Anonymous wrote:OP I WAS IN YOUR SHOES!! I have a p/t nanny and wanted to make sure she was happy while taking care of my infant, and I offered her to help herself to our food. Well needless to say this has become a major problem. She is eating all of our most expensive grocery items and even though she's p/t (16 hrs/week), you would think we have another grown adult living with us when looking at the grocery bill. groceries are expensive, and I can barely afford my nanny nevermind feeding her all of our food.. she's also been eating my kid's snacks, so i'm running out in the middle of the week to replenish everything. my DH wants us to find a new nanny because it's costing us so much more than we anticipated.
Anyway, if I were to do it over again, I would have offered specific snacks and drinks/water.. she's only p/t and last time I checked, people don't normally get paid lunch at their normal jobs. HTH!
This is a very common experience. I have not found any families who provide the nanny with lunch and are happy with the arrangement. There are always misunderstandings about what is fair game, frustration about ingredients for a dinner having been eaten by the nanny for lunch, and surprise about how much it costs to keep a nanny supplied with her favorite foods. Nannies will say that you should label anything that is off limits, but why should parents have to do that in their own home?