Free and Reduced Lunch

Posted on | September 9, 2010 | No Comments

If you have kids in public school, free and reduced lunch (and breakfast) is a program that many people are qualified for and don’t even know it. Case in point, me. I just found out that we would have qualified for reduced cost meals the last two years based on our income. I wasn’t working, but my hubby makes a decent amount of money, definitely enough for us, and I would never have thought we could get it. Of course I find this out now, when we make too much money and don’t qualify. But I wanted to let you know so you don’t miss out.

I’m sure every state and district is different, but I’ll tell you how it works here at our public elementary school so you get the idea. Lunches normally cost $1.75 at the regular line or $3.25 at the catered line. Breakfast is $1.50. If you qualify for free meals then you don’t pay at all for one breakfast and one lunch each day. If you qualify for reduced meals then breakfast is $0.30 and lunch is $0.40.

Want to see the math? If all three of my kids had lunch one day at the catered line it would cost $3.25 x 3 = $9.75. With reduced lunch it would cost $0.40 x 3 = $1.20. That’s a difference of $8.55! With reduced lunch they could have lunch for 8 days for the same price as one day of paying full price for lunch.

To see if you qualify and to apply is really easy here, you just go to the school website and it has all the information you need. If you can’t easily find it where you are call your school and ask, they are usually very helpful and can guide you in the right direction.