Menu Planning on a CACFP Budget
Making Your Food Program Monies Really Count
Having a monthly menu and cutting coupons can save a lot money and reduce meal planning time. These simple ideas and recipes can help in stretching CACFP payments.
Whether you are Tier 1 or Tier 2, it can be difficult to make your Child and Adult Care Food Program reimbursement dollars count. This is in part due to the rising costs of food, especially milk, which must be served at every meal. How do you best stretch your reimbursement dollars so that food shopping does not cut into your bottom line, or worse, household budget?
Double Check Your Claims Forms Before Submitting
As obvious as it may sound, many reimbursement dollars are lost each year by providers who fail to fill in a circle completely or who don't check off the entire attendance roll in their submission software. While corrections can be made after submissions, appended claims take weeks to process and it will be an additional 2-3 months before the provider receives the monies due. Before submitting your claim for processing, be sure to dot your i's and cross your t's. Meticulous checking really can save you money.
Make a Budget and Stick with it
"Guesstimate" your monthly income from CACFP. This will fluctuate from month to month but usually, if your clients are pretty steady, you can assume that your checks will remain within a $50 range of one another. After you have assessed your food program income you can decide whether this amount is sufficient to adequately feed all those in care or whether additional funds will be necessary. Be sure to take children's ages into account as they grow from infants to toddlers, toddlers to infants and so forth as their meal needs (and the serving requirements for each) will change. Also consider before and after school children as they tend to be big eaters. Once you have figured out your food budget it's time to plan meals.
Meal Planning
This can be tedious and exhausting work if you have never done it before; however, it can save time, money, and sanity when done correctly. Many providers begin to menu plan and later fall out of the habit, resorting to cooking whatever they can find in the cabinets. There is nothing wrong with this methodology but it can cause food and money waste. The truth is, it can be difficult to find time to plan meals after devoting 50 plus hours to child care and countless additional hours to preparation and cleaning. Fortunately, there are many resources available to providers and all others looking to serve healthy meals.
- The USDA has set up a wonderful site for menu planning, complete with menu suggestions
- Use of cycle menus will keep your meals new while simplifying grocery shopping and budgeting. Cycle menus are meals planned for a period of time and then repeated. Most providers who use cycle menus find four weeks worth of meals to be sufficient.
- Many child care resource offices offer menu exchanges wherein providers trade menus weekly or monthly either at an organized meeting, through email, or distribution of a newsletter.
Diversify Your Menus
Whether you decide to cycle or you'd rather fly by the seat of your pants, it is very important to provide different and interesting meals to the children in your care. When thinking in terms of dollars and cents this means purchasing either in bulk, cutting coupons, and/or using expensive foods items sparingly. These cost effective menus are proven to help you capitalize on the almighty dollar.
- The What's Cooking II cookbook published by the NDE Nutrition Services has over 100 CACFP approved meals for you to sample. It is a free .pdf download.
- Chapter 3 of the USDA's Building Blocks for Fun and Healthy Meals provides key information on providing the best quality foods at the lowest possible cost.
Finally, when you shop, go alone. Take a list and follow it. Eat before you go, and only take only enough cash to cover your budgeted expenses.
