Domestic Helpers' Food Allowance

Hello Everyone,


We've just arrived to HK and would appreciate some helpful comment(s) regarding the topic below..

Q: How much is reasonable to give/include in the wage/salary contract under 'Food Allowance'?


The helper I am considering is asking for $800hkd on top of her $4,000/per month.

My first offering was $500 but she told me that was not enough to live on. I know of some friends who live in the South, with helper receiving that amount per month.

Please let me know if this all sounds reasonable/normal.


Many thanks!

S.

are you sharing some food like condiments, coffee, tea, bread, rice?



this is from snow rose - see the thread helper does not want to buy anything


Re. the food allowance, the new minimum is $500 per month, so it's only helpers on an 'old' contract who could get $300 pm.


When I first gave the $500 to my helper, she had no idea what to buy or how to make that money last for a month. I ended up going around Wellcome with her and basically working it all out for her. I can share with you what I have learned about how to eat on $500 per month: -


1. this money will pay for 3 healthy meals a day, but is not enough for snacks, luxuries, eating out & assumes the DH will spend her money carefully and not waste any of the food or money

2. for breakfast she could afford choices like - porridge (using powdered milk, not fresh) or a sweet bread/cake + banana/orange/apple

3. for lunch & dinner she could afford meals like rice + meat/fish/tofu/egg + veggies. To get by on $500 per month, she would not be able to afford to be too choosy.


* We also allow our helper to share our rice, cooking oil & condiments, so I pointed out to her that it will be cheaper for her to eat things that go with rice. Because if for example she plans to have a sandwich she pays for her own bread and butter, but if she has rice + meat + veg then she gets the rice & cooking oil 'free' from us and only needs to pay for the meat + veg.


For veggies, choices like pumpkin, squash, corn-on-the-cob, snow peas, potatoes, broccoli, carrots are really cheap. The price of choi sum has gone up a lot but there are other leafy green veg which are cheaper. Obviously eggs & tofu are cheaper alternatives to meat/fish.


So my conclusion is that it can be done on $500 pm but the helper cannot be picky and stay within budget. She would have to eat what she can afford and not just her favourites.


Re. the shampoo and other toiletries, there is no mention in the contract of employers providing these. It's totally up to her to pay. Of course generous employers may choose to provide extra benefits, extra food / food money, toiletries, work clothes etc but IMHO it's better to start off 'strict' and introduce the extras after a few months if the DH is doing well - that's my plan anyway.

we gave our helper 500+, and provide her with rice, cooking oil, condiments and sauces, the value of which i estimate to be about 150-200 per month. we actually told her she could also take our milk and bread for breakfast, but she seems not to like milk and our wholewheat bread, so for her breakfast she usually buys (with her own money) some oatmeal or white bread and she sometimes eats rice.


so the 500+ is for her to buy vegetables, meat, poultry and/or fish. before we hired our helper i actually did a little experiment myself for a few days and on average i spent $17-18 per day on vegetables, egg, meat/poultry, all bought from wellcome. (see my reply in http://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/forums/hong-kong-domestic-help/threads/110488/food-allowance/) we offered the food allowance based on my experiment.


i also checked with my helper recently how much she spent on her food, just to make sure she's got enough. she told me she normally spends 70-90 on vegetables and fish per week. she rarely eats meat as she does not like it. she eats the same kind of fish as when she was in the phillipines. she buys everything from the wet market. so it seems that she can actually save some of the food money we give her, which i of course have no problem with.


so if you are sharing rice (which could cost quite a bit if the helper buys herself) and condiments, she could live on 500 per month, though, as snow rose says, she cannnot be too choosy.

Great! Thank you very much to you both for the generous information!

I guess I can relax now that this was a honest, reasonable request if she got used to having some choices.

We pay ours $500 food allowance, but what you pay is up to you. All this they can't survive on it etc is irrelevant, its been shown that they can and do srurvve on this. The markets are the way to go, e.g $10 for 10 bananas, $10 for bag of about 20 mandarins etc.

plus they dopn't have to stick to the food allowance, there is nowhere that says that they can't spend some of their own wages on food.

an allowance would supplement her food costs


the allowance you provide would cover the basics and for any extras she would have to fork it out herself.

I was under the impression you had to either provide all her food or an allowance to cover it, of course if she wants unusual stuff that costs a bomb then she would have to get it herself but i couldn't ask my helper to eat in a way i wouldn't be willing to eat in myself. Our helper eats what we eat because i don't want them going without to try and save extra money to send home. I want her to be fit and healthy both for herself and for us.

by basics i meant 3 meals a day

Yes, my interpretation is that the $500 per month is to cover the basics - that is 3 healthy and filling meals per day and not allowing for the DH to be too choosy. Helpers who want snacks, luxury items or who wish to be choosy (all perfectly reasonable wants) can pay for these out of their salary.


As for " i couldn't ask my helper to eat in a way i wouldn't be willing to eat in myself" - that is very generous of you, Optimistic. If I did that, I estimate I would need to give my helper about $500 per week instead of $500 per month, as I like to eat organic free range eggs, fruit from expensive stores like Great in Pacific Place and Olivers.


Therefore I give my helper $500 per month + rice & condiments and sometimes we share a pizza together for example and I know she considers that a nice treat.

Also optimistic, what you like and what your helper like could be very different, with very different costs. When we first had a helper, we provided the food and she ate what we ate. but after a couple of months she asked for an allowance as our food was not to her taste, she wanted just rice, veg and a bit of fish at every meal. We ate too much pasta, meat, potatoes etc for her liking. So although the amount seems small, it is enough to cover the diet of what most Fhillippino's prefer.

Yes ours too, she eats what we do because she chooses too rather than an allowance.

We also buy organic and many imported goods,but i wouldn't go and by cheaper food for my guests so why would i do so for the person i trust to care for my kids and home.

we let our helpers eat whatever they like from our supplies and then give them a small amount of money each week to get supplies (certain sauces, etc) that we can't easily get at park n shop/wellcome that they enjoy wtih their food.


it is not a situation that many would endorse, but it works for our family.

Our helper eats what we eat and puts whatever she wants extra on our shopping bill as she doesn't always like to eat what we do. I do check the bills but to be honest i don't know what a lot of the things are. In addition to this she also puts her own personal products, ie/ toiletries, etc on our bill. Incidentally, what is the norm for a christmas present for your helper? 1 months salary seems standard but $4000 seems a lot to me?

there is a thread just created here days ago about christmas presents. should be about 2 or 3 down the list, very recent.

it's definitely very nice for optimistic to have his/her helper eat the same and as well as he/she does. many people don't choose that approach for various reasons. some don't eat the same kind of food as their helpers do; some cannot afford it; etc. etc. there is no single right way of doing this; reasonable minds can differ, and as long as the helpers are treated in a decent and reasonable way, the employer should be able to decide what works for his/her family.


and i don't think it's unreasonable if the helper does not eat AS GOOD AS the employers. let alone the possible different preferences for food of the helper and the emplyers, after all people make different amount of money so they can buy different things. i'm not a rich employer, but needless to say i'm still richer than my helper, so i do spend more on my food than she does. sometimes i eat in a restaraunt, sometimes i order in food, sometimes i buy some expensive cookies, none of which my helper does with her own money (except that sometimes she goes to the restaraunt with us or shares our ordered pizza). same thing that my boss is even richer than me, so he probably throw in 2000 bucks for one dining out while i normally only spend 200.


maybe a little off topic, but i found some similarity between this topic and the topic about finding a doctor for helpers. once in a while people ask on this or other forums for a doctor recommendation for their helpers, and quite often those inquries gave rise to challenges that the inquiry itself is somehow discriminating and why not just use the employer's own doctor. the obvious reason is, of course, cost. the employer probably has company-provided insurance that has better coverage than the helper's policy. i don't see anything wrong with seeking medical care according to one's insurance coverage. i myself had to leave my favorite OB because she's no longer in my inurance network. and there are good paeds out there i'd like to choose for my child but am unable to because of the cost and coverage issue. also, the doctor's fees vary so much just depending on where they are located rather than how good they are; one day i was walking in the local area in Kenndy Town and out of curiosity checked out a few clinics there, and found that the GP's fees are probably just half of what the doctors in Central charge, and even the same flu shot is much cheaper there. is it really so discriminating to let your helper go to one of those less expensive doctors, maybe at the cost of a little longer route?


due to the scarcity of resouce, everything has a price, and everybody's choice is limited by his/her budget. some people are richer than others and can enjoy better things. that's just the nature of our human society. as long as the less rich people are still provided with the basic necessities and treated in a decent and reasonable way, i don't think anyone should be blamed too much for not sharing all his/her good stuff with others.

II agree miao miao however as far as i'm concerned when I agreed to employ our helper I also agreed to provide food for her or an allowance. We are also not rich but if I can afford to eat out or order in I can afford to let my helper eat the same food as our family. When I say our helper eats what we do she does so out of choice, of course there will be times she may prefer something else but my point is I wouldn't buy cheap alternatives just for her use while we eat imported meat and veg, she helps herself to whatever is there. I don't consider food to be an added bonus or extra it is part of the contract I made with her when she came to work for us. If we ate differently then so would she but I don't personally find it appropriate or necessary to feed the person I trust to care for my babies in the cheapest way I can to save a few dollars.

What others do is of course up to them and my comments are not meant at a dig at anyone but a forum is about opinions and different ideas to give the person asking the questions many perspectives so they can find the one that works best for them and there way of living. We all have different values and standards so replies are always going to be many and varied.

and to avoid any issues in the future. when you hire a helper, ensure that at the very beginning to tell her what you will and will not provide and how things are run in the house.


and to tell the helper that you are not an extension of her previous employer so she shouldn't expect or demand to receive the same things as she previously did.


i.e. if the helper dined on lobster, steak and caviar with her previous employer, she shouldn't expect or demand to receive the same with you. she should work on what is provided and not compare

I don't think miao miao means you should feed your helper cheaper food, while you eat more expensive stuff, its for those of us that give our helpers an allowance and not food. I think she means that people eat to their budgets. So for many people buying their food in Olivers is the norm, for others it Wellcome, for others its the wetmarkets. Most helpers I know will buy their food at wellcome or the markets to make their allowance go further. The same way that I shop in Wellcome and not Olivers to make my budget go further.

Hey cd that maybe so but the sentence

'and i don't think it's unreasonable if the helper does not eat AS GOOD AS the employers"

Very much sounds as if it's what she means

hi optimistic and cd, there does not seem to be much of a disagreement really among us. i didn't mean to blame optimistic for sharing her view here; as said, i think it's very nice of her to treat her helper the way she does. the reason i put in my reply above was that quite often i see on this forum that when one person says how he/she does certain things, other people often have some reaction just because that person's approach is different from their own. my point is that different people have different approaches to handling their helper's food provision, and as long as it's reasonable and decent, we should all take a less critical view on others. by referring to optimistic's reply, i wasn't really targeting her but just citing her approach as an example -- while her approach is nice, those who don't do it that way is not wrong either (and need not feel any implied criticism from her)


and my other point is, as cd nicely summarized, that people eat (and live) to their budget. when i said "i don't think it's unreasonable if the helper does not eat AS GOOD AS the employers", i meant it -- same as if i said it's not unreasonable if i do not eat as good as another person richer than me. if the helper eats together with the employer, it does make sense for everybody to eat the same food; in fact i never heard of anyone i know who provides cheaper food for their helper if they eat at the same table. for employers who provide an allowance rather than food, though, since the employer earns more money than the helper, it's not unreasonable for the employer to have a higher food budget and therefore better food, just like everybody in our society. as said in my earlier reply, i do check with my helper to make sure her food allowance is enough to buy her healthy and filling meals that she likes, but still my own food is more expensive than hers, because i normally don't buy at the wet markets (don't have time to go) and because i sometimes eat out or order in (which we do share with our helper sometimes). i was just saying that i don't feel obligated to give my helper as much food money as my own food budget.

Sharon


If you know of a "poor" helper let me know where to find one. The large group of people I know personally (acquaintances, colleagues, neighbours, new friends, etc etc) all employ helpers. I have yet to see a Philippino domestic helper without a cell phone that costs less than what a Masseuse in China earns in a month. Been shopping lately? Go around HK and see what they can afford. I have had my fill of the ones who will only shop in Olivers because the local Chinese "are rude and do not speak Ingrish" (sic).

mis1989 what someone in china earns is irrelevant unless your also willing to compare what the earn with what a helper would get in say the UK or the states doing far less hours and having far better terms and conditions than they get in HK.

The fact is they work here not in China and not in Philippines and regardless of where a person lives and works they are entitled to respect and to be treated properly and for us not to be outraged that they dare to spend some of there very hard earned cash on a mobile phone.

hi. i dont have a helper and i did not grow up with one. i just finished universtiy and am much too young to have a family so perhaps i dont speak from experience but i sure have my views on this. we had a cleaning lady growing up who came a couple times a week who would also sometimes cook. she had been employed by my parents for ten years. whenever we ate my mum would always make her sit with us. i find that completely normal. i agree a helper can only earn so much and their food allowance can obviously not extend to the point of eating out in restaurants their employers might frequent. nevertheless i think there needs to be a minimum and i dont think this minimum is the dollar amount that someone can make do with a day but an amount that reflects human dignity. i clicked on this thread out of curiosity and i am commenting because i am deeply shocked at how rationally some of the employers here justify their (in my opinion) heartless treatment of their helpers. calculating that breakfast made from porridge with powedered milk (not fresh "of course") is totally fine to me just seems incredibly ridiculous. i dont mean to offend anyone but i really just feel that it is unkind to even think in such a way. if we wanted to we could all afford to survive on next to nothing. arguing that a helper doesnt need to eat "luxuries" such as fresh milk is utterly repulsive in my opinion. yes, employers earn more money and can thus afford to spend more money on food, relatively speaking. however, most employers in HK also receive housing allowance and other perks and benefits while many helpers here are degree educated women who live in tiny chambers to save money for their childern back home. i would like to see the faces of some of the people who have posted on this thread if their boss told them they really dont need to live in the midlevels, they can very well survive in a chinese walk up, they dont need an extra housing allowance to pay for luxury housing, that there is absolutely no need for eating out at zuma, caprice or sushi kuu, and that they can have 3 healthy meals a day cooking at home. a domestic helper is performing a job and a service, like everyone else (maybe unlike some housewives here). and even though their pay must reflect the fact that they are merely doing a service and not generating any revenue, they should still be treated as employees, not servants. calculating how many scoops of rice or cups of milk someone who lives in your house and cleans up after you is eating is beyond me. i can only say what comes around goes around. i am glad though to see that there is at least one "normal" person on this forum, thank you 'optimistic'.

I agree with Emina; after 11 years in HK it still amazes me how domestic helpers are often seen and treated as second class citizens, forced to survive on minimum wages (or even less in many unfortunate cases), in exchange for a working day/week, the length of which would put many of us to shame. In addition these girls are looking after the most valuable things we have -our homes and our children. I do pay my helpers (I have more than one as one of my children has special needs and requires a lot of assistance), a food allowance, but this was at their request as they prefer to cook their own food and and eat together. I've tried some amazing Philippino foods courtesy of them - interesting how they are always happy and willing to let me try their food.....?. However, I can't imagine segregating all of our food and making them buy everything themselves. My helpers' modest allowance of $500 per month each is really only to cover their meat and any vegetables over and above the onions and potatoes etc I buy during my regular weekly shop. They use everything else that's normally in my fridge and kitchen cupboards: condiments, bread, cereals, milk, tea, coffee, rice etc etc. If we occasionally order in a pizza - they share it or if i've made a huge bowl of pasta, they are invited to share it. They will be sitting down at the table with us on Christmas Day. They don't eat with us all of the time, but when commonsense prevails they do. Whilst I accept that I am employing these people, not adopting them, they live with us and share our lives on a daily basis. I am entrusting these girls with my most precious things - my children, so how can I not treat them with respect, dignity and humanity? As I type this, my helpers and myself are about to sit down to sample my daughter's cookies she baked this afternoon, and I can tell you that there's at least one 4 year old in HK who's happy to share her food with her "Aunties"!

Had one more careful read of the replies, and it seemed that ceri's approach is actually similar to what some other people on this thread do including myself -- providing an allowance of $500 (mine is some more) + share some food (the specific things shared vary from family to family, but looks like we all share rice and cooking oil, which my helper told me saves her the biggest amount of money. some of us share milk, though my helper does not drink it often. and we also all seem to share things like ordered pizza). maybe it's how people describe things, rather than what they actually do, that sometimes raises controversy.


the OP's question was whether 800 or 500 is a reasonable amount of food allowance, and i guess she has got sufficient advice on that question and also heard different views.

Emina...couldn't agree with you more here. Like you, I am a young, professional, who doesn't employ a helper (even though I could afford one), but I am appalled with some of the comments I have seen here.

It is definitely beyond me, how a lot of us are treating our helpers like second class citizens, rationing their food; keeping a tab on bowls of rice they eat.... I remember recently seeing a post from someone wondering why Filipino helpers get day off on the chinese new year, when they don't even celebrate the festival.

If my boss ever asked to come to office on CNY since I don't celebrate it, I am definitely not turning on up on Eid, Hanukkah and Diwali that year....

SHAME on most of you I spend $10 a day on my dog!!! and you expect the hardest working person in your house probably working a 14 hour day if she lucky to live off $16 a day!? try doing it yourself if you cant afford more its simple get off your a** and do the housework yourself!!!SORRY but HELPERS are PEOPLE and most of us cant survive without them bdw this is a guys perspective

I'm with Joie on this one. If people can't be sensible about things and are arguing and bickering over a few bucks for feeding their DH then they don't deserve one.


I'm a male UK expat and it sickens me to see how DH's are discussed etc. as if they're bloody slaves or something.

well, we have our own reason but try to be more reasonable...its just the same as 'you threat me well and i will threat you well"... better to give than to recieve as simple as that

Well, like most threads discussing helper’s food allowance, this thread inevitably ran into a “some people don’t deserve a helper” one. As long as an employer is giving an allowance instead of providing food, the allowance has to be of an amount and when some people ask how much is a reasonable amount other people would explain why a certain amount is or is not enough, then it would seem harsh to some to even do that calculation, then it came the blame . . .


I just want to sort this discussion out and hope people can look at the facts and details before passing judgment. People give an allowance instead of providing food for various reasons. For us it’s because of different food preference (she likes fish, which we don’t eat often; we like meat and poultry, which she can barely cook) and also because when we first hired our helper before our baby was born both hubby and I were working and we often did not come home early enough for dinner on weekdays, so it made total sense for helper to have her own money and buy her own food. As said in my earlier replies, I ran an experiment myself to cook at home for a few days to decide how much food allowance to give, and I came up with $17-18 per day for vegetable/meat/poultry/eggs for two filling and healthy meals that I liked (so to answer one of the questions people raised – yes I tried eating on the amount I gave my helper and found that worked if i cook at home). Based on that calculation we gave our helper more than $500 food allowance and she can freely use our rice, cooking oil, condiments, milk and bread. When we order pizza or something similar, we share with her sometimes. There is also 1 or 2 or 3 times a month when we have her dine out with us (not always as it has to be a time other than her day off and when baby is ok to go out as well). So if I really calculate it buck by buck, the food allowance + the value of the food we provide her with is at least $1000 a month and sometimes probably $1500 (if she dines out with us more).


So, instead of saying I give an allowance of $500+ and share some food, if I simply say I give her $1000+ or food equivalent, would that make me seem a better employer? We all know, though, what many helpers are likely to do with $1000 food allowance, as least I know what mine would do. My helper told me recently that she’s spending $70-90 per week on vegetables and fish and fruit, all of which she buys from the wet market. So she’s actually saving $$ on her $500+ food allowance and send it home, which I certainly cannot prevent her from doing. And she does eat things she likes, namely mainly green vegetables and fish. If you always buy your grocery from citysuper, you’ll surely wonder what $70-90 can buy. Well if you go to the wet market you’ll see fish costing $20 per kilogram, vegetables costing less than $10 per catty, etc, etc. And there is nothing wrong with buying from the wet market – I’d do it more if I had the time, food there is fresher than in the supermarkets and millions of hong kong people buy from there. There are also older threads on this forum discussing what one can buy with the amount of a helper’s allowance.


As to snacks, etc., our helper does not have automatic access to those, but it doesn’t mean we don’t share those. We don’t normally have a stock of snacks at home as we only buy a box of cookie or a pack of nuts or some ice cream occasionally when we feel like. When we eat it we’ll ask our helper whether she wants some if she’s around, but we didn’t tell her she can freely have whatever she wants, just so that we don’t have the embarrassing situation when we want to eat our snack just to find out it’s been finished by our helper (I’m not saying she will always do so but it may happen since she spends more time at home than we do). Kind of like when I eat snacks in the office I always offer some to my neighbors but they are not supposed to come to my drawer to help themselves.


I also think it might be a little mischaracterization to say a helper is living on $xxx food allowance. They have salary, too; the food allowance is meant to cover basic food only and that’s why people gave thoughts on what is or is not enough (though you cannot control whether they actually spend less or more on food). On topics like this, people may seem cold if the discussion comes down to a number of $xx per day and some people cannot bear with others talking about what one can buy with that amount, as many people on this forum probably have food budget more than a helper’s salary. But I don’t agree that’s treating helpers like slaves, etc., etc. If instead the law allows us to give a lump sum including both the salary and the food allowance, the helper chooses to spend whatever she likes on food and there will be no discussion like this. We pay our helper above the minimum wage (though she’s not experienced and it’s her first contract with us), and to either us or her it doesn’t really make a difference whether that extra $xxx is characterized as part of her salary or included in the food allowance (the latter will certainly make us look better in this kind of discussion) – she’ll send it home in the end.


If in the future we find that providing food to our helper makes more logistical sense instead of given an allowance, we may choose to do so and I’m sure her food won't cost more than $1000 on groceries to have her eat the same as us. Even then I won’t say people who provide food allowance of $500 or $800 are unreasonable, because I know how much you can buy with that money if you plan it well and the fact that my helper chooses to spend even less than that on food but still eats healthy and happily. Also, I’m not sure about other employers, but our helper does not work 14 hours a day nor is she the hardest working person in our house (my husband works longer hour and so will I after I go back to full time working) – but that’s irrelevant; making ungrounded statements about circumstantial facts rather than focusing on the question itself is not helpful; I’m actually interested in listening to more suggestion for a reasonable amount, as that’s the original question being asked.


Sorry for the long post – just wanted to share some details and facts of our relationship with our helper in addition to that simple number of food allowance, and I’m sure other employers providing food allowance have theirs to share. Do all these people not deserve a helper? Well, I cannot speak for others but I know my helper doesn’t think so of us when she went out with us for new year’s eve dinner, when she received her bonus and gifts for Christmas and when we bought her chocolates and cookies to share with her friends on new year’s day. Our helper has not been with us for a long time, and we don’t feel her like a friend or family member but rather an employee, and we admit we are not the most generous employer out there, but we are reasonable and treat her with decency and respect.

All this boils down to different standards. Does this mean that stingy company bosses don't deserve to have good employees? Everything is a mutual agreement -the employee willingly accepts what the boss offers. If there are any questions, discuss it with the boss. DH's aside...some people out there live on $10/day and some $100 (just food that is). It all depends on what you buy and where you shop. If I were a DH and am given $1000 allowance, I'd shop at Olivers too! Remember we are providing shelter for our helpers and that's the biggest expense in HK. As long as our helpers are happy, healthy and getting enough sleep is all that counts.

Wishing Everyone a Wonderful Brand New Year!


dear Miao Miao:

I'd like to especially *Thank You* for your consideration, patience & display of tolerance you've shown on this thread.

We all could be inspired for the example moving forward into our new year regardless of the original question answered.


Thanks EVERYBODY for their participation!

Sincerely,

S

I find the good thinking people on this forum are getting far too carried away with emotion and are missing the whole point of the discussion. That being, how can we, the employers, curb costs and save on expenditure. In any other business such fiscal minded endeavors would be common place and appreciated and so should be looked on in the same way without the clouding and disruptive input of irrational sentiment. I see it as not only as our choice to do so, but our duty to society as men and women in commanding and influential station. To this end I would request that the more volatile hearted among us leave these distractive passions behind and follow the clear path of reason in this and for that matter all other topics. To this end I offer my following suggestions on the topic.


The real question to be asked is how much sustenance does my servant need to do their job effectively? This is a delicate equation and one which must be approached in the keenest of fashions, for with too little energy they will be lackluster and slow in their duties, while too much will lead to an over weight and possibly defiant individual. (Two traits most undesirable in any hired help I’m sure you’ll agree)


Leading scientists of nutrition and dietology all agree that the average healthy human needs to eat a portion of food equal to the size of their own fist. Will this amount may vary slightly due to various physiognomic differences, without the aid of a qualified phrenologist it is a good starting indication of how much your servants should be eating. Special note should be taken though, as generally, the South East Orientals, from which most of the local servant class comes from, are of a smaller stature so considerably less is in fact needed to maintain active bodily function. In my household for instance, when a new hired helper is introduced a casting is made of their hand so as to better measure the true feeding need of that individual. While various other weighing methods are available I find this one the most reliable. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it is this simple method which has kept my servant expenditures in the black.


Using this method as a base one can then start seeing where else costs can be cut. Ideas already mentioned here like using substitutes like powdered milk are all well and good but with a little imagination further savings can be made. If your household subscribes to a local newspaper or similar periodicals then make use of them. We are often told in this day and age to re use and recycle and I see this as a perfect opportunity to do so. Shredded paper material offers useful bulk and roughage to any gruel based meal along with important minerals such as iodine. Simple innovations such as this will not only keep your workers full and satisfied but will continue to keep your financial accounts healthy.


Keeping these two points in mind, that of optimum food amount and food type, will I’m sure help you to take the right decision in this matter. While I agree that an allowance should be there it is something that should remain firmly in the employer’s hands and should be something that is constantly under re evaluation to ensure maximum profits are made. As far as putting a monetary value on how much your household should put aside each month for an individual, I really cannot see this as sound practice. For example, using my household as an example again, last month we had a rodent infestation. Now had I had a set dollar amount on what food I’d be purchasing I would of missed out on this unforeseen opportunity in procuring un needed food by letting a good deal of fresh rat meat go to waste. I implore you then to do likewise and look for these chances to compliment your servant’s diets without the need of wasting precious resources on them. May I at this point recommend that local refuse containers are an excellent place for your help to find their own meals at zero cost to you.


I hope these words have helped cut through the irrationality and high spirits which I saw creeping into the argument and have instead replaced reason and calculation into their vaulted seats of power. For without reason, where would we proud humans be?

Jacob - Fantastic response! I particularly liked the suggestion of rat meat - very inventive. Incidentally, I find that cockroaches make an excellent addition to breakfast cereal - really helps to bulk it out, whilst keeping the "crunch" factor.

Unfortunately, given the way a number of helpers are treated in HK, your suggestions may actually be taken seriously by some employers.

I think this discussion may have run it's course. Happy New Year Everyone.

Proving & preparing a meal for one extra person (DH) costs next to nothing.


Its almost impossible to eat heathily on $500 month.


A happy worker (any kind of worker) is a good worker.

"It all depends on what you buy and where you shop."

-precisely. The rich folk buy way too much imported stuff, the normal folk go to the supermarkets, and the sensible folk go to the wet markets & save a bundle. I suspect most helpers think expats are nuts to shop (and waste) the way they do...

I buy imported stuff because i wouldn't knowingly buy/eat anything from china after all the health scares.

After having our helper with us eating the same food us us for 4 years he r contract is up on renewal and she has asked for a food allowance. We have always bought the same food for her as we eat, but clearly there is taste differences. I have tried to see what is the minimum food allowance on the government website but do not seem to find it there. I would like to have a reference point as to what is the guideline and what is the recommendation. Some friends say they pay these days 750HKD per month and my helper has said the food allowance increased to that amount also by the government, but I cannot find it on the government site as a fact. We will probably end up paying 750HKD a month for her for food allowance, but divide it week by week as I want to make sure she still eats well, even if it in my opinion is not the best food choices health wise.


However I would be grateful if someone could point me to a website where all the facts are laid out so we can make an informed choice. Many Thanks!

The food allowance is currently 750/month. Here is the relevant announcement from the Immigration Department: http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/20100826.htm . It went up from 740/month. A few years ago it went up from 500 if memory serves.