Can a packed lunch be done cheaply?

[UndertheCedartree]

My 8 yo DD has FSM at school. When they go back in September the provision for meals is going to be much reduced. There will be only 1 week menu rather than a rolling 3 week menu, only 2 options (instead of 3) and no jacket potatos and salad bar available. Consequently 2 of the days per week there will be nothing she will eat. So I'm going to have to make her packed lunches that I can't really afford. Has any one got good ideas of a frugal lunch box, please?

@formerbabe - great, thank you!

As a single mum of three school dinner refusers Aldi was my best friend! The girls had a wholemeal sandwich/wrap/roll with ham, cheese, chicken or tuna, a piece of fruit or veg sticks and a frube style yogurt ( because I lost too many spoons) plus a carton of juice or small bottle of water. Crisps, cakes and biscuits weren't allowed.

@KateF - thanks for the ideas.

My eldest takes a packed lunch and both need them for holiday club, the 5yr old wants one for school and even with reduced menu (keyworker he went) he said he dudnt like stuff I just told him reception children weren't allowed packed lunches he ate some if what was offered they wont starve.

Packed lunch wise

Crackers with butter and some ham/cheese
Ham, cheese sandwich mine onmy have one slice bread
Bag aldi kids apples or the essential ones are 69p you get 7 apples same with pears but you get about 5
Value grapes are cheap enough in Tesco and aldi
I buy a pack of fake oreo or bourbon biscuits and wrap in cling film
Breadsticks
Crisps I buy a different 10pk supermarket wotsits/quavers/hoops etc and they get a range of those but not crisps every day.
Sometimes on a sun i bake cookies or buns with kids they take those

Agree with buying reduced bread and rolls etc and freezing
You can get a bag of 50mini sausage rolls for less than £1 so if oven is on anyway a few of those make a nice change in a lunchbox.

Tomorrow for holiday club mine have

9yr old
Ham sandwich
Handful grapes
Flat peach
Plum
5 cherries
Twin pk biscoff biscuits
Cake
Crisps

Child 2 -5yrs

Ham sandwich
Apple
Cucumber sticks
Teeny pot with strawberry, grape, raspberry, blueberry- literally 2 of each chopped
2 oreo
Crisos
Yo yo bear

That will do them 2 snack times and lunch time 8.45-3

Jamhandprints
Yes, in UK. DD at high school now but are peanut butter sandwiches maybe 3 days out of 5 at the same school for 8 years! Nursery to Yr6. No specific foods were banned. But parents who sent in loads of rubbish were contacted with suggestions for alternatives I understand. There were kids there with nut allergies, but I checked and nuts were allowed. Swapping food was strictly prohibited.

@eastmidswarwicknightnanny - sounds good.

Google - Welsh Government: Healthy lunchboxes: leaflet

@Ritasueandbobtoo9 - thank you!

I definitely wouldn't do her, as one poster has suggested, a jam sandwich, cereal bar and juice carton. And some indiscriminate 'savoury' bag. I'm no food Nazi but the nutritive value of that is honestly zero.

I wouldn't eat the burgers, fish fingers or half the menu on our school dinners so won't force my kids.
My girls get a sandwich, 2 pieces of bread =10p, 1 egg 14p some salad cream. A piece of cheese 20p, fruit 13p banana and a treat ariund 25p total = 82p

I definitely wouldn't do her, as one poster has suggested, a jam sandwich, cereal bar and juice carton

Agree...plain water in a reusable bottle is cheaper (ie. free) than juice...and healthier.

Why jam in the sandwich? Buy a big block of cheddar and grate that instead. Carrot and cucumber batons work out cheaper than a cereal bar too.

One of the challenges of packed lunch is the timing .If you do a shop Saturday by Friday the bananas are brown, you’ve used all the cheese and the veg is whatever’s left that’s not soft. I hate the shops at the weekend so I got a delivery pass because I couldn’t afford £7.00 for a Sunday slot given Monday - Friday is when we needed supplies most.

Buy freezer stuff - pitta bread and frozen sausages as a PP suggested or mini sausages rolls are good when the fresh stuff is out of synch.

Sandwich and some fruit. Not expensive at all.