I am a legally unlicensed home daycare of 6. 3 infants including my own, and 2 toddlers, and 1 preK. I am not yet on the food program because I am not licensed or yet registered (working toward it but many steps to get there).

I have been in operation 6 months and have lucked out with TERRIFIC families that I REALLY appreciate them trusting me when I was just starting and being my FIRST families. None of them have ever complained about anything, never been late paying, never done anything wrong and have made this business venture a delight.

I charge $35/day which is on the higher end of prices in my area. To this point I have NOT provided ANY food, milk, snacks, etc. Parents pack ALL food and drink.

I was considering providing all food myself, out of my own pocket because I feel like I am making very good money and really appreciate my customers and would like to thank them and really find a way to serve and help them.

Plus, it is sort of a pain to prepare each child's individual lunch. I think it would be better for me and my son who is eating more and more real meals and for the kids and parents if I provided nutritious meals.

How much do you think it would actually cost per day/per week to feed so few kids? Would it be crazy to willingly give up this amount of my income/profit?

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And also, what are example menus you might do in a day/week?

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https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.p...meals+provided

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sample menus would be a good place to start. you can get an idea for your budget before you commit to something. or you can offer snacks for now and then add lunch down the road. also, need to decide if you will provide baby food or not.

I dont provide lunch but only because I am not full here and with the loss of income, not able to provide the extras like lunch out of pocket (not on the food program right now either). I do provide snacks so thats my happy medium until I get licensed.

So happy to see that you are having good luck with your first set of families. It was not the same case for me and those first few kids almost drove me out of the business period.

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I have provided meals for my kids with my own money.. I usually serve left overs are something good but fast. I do have a list of snacks listed for the month and have asked the parents if they want to help provide those they can. ( I did this when I had one family no wanting to pay my full price for both kids... I made them supply all the snacks for the dcks.) It worked out great.

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I'm on the food program, but either way I wanted to provide meals. Having parents provide it around here in uncommon in home daycares at least. I learn as I go what costs more and what costs less. I buy on sale and buy in bulk if it's a good sale.

I still serve everything as healthy as possible, but I'm not going to spend $1 per mango or orange, but I'll wait until they're in season or on sale. That is an example. It costs more the first few months to figure out what goes on sale and what to serve.

Somethings last a LONG time. Plain Oatmeal is only about $4-$5 but has lasted us 3 months since we serve it once a week for breakfast, but not every week. Same goes for rice, buy the HUGE box and use it for casseroles or just mix it with mixed vegetables. A pound of frozen veges go on sale for just under $1 so I stock up on 20-30 bags when that happens and they last long enough for the next sale to roll around!

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I think it depends. We did the approximate cost because we were weighing our options and came up with the fact that we most certainly have to buy in bulk. Parents have to provide food for us but that is due to our very low ratio and monitoring system.

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