Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: money for meals

[David Hungerford (dghungerford]

On Tue, 18 Oct 1994, Malinowycz wrote:

> Do you charge a flat fee for meals, or does it vary depending on what 
> is served?
> 
> How do you handle collection of money for common meals? Do you pay 
> ahead, and if so, is it for a period of time (such as a month) or a 
> number of meals (or singly)? Do you sell tickets? Do you bill afterward?

SHORT:  we tally the number of meals eaten, add up what was spent to make 
those meals, divide to get a per meal price, then charge each household 
for the # of meals eaten.
 
LONG:  Our meals cycle is monthly.  Each adult is expected to cook once and 
clean twice; each meal has two cooks and four cleaners (or two cleaners 
doing "doubles".)  This works out to roughly 20 meals each month.  We try 
not to have more than 5 per week so we don't end up with meal-less 
weeks.  Each pair of cooks (some choose to cook with different people 
every month, some cook almost exclusively with spouses) decides on a 
menu, and lists it on a "meal sign-up sheet" to put up on the main 
bulletin board in the common house at least 3-4 days in advance.  This 
sheet has a grid with rows for every household and columns for #adults, 
#children, #meat, #veggie, and #late plates (which cooks separate and 
refrigerate before the food is gone.)  People sign up by tallying in the 
#adults, #children etc., which allows the cooks to know how many to 
prepare for.  Cooks buy the groceries they need, then turn the sign-up 
sheet (which has space for totalling reciepts on the back) in to the 
"meals committee."  Meals committee tallies the total number of meals (kids 
meals are half-price) and the total amount spent by cooks and by bulk 
buying, divides total spent by # eaten for a per meal price, then, using 
Quicken 4 (GAWD, NOW MICROSOFT OWNS EVERYTHING), multiplies the #meals 
eaten by each household by that final price for a total cost, subtracts 
that from the amount that household spent when they cooked, and puts a 
"bill" with a negative or positive balance in our folders.  If we have a 
large positive balance, we can get a reimbursement check, or if we have a 
large negative balance, we pay the meals committee.  In practice, it is 
much simpler than the description.

special cases:  on "steak night" we charged for multiple meals based on 
the previous month's average meal price, i.e. avg meal price is about $2, 
so we charged 4 meals for each $7 steak.

leftovers:  there is a tally sheet on the fridge, leftovers are charged 
as kid meals (1/2 price) and it is up to the individual raiding the 
fridge how many leftovers he signs up for based on how much he takes. 

> How do you charge for children? for guests? for takehome meals or leftovers?

guests are tallied with the host's family.  Visitors (to muir commons) 
are asked to pay for their meals unless the community as a whole invited 
them, in which case we just absorb it.

> What happens if someone only occasionally has a common meal?
irrelevent in our system

> Do you keep meals moneys separate from association funds? What 
> bookkeeping/accounting practices do you use? Who handles the money?
yes, separate bank account.  cost accounting.  whoever isn't burnt out on 
meals committee at the moment and has a computer.

> Are you responsible for taxes (sales, income, whatever) on the money 
> you handle?
> 
to paraphrase Judy, HUH?

> Other thoughts on this topic?
we include some kitchen cleaning supplies as well as bulk food in the 
meals price

David Hungerford, Muir Commons