working out food costs

[louise]

Hi, This is the one thing i have put off for ages but need to do. How have you guys gone about it. I really dont want to see how much cheese i use in a sandwich ect. Any tips would be great. I only have a 15 month old mindee so i do it with our shop(well hubbie does while i do my other job).
Thanks

[banana]

I think one of the best ways is to have a trolley and place a basket on the end - put anything you can class as childmindng stuff into that and when you get to the check out just out it through seperatley. Then you have a receipt that you dont have to check through and mark off. I have recently started doing this as it was getting too much hassle working it out from our family shop

x

[carolinel]

lots of childminders I know put a set cost in their accounts ie - £5/day. It sounds a lot but when you think about it 3 meals a day, snacks and drinks it does add up.

[tasha]

Hi,
I do what babana does, for my accounts, but so far as charges go I worked out that the average cost of a meal was £1.50 and £1 for snacks. Sounds expensive, but is an adverage and includes puddings and me having to do the washing up!!!!! Most parents in my area are more than happy to pay this as less hassle for them!!!
Check what others charge in your area
Tasha

[tasha]

Ps. I don't charge for cow's milk, juice - or water and this is available freely. (Juice only with meals - teeth)!!!!

[2kidsunder5]

Hi

I charge £1.50 for tea. Snacks and drinks are included in my hourly rate.

For my accounts I put through £2.50 per day per child for food and drink. I don't need to show any receipts as it is less then £10. This is how I was told to do it by other childminders in my area.

Also, I put £5.00 per week through my books for toiletries and cleaning products, such as wipes, toilet rolls, washing powder, fairy liquid etc etc.

Love Diane x

[Pauline]

The tax office say that, if they ever wanted to see your accounts, they would want to know how you arrived at your figures for meal charges.

They suggest that you use till receipts to try to work out the cost of the food you provide to the children, use them to work out an average cost of a meal then let that stand for a few months, then re-calculate if prices go up.

A friend of mine had a tax inspector visit and they went through her books with a fine tooth comb, looking at how she worked out the food costs etc.

They don't do many checks, but if they do you need to be prepared to show how you come to your figures.

This is an extract from a leaflet I was given some time ago:

Food and Drink
If you make batches of food for the whole family and use half for the minded children, just claim half the cost as business expenses.

You need not keep a record of every spoonful of milk!

It might be useful to keep your supermarket till receipts for about 4 weeks after you start childminding to see what extra items you are buying.

You can calculate the cost of a meal like this:
A packet of 10 fish fingers costs £1.25. If a child eats 2 fish fingers then the cost is 2/10 x £1.25 = 25p.
A 500g packet of frozen chips costs £1, then a 100g portion would cost 100/500 x £1 = 20p.
One yoghurt costs 30p.
The cost of the food for this meal is 75p.


There is no flat rate allowance for the cost of a meal since no 2 childminders will incur the same costs. Reasonable estimates for the costs of food and drink provided for the children being cared for are acceptable and receipts would not be required

Hope that helps - happy calculating!

[louise]

Thanks it was for accounts. I was silly and included lunch and breakie in my fee! Dinner is provided.Silly but i had gone nearly 9 months without a call and needed to start minding and the mum was leaving a nursery to come to me. Review isnt till jan. Next time i will add extra. I have thought about seperate shop but i only have one mindee so most of the food is split with my son or all of us.