how much lunch money?

[wheresmymillionaire]

How much does your y12 child spend on lunch at school? I seem to be forever topping up her account.
DD is autistic and won't take food from home into school, so she has to buy food at school. (There is A LOT of crisps being bought, along a decent amount of salad, pasta, wraps etc.) Is £20 per week a normal spend amount?

£12 to £15 but not autistic abs we live in a fairly cheap area.

*and

My yr 12 DS has £15/week lunch money and buys a meal deal at Tesco on the way in to school.

Year 9 but £10-15

£2.50 a day tops

Is it food provided in school? What were you spending on lunches previously? Ds had meal of the day which was £2.20 which included a cookie.

Ds had the choice of buying something in sixth form or locally from sandwich shops or bakeries so his tended to be more than the £2.20 but not £4 a day. I would want to know how much a wrap is or a pasta salad and go from there.

mine have packed lunches 4 times a week, on the Friday they buy whatever they like and can spend up to £5. they don't always spend it all and usually take a piece of fruit from home anyway

I'll say this very quietly, because I don't want to get into a bun fight, but she's been at boarding school for the last 3 years, so has always had a sit down proper meal included in the fees. Before that she was happy to take in a packed lunch. So this is her first time managing her own lunch spending.
According to her account she buys 1 (sometimes 2) bags of crisps, a wrap or salad or pasta box, a drink, and a croissant per day. This is adding up to £4-5 per day.
I am wondering if other y12 eat this much at school, or whether she may be buying stuff for other people.

what you said would cost about £4-5 quid and not an amazingly crazy amount of food for a 12yo.
my 7yo could easily eat that and he's skinny as a rake but can eaily chomp down a full size pizza.

of you can afford £20-25 per week I wouldn't worry about it

@wheresmymillionaire

I'll say this very quietly, because I don't want to get into a bun fight, but she's been at boarding school for the last 3 years, so has always had a sit down proper meal included in the fees. Before that she was happy to take in a packed lunch. So this is her first time managing her own lunch spending. According to her account she buys 1 (sometimes 2) bags of crisps, a wrap or salad or pasta box, a drink, and a croissant per day. This is adding up to £4-5 per day. I am wondering if other y12 eat this much at school, or whether she may be buying stuff for other people.

For the first term of yr7, my DS was buying his friend lunch as well as his own. I only found out as back then, I could see what he was buying on the parentpay app and it was doubled up. I let it go as his friend's mum was financially struggling. Had to rein it in after a term though as £100/month on his lunches alone was getting too much. Then he went through a phase of way too many carbs (and spending), think sausage roll plus croissant plus cake plus drink. He finally balanced it out as he got older and more body and fitness conscious.

Mine 'aren't allowed' to buy crisps etc at 80p a bag. I buy crisps and they can take them in to school and also other snacks.

I bought some paper bags and they can take biscuits or whatever they fancy from home.

One of mine makes a packed lunch as she doesn't like all the queuing and the other one spends about £2 a day on average.

On my LEA's website you can look at the dinner menu as the main meal and pudding has to cost a certain amount so that the dc on free school meals can buy a meal for whatever the daily allowance is.

It depends on whether the canteen is subsidised or not.

I used to give Ds £3 per day. Now he’s at college prices are more expensive.

Is the croissant at break time? I would limit her to 1 bag of crisps and depending on costs I would encourage her to take that in from home. The main bit of pasta etc is reasonable. Ds took a drink in as they were expensive when calculated up but mostly he took in water in a reusable bottle.

I think she needs to understand what this is costing over a month. For me this isn't about whether you can afford it but whether spending £800-£900 on lunches for one person a year is really good use of money.

My daughter has £80 per month. She has to budget with that and tends to buy meal deals (year 13)

I give mine £2.50 a day.
A meal at his school (roast, curry, lasagne) is usually £1.80-£2 and a slice of pizza/burger/panini is £1-£1.50.
He takes his own drink and fruit.

I have ten pounds for lunch each week. This is enough to buy a couple of sandwiches and a energy drink in my area. Sometimes however I take my own food to save money or eat lunch in the canteen.

It doesn’t sound to me like she’s buying lunch for someone else - it sounds like she’s buying a croissant and crisps at break and then pasta/salad/wrap and crisps and a drink at lunch.

I wouldn’t be happy to spend that much to be honest just because we couldn’t afford it for every child every day but it doesn’t sound a crazy amount of food if you’re happy with that amount of money.

Mine spend about £3-4 a day at lunch
They take snacks from home - babybel, choc bar, cereal bar, crisps etc

The crisps and croissants are probably extra to a lunch. I think our day school had a £3.50 limit, which was a lunch. Though in reality my daughter said she could only have a dessert OR drink, not both, and she never had snacks, so I upped her limit. But her lunches were cooked on the premises and very good quality.