When you accept a placement as a live-in carer, you automatically expect that your accommodation and food is included in the package. For most placements, this is the case. There are, however, placements where you will not be offered meals and will need to take care of this yourself.
Legally, as a live-in carer, you need to be fed, but how your client works this out can differ. There are two ways you can expect this to work.
Here you will do your own shopping, buy whatever food you eat, and then add your food bill along with your regular invoice at the end of the week or fortnight period. There is normally a limit on the amount you can expect to be re-imbursed so be sure to find this out before you go food shopping.
In this instance you will be given an amount of money upfront to buy your own food. You may spend it on whatever food you choose to eat, and you will receive the same amount the following week. If you are at the placement over Christmas you may find that you receive a little more, but don’t expect this as it may not happen.
How much can I expect?
This varies with each client (or whoever pays you) and can be anything from £5 per day (yes, this has happened) to £50 per week.
Theoretically, if you spend £3 for breakfast, £3 for lunch and £6 for supper (without including drinks), the amount per day should not be less than £12. Over a week you should receive £84 and you can be assured that this is probably not going to happen!
Amounts per week can vary from £25 to about £50, very seldom will you be paid more for a food allowance. If you are paid more, then this may be a placement worth staying at!
What if I can’t manage on that amount?
Unfortunately, there are some placements where the live-in carer is paid less than the average to feed herself. Other than live on Pot Noodles, what can you do?
The first thing you need to do is to talk to your agency. They will have agreed with the client the amount for carer food. If you cannot feed yourself, they need to know. This will give you a change to explain that you need a little more. They will then broach the subject with the client and hopefully increase the amount.
If you are a private carer then you need to speak to the family or whoever pays your wages. Explain as politely as possible that you cannot survive on the small amount. Use the example of how much per meal is reasonable and hopefully they will increase your food allowance.
What if they won’t increase it?
Sometimes there will be situations where you will simply not get any more food allowance, no matter how convincing you are. People will have their own set ideas of how much it costs to feed a person and they will stick to this figure.
Make sure that your agency knows that the amount is too low. You should put this in writing to them. You may also want to write to the family and inform them.
Sadly, there may be nothing you can do, other than to stay till the end of your placement, and then decline to return to that particular client for the reason that the food allowance is too low.
To sum up
It is always best to talk to the bill payer about this issue. Sometimes people simply do not see that you can’t get by on a small amount of food money each day and will happily increase it. They may be unaware of the problem because no-one has mentioned it before.
Carers are often wary of complaining in case they lose a placement, which means that the family assume all is well. Sometimes a polite conversation is all that is needed to rectify the situation.
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