When travelling for work, my company allows us to claim for breakfast if we have an early start, and dinner, even if we are going to be home that evening but late, but they do NOT let you claim lunch. The only time they will let you claim is if there is no access to on-site catering.

Now this is clearly ridiculous. If I’m at home, or commuting from home I can eat my own sandwiches at little cost. If I’m in London then I have to pay £6 or whatever every day, so I am clearly out of pocket. I wonder if this is due to some kind of tax related issue? There’s also no definition of ‘on-site catering’. I wonder if they are assuming that on-site catering is free.

There’s no legal obligation for them to make sure I’m not out of pocket, is there?

Probably based on HRMC guidance.

they’ll let you claim for breakfast and dinner even if you start/finish from home? sounds pretty reasonable to me. you’d have to sort your own lunch out anyway, right?

If I were at home or staying at home I could take sandwiches, at a cost of a few pence.

So if I have to pay £5-6 I’m out of pocket.

lunch you’d have regardless – breakfast and dinner are to cover for that fact that you’ve had to do something outside of your normal routine because of a business requirement.

buy a loaf of bread and some jam – you can make sandwiches in a hotel room 😉

lunch you’d have regardless

Not for £5. I don’t pop out to Pret a Manger when I’m at home!

But they WILL let me claim if there’s no on-site catering. That makes no sense. Either I’m entitled to claim lunch or I’m not. The presence of on-site catering doesn’t make a difference.. UNLESS by ‘on-site catering’ they really mean ‘free on-site catering’.

If you’re popping out to Pret then that would suggest that on-site catering isn’t available so should be a legitimate expense claim 😀

As said previously make your own lunch.
I’m sure you get enough notice of being away.
Is it in your contract that all food is provided?
If not be thankful for what you get.

I’m amazed nobody has suggested you join a union.

I’ve had similar discussions with out FD about lunch expenses and can see the logic that you would eat it anyway and the other two are to compensate for being away from home on work time when you would normally have finished for the day.

In theory though you’re right that if you were at home it would cost significantly less than eating from service stations or cafes in London so you end up out of pocket.

Raise it with them and see what they say.

Make my own lunch? So what, take five lots of cheese sandwiches in my suitcase? Don’t fancy eating those on a Friday.

There is a canteen at the place I work currently but it’s not significantly cheaper than the outside options.

I don’t get it – I’m out of pocket, so why I can’t I claim it?

I’ll email them later, but I doubt I’ll be the first.

no shops in that there london ?

Eat a big breakfast and evening meal
Or suck it up and pay tight arse.

you could put the tub of marge and block of cheese in the mini-bar and make the sandwiches each morning.

or do you not normally have to make your own lunch?

That sounds like the same as my place, the on-site catering is subsidised so cheaper than Pret therefore they will fund your Pret lunch but not your work’s canteen lunch. (The Ivy is probably cheaper than Pret though).

In reality it’s all a bit moot, depends who signs off your expenses. Had a couple of weeks in Amsterdam, best work’s canteen ever, all expensed.

why cant you take cheap nasty sandwiches to London?

Five days’ worth?

On-site catering is sometimes cheap, but so what? If it’s that cheap you can reimburse me for it, can’t you? And it’s often not – many canteens are just as expensive as lunch out.

If I’m in London then I have to pay £6 or whatever every day

Or buy a sandwich from Tesco/Sainsbury/local shop

It REALLY isn’t that difficult.

Eat a big breakfast and evening meal
Or suck it up and pay tight arse.

If it’s an insignificant amount of money, maybe you’d like to paypal OP the amount? 😀

If you are away and claming for breakfast and dinner you are not having to eat your own food at home and use your own gas/electricity. All you have to do is buy yourself a £3 meal deal from somewhere for lunch or a bank busting £5. Wow!

Net result is you are actually better off as all you are having to buy is lunch every day. Unless you normally manage to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for less than £5 a day?

Can you not have an all day breakfast at lunch time? Take that accounts nerds.

£5/day is £130/mo. So on a three month assignment that adds up to the price of a pair of forks; on a six month assignment it’s the price of a bike.

Not insignificant to me.

If I’m in a hotel I can only charge for brekkie at the hotel. However eating a big one of those and skipping lunch might be the only cheap option.

Ham and coleslaw from M&S – £1.45

Add a banana if you’re still hungry. Or drink a big glass of water.

buffet breakfast? make some sandwiches to take with you.

or work somewhere with a better expenses policy. ours is ‘don’t take the piss’

£5/day is £130/mo. So on a three month assignment that adds up to the price of a pair of forks; on a six month assignment it’s the price of a bike.

Not insignificant to me.

Your maths could do with a bit of work.

I’d guess they mean free on site canteen. We can claim lunch if we’re away from work….

Your maths could do with a bit of work.

I meant £6/day, typo 🙂

I ask again, was this included in your contract of employment?
If yes (I imagine it would be)why are you crying here?
We all eat lunch and its not free.

I can claim a subs allowance if I’m away from my normal place of work £5 or £10 depending on the length of time away, needs to be backed up with a receipt for some sort of food on the day concerned, breakfast and evening meal can be still claimed for as per the usual early start/staying away rules.

However the way our place observes the HMRC guidelines is that whilst you get the £5 or £10 thru expenses there is a deduction from your wages the next month such that you only end up ahead by the amount of tax you would pay on the £5 or £10 in your wages.

£5/day is £130/mo. So on a three month assignment that adds up to the price of a pair of forks; on a six month assignment it’s the price of a bike.

Not insignificant to me.

Holy crap I need to start bringing in lunches. I spend on average £6/day for lunch!

Be grateful that you’re getting anything at all!
Some people are unbelievable
£6 per day for lunch? Butty, Apple and a coffee. £2.50 in Manchester.
I hope your HR dept have a sense of humour.

from what i remember when cotracting there was a big whoo har from HMRC saying if you were an employee you would have to fund or provide lunches yourself as you would any other working day

this was countermanded kind of by the worker who whilst working away say they lived in scotland but were working in london did not have facilities to make dinner ta breakfast etc

The HMRC GUIDLINE is 5 quid was allowable as a single meal payment rising to double that for a dual meal payment lunch and breakfast with you having to provide your own evening meal regardless of where you are even then if HMRC are in the mood they will redact all that has gone before and say screw you guys

If they were giving you a small pay cut to work at a particular site, I’m sure you’d be complaing too.

£2.50 in Manchester

Where I’m not.

£12.50/week then. Loaf of bread and some cheese = £4.50.

£12.50 – £4.50 = £8 out of pocket

The issue is why do they let you claim lunch unless there’s ‘on-site catering’? That’s what doesn’t make sense.

Grab a croissant and an apple from the hotel breakfast buffet?

Too much cheese is bad for you anyway.

Have you spoken to the people that do the expenses to clear up what ‘on-site catering’ means?

Quite a few of our larger neighbours, on the business park, provide free lunches to all their staff on site, no idea what the tax position is on that. Seems quite enlightened thinking from Cambridge Consultants, CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio), Redgate etc…

I would indeed. So why not ask for a a weekly expense so you can organise a cheaper hotel, maybe even a temporary flatshare.
You can do these things much cheaper than work organise.
This money you save will help a lot.

Sandwich and apple from Sainsbury’s (national chain). Coffee from McDonalds (international chain). Stop whining and be grateful for what you have.

They aren’t flexible.

You can get an allowance instead of expenses if your assignment is longer than three months. Mine is almost never that long in one place.

Sandwich and apple from Sainsbury’s (national chain). Coffee from McDonalds (international chain). Stop whining and be grateful for what you have.

Stop answering the wrong question.

Be grateful for what you have.. yeah, thanks, that’s a brilliant idea. We should all be grateful for bad policy.