Do your secondary school DCs prefer packed lunches or school dinners?

[Sharrilanda]

Just pondering really.
Doing last minute back to school admin topping up all the relevant accounts and realising these blooming kids are costing us a fortune before they even start 😳

Are packed lunches actually any cheaper than school dinners nowadays?

It changes from one week to the fucking next and drives me insane!

Prefer packed lunches as the queues are horrendous

Sorry unhelpful answer! Mine get a set allowance each week on lunch account. When it’s gone it’s gone. They can take lunch and use it for snacks, or take snacks and buy a lunch deal but im not buying both as im sorry told ‘everyone’ else does. I can’t afford to eat bought food at work every day!

Prefers pack-up but gets school lunch.

Mine had money for lunch, but took an "emergency" marmite sandwich and an apple in case there was something interesting going on at lunchtime they didn't want to miss by queuing.

I'm giving 3£ a day but with both kids thats 120 a month!!

And like pp doesn't but snack and lunch and drink... So some combination needs to be taken in.

They really don't like a lot of sandwhiches/fussy with food (sensory issues) so this term. Moving to them taking snacks and buying lunch...

I assume I could make lunch for cheaper than £5 a day for both but is cheap bread/crisps /fruit any better than their school lunch which at least is a meal.

I put £20 on ds account most weeks, some weeks he barely touches it but he does always have a sandwich, cereal bar and an apple in his bag in case he wants to play football at lunch rather than queue.
if he buys lunch he eats the sandwich on the way home.

My kids all originally preferred buying lunch and then started taking in packed lunch / pile of snacks for a lunch as they got older and more fed up with queues and the noise in the canteen.

I gave them a bit extra to try new things for the first week, then like others gave them a budget enough to get the meal deal each day for a week and let them choose from there. I have the online system alert me when it's low and top up when I get the alert.

Thanks all.
Yes I can see it fast becoming a mix of both, depending on what's going on.

Yep this.

Ds said the school food was good but the queues too long.