I caluclated $6 per day per child on average. I actually did cost out an entire week's menu...it took me a long time and I went through the reciepts and figured it all out and now I have that if I ever get audited.
Printable View
I caluclated $6 per day per child on average. I actually did cost out an entire week's menu...it took me a long time and I went through the reciepts and figured it all out and now I have that if I ever get audited.
thanks for that SongSparrow! I got a little stressed reading some of the above comments as I just do a fixed rate because I tried to shop separate for my family and daycare and it was impossible. I have my own 2 children in care and I am not going to make them a different meal while I feed the daycare children something else. I also wash daycare bedding with my own families, etc. I think a fixed rate for food is totally okay for all the reasons you stated above and what the CRA says. It is much easier to calculate this way I find.
Using a fixed rate is ok as long as you have some way to back it up as to why you chose $7 a day over $10 a day or whatever and your grocery receipts will do that. It will show if you are buying more expensive items like all organic or out of season fruits, etc. too.
I buy separate groceries. It doesn't really matter if there is a bit of back and forth between the 2 groups of food. I can show reasonable expenses for both daycare and personal use. My daughter may eat a daycare banana one day and I may use our apple for daycare the next.
How much of that total can you right off? I thought it was 50% of your total daycare grocery bill no?
If that question is for me Skysue.....
The whole daycare food/supply bill is put on my taxes. I simply add up the years worth of receipts and enter the total.
Like sunnydays, I also sat down and calculated the cost of my regular meals and snacks and divided it into an average cost per day per child. This was a few years back and I have increased it a bit each year to reflect the rising cost of groceries. I also keep all my grocery receipts for the year in case I ever need them.
I wish I could do things separately, but I am very short on space and have yet to figure out a way to make it work.
I was taught to do the calculation based on number of meals served. So for daycare it is 5 lunches and 10 snacks times 5 kids ( a snack equals one lunch) so that would be 10 meal units. Then do the same for your family including your own school age kids if you send food to school but not meals that say your husband or teens bought at work and aren't on your food bills. Include weekend meals for your family too. That will determine what percent of the grocery bill feeds the daycare and what percent feeds the family. Now mine is pretty much 50-50 but was more lopsided when my own 3 older kids still lived at home but then my bills were bigger too so the amount I wrote off was about the same. You only need to do the calculation once and use a typical week. Then at the end of the year just add up all the grocery bills and use the percentage. Remember to include your bills for pizza etc since those meals have been included in your totals based on the percentages.
I don't include major meals out to a restaurant because that totally messes with the averages but at the same time I don't sweat it if one of the girls comes and eats at the house as it balances out at the end of the year.
I used to calculate my daycare food cost based on a percentage per child of the total grocery cost (I just estimated it... my best guess). After I read one of your posts I did it your way. Surprisingly the results were very similar... I think I will keep doing it your way since I think it would be easier to explain if I get audited.Quote:
Originally Posted by playfelt