# Long distance intros...



## littlepoppy86 (Feb 14, 2014)

Hello all,

We're due to start intros soon about 4 hours drive...They are sorting the hotel out which is not self catering..

Does anyone know if they provide a food allowance as eating out for 7 nights could proove costly?

Thanks


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## Miny Moo (Jan 13, 2011)

On our 1st intros, we had self catering accommodation and we were told to keep all our receipts for everything, including our shopping, meals out etc, we even bought wine and beer and said we were not expecting them to pay for it but they did.

2nd time around we were in self catering accommodation again and we provided all our own food.

Think if we had been accommodated in a hotel I would have pushed for them to cover our meal costs.


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## littlepoppy86 (Feb 14, 2014)

Thanks Minimoo....I will try and push for food to be included cos it adds up say £30 a night min when we've got a little one about to come into our household x


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## AoC (Oct 28, 2008)

We had an eating out allowance, but it was capped quite low, so we ended up spending more than we could claim because the Premier Inn the booked us into was on large retail centre with expensive restaurants, and we didn't know the area well.  We didn't care at the time, but it did make things financially rather tight, with hindsight!


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## katie c (Jun 15, 2009)

littlepoppy86 said:


> Thanks Minimoo....I will try and push for food to be included cos it adds up say £30 a night min when we've got a little one about to come into our household x


Thirty pounds a night?  Where do you shop? Harrods? And how much are you expecting your child to eat?! 

(Or do you mean eating out in restaurants?)


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## AoC (Oct 28, 2008)

She already said they'd put them into a hotel so would have to be eating out every day. 

From experience, when there's two of you, needing breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, and having nowhere to store food because you're in a (cheap) hotel, it gets very expensive very quickly.  I'm gluten free, so we didn't eat with the foster carer at all, which made for some long, hungry days.


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## littlepoppy86 (Feb 14, 2014)

Yes we're in a hotel, if we where in a cottage we could cover the whole time with a £30 tesco shop...

If we're looking at breakfast, snack an dinner everyday we're easily going to be racking up the £££..

As was said previously at the time we won't care but if we can avoid it then it would be money better spent on entertaining little one! x


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## katie c (Jun 15, 2009)

Oh yeah missed that   that'd make more sense!

I may have got this wrong but I'm sure I read on here that FCs get a hospitality allowance so you may get some food at theirs. Worth asking at least.


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## littlepoppy86 (Feb 14, 2014)

Yes I have seen on here that some people eat at theirs, I've just asked my SW the question so we shall see!!!

x


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## Frangipanii (Nov 21, 2011)

We stayed in a hotel for ten nights and had to provide for ourselves. We had breakfast included in the hotel, ate one meal per day with fc. Which we had to do as it was part of the children's routine and then instead of eating out we used to go to morrisons and buy a salad to eat in the room. Cheap and cheerful! Xxx


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## katie c (Jun 15, 2009)

frangipanii is a mummy said:


> We stayed in a hotel for ten nights and had to provide for ourselves. We had breakfast included in the hotel, ate one meal per day with fc. Which we had to do as it was part of the children's routine and then instead of eating out we used to go to morrisons and buy a salad to eat in the room. Cheap and cheerful! Xxx


I used to have a repping job and got something like £50 a night allowance, so I stopped at holiday inn express and ate a takeaway Pizza Hut salad, I once had a two month stint of doing that and trousered a right profit


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## Brummig (Jan 14, 2011)

We were offered hotel, but pushed for a budget amount so we could book something ourselves, and we booked a cottage.  We fought for this largely because we have a birth child with autism who would be staying with us for some of the time.  We were given a budget of £50 a night for accommodation,  I don't think we were given an amount for meals.  We didn't have the cottage for the whole time, just 3 nights, and the other days we went home (about 90 min drive).  I think we bought about £50 food and drinks all week as we did a Morrisons shop for the cottage, much cheaper than eating out.  it was fab having our own space at the cottage to take Little Red back to, and for us to crash at after the late nights.  We took some of our own stuff as we weren't sure if we'd have time to shop (like coffee, cereal, tins of beans, bread), and some wine.  The days we went home we tried to have meals planned and in the slow cooker so we ate a proper meal at least once.  
When we asked about if we ate at FCs we didn't really get an answer, I think they said "that's up to you to discuss with FC".  We made sure we had snacks and drinks in the car every day, but our FCs were very hospitable, because of timings we usually had toast or similar as light lunch, and chip shop run with the one night, and lots of coffee!
Take some "just add water" snacks, drinks and snacks with you, so you know there is always something there.  I know that some nights the last thing we could have dealt with would have been waiting in a restaurant - just needed to eat and go to bed!  Take breakfast things too as you might have to leave early to observe morning routine.

Hope all works out.

Hope it all goes well


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## littlepoppy86 (Feb 14, 2014)

Thank you all 

Packet foods with kettles are a good idea & I'm wondering whether we could sneak a microwave in haha x


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