed lunches, or they mostly have packed lunches with a small allowance for the odd snack.

I started off with all sorts of attempts at banning drinks, insisting meals, not cakes were bought etc but life became so much more pleasant when I gave up

I put £10 a wee in for DD this covers three school meals a week plus snacks/drink on the remaining days, we can set a limit they spend a day, also a finger print system