AIBU to say that you can make a good quality packed lunch for less than the price of a school meal?

[Cwtches123]

Inspired by the thread about compulsory school meals. Some posters were saying that it would cost as much or more to provide a good quality packed lunch!
My daughter has taken packed lunches since year 7 after trying the school offering and not liking it. It is much cheaper than the price of school meals and she can take whatever she wants. Today she has a homemade tomato pasta salad, banana, cereal bar and some nuts - cost approx £1.25. In the winter she takes stew /soup/pasta in a food flask (usually leftovers from the previous day) but sometimes she will take a sandwich, crisps/chocolate biscuit and some fruit but rice /couscous/pasta salads are her favourite.
I can't see how a packed lunch can be more expensive!
How much does a packed school lunch cost you and what do you put in?

We both work ft so having a cooked lunch term time saves us time in the evening

have you seen the size of the school portions? What's the poor kid supposed to eat in the evening? At that age, they need decent meals, not snacks.
I am shocked by people who think a crappy school lunch is enough.
I mean, you can serve a "cold" diner, but it takes just as much time to prepare.

I agree you carnt depend on schools to provide a good quality main meal. The size portions are small even in secondry it's not enough. They are expensive for what they are and just not adequate. Thankfully my kids prefer packed lunches which are cheaper and actually contain food they like. If they did have school dinners there is no way I would depend on them to be the main meal, I would still provide that in the evening.

I spend less on school meals now my daughter is at secondary school than I did and the offerings are so much better. She normally has a slice of pizza (72p), a freshly made sub roll (£1ish depending on filling) or a pot of hot pasta with meatballs (£1.03) with salad (40p) she will occasionally have a cookie for dessert (40p) but not every day.
I personally find making packed lunch a real chore so am more than happy to pay for lunch every day.
She also takes a cereal bar for break

At secondry making a packed lunch isn't a chore. The kids make their own.

Also in secondry they usually have 40 minutes for dinner. After they have queued they have very little time to eat or take part in a club. Packed lunch is far better for the kids who actually then get a break and don't spend it in a queue for food.

Dd always takes hummus and pita, carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes plus a chocolate bar (she's older and makes her own) cost per day is about 80p

At our school lunch is provided (not allowed to take your own) but we always have a proper dinner in the evening as well - it's a good time to sit and chat with the kids! Sandwiches etc for us are weekend foods!

At primary it's 2.40 per meal.
It's supposed to be 2.50 at secondary though I've not known either child to spend so little.

So as long as I spend less than £37 a week for pack lunches I'm spending less.

If your time poor with one child the benefits to school dinners are going to be greater – at least that was my experience.

As soon as you get to three children and throw in adult pack lunches for work - it's often cheaper to do a packed lunch and it's easier to do more variety in them as well.

Completely agree. I have three DC in primary school so it would cost me £36 pw if they all had school dinners. I definitely do not spend that much on packed lunch items, probably half that.

my2bundles
When I said it was a chore I meant more about ensuring I had stuff in to be able to make it every day, not really the construction itself. Me and DH work ft and have lunch at work so don't take our own packed lunch.
At my DD school they have 1500+ pupils and each year group has a slightly staggered lunchtime to alleviate queues. Each type of food has it's own serving area and everything is paid by thumbprint. My DD never has to wait more than 5 mins to be served.

We are in Northern Ireland so there are no free school lunches other than for those with a very low income otherwise school dinners are £2.60. That would be £39 a week for my 3 primary school DC. It's much cheaper for me to give them each a packed lunch. Over a typical week I would use 2 loaves of bread (£1), a pack of ham (£2), bag of babybel (£3), 2 boxes of oat bars (£5), bag of bread sticks (£1.50), 2 punnets of grapes (£4), bag of apples (£2), bag of satsumas (£1), bag of kiwis (£1), yogurts (£2), pack of pancakes (£1). That's £23.50 which is £15.50 a week cheaper than school lunches and it includes their mid morning snack which school lunches would not.

YANBU - our primary school dinners are £2.50 per child per day. The quality of the food is shocking & the portion sizes are tiny. My eldest (Y4) has been on packed lunches all year. He eats more if I make it & I would definitely say it costs me less than £2.50 a day. I can also keep an eye on what he is & isn't eating. Previously he was coming home starving as he hadn't eaten much at lunchtime.
My younger son is currently Y2 so gets free meals at school, but will be going onto packed lunches from September once we have to pay for school dinners.
I suppose it's personal choice & as some have said it's easier for them if school provide the hot dinner and then they do sandwiches or similar at tea time. I initially thought making a packed lunch every day would be a total pain but actually it only adds about 2 mins onto my morning routine.

We used to have a chart for making packed lunches. DC loved it and it kept things from being monotous. It had columns for a main thing (sandwich, roll, pie, pasta salad, tortilla), a column for a small protein extra (babybel, grated cheese in a tub, hummus, boiled egg), a column for veg choice (veg sticks, cherry tomatoes, or carrot and raisin salad) and a treat column (fromage frais, crisps, slice of cake, small kitkat).

They had to pick one from each column every day and put them in their lunchboxes themselves. They couldn’t eat the treat if they didn’t eat all the rest. It cost a lot less than school dinners.

Agree. When mine were packed lunches (before the lunch box police!) they took sandwich, crisps, biscuit, drink, fruit. That covered break and lunch. School lunches would have been £20p/w for 2dc, and they would still have needed a snack for break.

@KC225 Based in Wales. School is a large comprehensive and does not have a ban on nuts or any other food, they promote healthy eating, as do I. Everything in moderation.

I have three primary aged kids; two have a dairy allergy, one will only eat the same thing every day (he’s ND.) On the few occasions the dairy allergic kids have had school lunches they have given them half a dry baked potato and a scoop of soggy mixed veg. I wouldn’t eat that.

So if I paid £2.20 a day each, that’s £33/week on school dinners. Our entire food budget is £80/week for five people, including a packed lunch for everyone on weekdays, and we eat well.

have you seen the size of the school portions? What's the poor kid supposed to eat in the evening? At that age, they need decent meals, not snacks.

I am shocked by people who think a crappy school lunch is enough.

I mean, you can serve a "cold" diner, but it takes just as much time to prepare.

You can save your concern for my "poor kid". I've seen the school meals - have partaken myself recently with a 'come dine with me' session at his school. The provider is well respected and the portions are fine, given that my ds also has a snack at his childminder's after school (prepared by me/ dh) prior to coming home as well as having either a sandwich, some soup, or a salad when he comes home (prepared by me/dh). None of those meals takes anywhere near as much time to prepare as a full cooked meal. We also manage just fine with our 2.5yo dd to cater for.

Believe me, if my 8yo ds was still hungry he would most definitely let us know. His diet is full of filling but nutritious foods, varied and contains plenty of fruit and vegetables, both at school and at home. Nobody has yet reported us to SS for not providing 'decent meals' so you can jog on with your faux concern for my child's welfare.

I pay £13 per week in school dinners so that my dc can have a warm meal and I don't have to think too much about what to prepare because there are lots of things that they are not allowed like nuts, chocolates, crisps, cakes. Only allowed one nut free treat on a Friday. From September I'll have 2 dc in PS so I'll send packed lunches because it will be much cheaper. I think I'll have to start working on a packed lunch menu

We actually costed this as a school. I was agovernor in a small village school at the time FSM came in for all KS1, and we had to start providing them.

We were hoping to be able to say to parents that the cost was the same.

It wasn't. At the time the school dinners cost about £2.10. We could do a decent healthy pack lunch for £1.50

That was a few years ago, but I would think the same applies.
As I recall, it was:
sandwhich
apple
kitkat
dried fruit (raisin box?)
and something else, maybe a yoghurt?

The think is that if you use multiple packs, eg big bag of small lunch box apples, froma supermarket, it was pretty cheap.

My nursery doesn’t provide hot lunches and I prefer it that way.

I agree it’s not just about money but we’re quite happy to do a sandwich with cucumber/ peppers/ fruit etc. in her lunchbox. I like making her lunch and I know she enjoys it. She has a hot evening meal at home, so I know exactly what she’s eating.

I much prefer the ease of school dinners. I don't know what the cost difference would be.
I also have a hot meal at work, and we all tend to have sandwiches or soup together in the evenings, so I find it saves me time then too.
I cook a hot evening meal at weekends, and maybe on a couple of weekday nights, whereas if we had packed lunches I'd be cooking every night.
So for e.g. Dc have had school lunch today, and tonight I will put out on the table ham, lots of cheeses, pate, butter, peanut butter, cold potatoes, crackers, bread, salad, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, mustard, pickles, jam and cake, and a big pot of tea, and everyone will help themselves, and have enough to eat - not true at all that you still need a cooked dinner after a school lunch,

I think the more varied you try to make the lunches the more they cost. I could make 5 identical sandwiches with carrot sticks and apples for very little money each school day . But that's obviously not as healthy as varied meals each day. So the more varied and healthier lunches cost more money.