I buy all the groceries together. There are several ways you can calculate daycare meal expenses. One is to make up your menu and then cost it out - which pulls from the grocery bills the daycare items. You can also use your entire grocery bill and then portion it out using the formula that 2 snacks = meal and 2 kid meals = an adult meal. So for instance one meal and two snacks = 2 meals per day per child so 10 meals x 5 days = 50 daycare meals. You do the same for family which will be different for everyone depending on if you pack a lunch to send to school or work with hubby or if they eat out. Include the weekends for your family. Take the total of meals eaten and divide that number into the total grocery bill to get a per meal price and figure out the daycare percentage. I have done it different ways and given my current family situation it works out to about 50% of my grocery bill is daycare since it is just my husband who doesn't take a lunch to work, myself and one child at home. Remember if you order out for pizza that can be added to the grocery total since it accounts for 1-2 meals or add the meals served up weekly and jut don't count only a snack for a pizza meal (the assumption being you had a drink or dessert from food already in the house). It sounds a lot more complicated then it is but the key is that as long as you can substantiate that you used some sort of method consistently for the year to determine your claim then your claim will likely hold up in an audit.