How much does it cost?

[Amandala]

Hey all, I dunno if this is even the right forum for this weird question, or where I should post it. I just picked the place it seemed least out of place :P

I'm a stay at home mom and this summer I've taken on a kid whose mom is a single mom and has a full time job. Obviously she's busy. So I told her if rather than having to pack the kid's lunch every day, she wants me to just feed her kid what I feed mine and charge her whatever the food cost me, great. So that's what we started to do.

So here's my conundrum. Some things are easy to figure out, like a cup of milk or 2 eggs. But how on earth do I figure out how much my cost was for, say, 1/4 cup of raisins, 1/4 cup of nuts, 1 tuna sandwich, 4 baby carrots, about 3/4 of a cup of peas, corn, and soybeans, and a small bowl of chicken vegetable stir-fry?

Has anyone been in a similar situation before? Assuming everything is organic and was purchased at your local Whole Foods, what would you charge her?

[swd12422]

Why don't you just charge her an extra $5 (or whatever you feel is fair) per day to provide lunch? You're spending more $$ in your own time just to do these calculations. Make it easier on yourself, and she'll probably appreciate having a set rate as well, so she always knows she has to pay you the same amount.

[sunnysandiegan]

You may get a wider variety of answers by also posting this over in frugality and finances.

[redvlagrl]

We pay $35 per day for home daycare including all snacks and lunch. You could find out how much the going rate in your area is and charge in line with that.

[EdnaMarie]

I think $5 is a lot, personally, for one meal for a child. I would estimate what percentage of our food budget was consumed by my child of a similar age, do the math for how much that was per day, then divide by three. I'm guessing it's going to be an average of $1.5 / meal or $2 at most.

Our food budget is $260, DD1 eats about 15% of that (because she eats dairy which is more expensive than grains that DH fills up on), so that is a mere $.43 / meal (!). Of course an older child will eat more.

If it were me, knowing how much we spend, I'd charge $2 for all meals and snacks, and provide two healthy snacks in addition to lunch (those would be fruits, which are expensive), and use any over-money to ensure a greater variety of snacks for the child, also to ensure the child had an alternative if he didn't like what I prepared.

[zebra15]

I pay a flat rate for inhome daycare. That includes lunch and snack. Sometimes DS packs his lunch and sometimes not. Feeding one more kid for part of the day shouldnt cost that much. Honestly if my sitter came to me and said 'your kid ate 1/4 cup of raisins, 1/2 cup of corn, 2 eggs, 2 slices of bread, 6 chicken nuggets, 1 cup milk, 1 cup punch, 2 cookies and 1 apple today" please add $3.26 to your weekly rate I would be a bit miffed ya know? I expect those things to be provided with the weekly rate.
If meals and snacks are not provided thats fine too but I really dont want an itemized list and bill.

I think the IRS allows a certain amount per child if you are running a daycare for write off purposes.