Exactly, so what! If she wants to waste earned money on food then that is her waste. How else is she to learn to spend wisely? I think it is a great idea to let her earn it.

do you have anything in writing to the schools stating that she is not to be extended credit?

id send a letter back with the bill and tell the school you arent paying it based on your prior conversations.

they will just write it off at the end of the year.

I don't believe in paying kids for chores nor do I believe in allowance. I never got either from my parents. If I needed money for something my parents gave it to me. The key word being NEEDED. If I WANTED something I would ask for the money and the answer would depend on how well behaved I was that week, how much I helped out my mom when she asked, how clean my room was etc.
I was never given specific "chores". I helped out when asked and sometimes when I wasn't. It put me in a better routine of cleaning up after myself. Rather than having a list of chores I had to complete every day I just helped out regularly. IMO it worked better on me than set chores would have.

My nephew did this to my sister, but he was 7 and was just going along because his friend was going. They put a stop to it really quick. She knows what she is doing and clearly didn't learn. It has to come from her piggy banks. Just do it. These are the lessons they remember.

SD12 did the same thing to us. Doesn't your district allow for a parental limit placed on lunch accounts? In our district, parents are allowed to put a daily monetary limit on kids' lunches. I had limits put on all three kids' accounts before school even started (the equivalent of one hot-meal per day). But SD12 sweet-talked her way with the lunch lady into over-riding the limit every day (after a hot lunch was bought, SD12 then got cookies or chips or an ice cream treat, from the same lunch lady).

In my case, I knew I was in the right and simply refused to pay for every charge over the one-hot-lunch meal per day. I called the lunch lady's boss and told I'm I'd see him at the next open-forum school board meeting if he insisted I pay for something his employee did wrong (purposely over-rode the parental daily limit, a benefit the lunch company totes as a "perk" to parents who want to use it. Well I used it and they underminded my authority. Our lunch provider is a contracted employee that has to get the school board approval to provide the service). The boss wrote-off my charges and didn't ask me to pay again.

SD12 told me afterwards that the lunch lady explained to her "Your mom got me in big trouble so I can't let you have snacks anymore" - whatever! They made that mess themselves, and tried to make me pay for it.

I say make the SD10 pay you back. It's how they learn. Natural consequences. You were told you couldn't buy that, and you charged it to me anyway. Now you'll pay for it out of your own pocket each and every time. No anger. Matter of fact.

There is always two sides split pretty evenly when it comes to allowances.

One says household income is shared by all and kids, like adults, get to spend some of it as they wish. Chores are shared the same way and there is no connection to income. I.e. if income were to stop due to a layoff the chores would not and everyone would tighten their belts and keep doing chores.

Others tie income to chores so the kids will learn that hard work has rewards.

Your step wants to eat breakfast with her friends in the cafeteria and I'll go out on a limb here to say those friends are probably on some tax sponsored lunch program.

At lunch her friends probably brown bag it like she does so she doesn't have the problem.

But she disobeyed so now she pays. Sure doing EXTRA chores and relieving you or Daddy of doing them calls for extra money paid.

By the way is a croissant a good breakfast? I thought a non-sugar based cereal with milk was the accepted standard. Somebody is buying plain corn flakes and Cheerios.

She needs to pay you all back. She knew exactly what she was doing.

We tried a chore chart- we found a system on Pinterest. SS would do chores we set for him on his chart. If he missed 1, he'd have 1 chance to do a "makeup" chore, if he missed 2..He wouldn't paid. We started off with minial chores just to get him use to this - and I mean..do your homework, make your bed, vacume your room on Saturday..That kinda stuff. He was supposed to document on his chart that he did his chores and then we'd give him $15 bi weekly..60% would go towards his college (teaching him to save) and 40% would be his money for whatever he wanted. He has lost interest in this and FDH has reminded him a few times already that hey, I'm not gonna bug you about this..you want to get money, you need to tell me you've done these chores and you need to come to me on "Pay day" I'm not going to chase you down to "pay you".. SS12 has just stopped being into this chore structure and I think FDH had the right mentality- he shouldn't be chasing him down to pay him for doing his homework. We had a conversation with him that once he turned 13, the chores would be different. Maybe that's what did it. But also, the point of this chore system was that you as the parent didn't buy the extra's that they ask for when out and about..he was supposed to learn how to earn and manage spending and saving his money. We even gave him one of our check registers so he could learn how to balance. But FDH still gets him whatever he wants so I think the whole point just got lost. I still think it's a good system, though.