School dinners v packed lunches

[HintofVintagePink]

My child’s school dinners cost £2.55 a day. Given the rising cost of food I’m not sure I can make him a big enough and nutritious enough packed lunch for the same cost. He is nearly 10 and eats almost as much as DH.
He has always had a packed lunch but I’m considering making the change to school dinners (plus it saves all the lunchbox faff!)
Am I just being lazy and unimaginative or is that reasonable?

Packed lunches are a pain in the bum, school dinners all the way.

I agree. Packed lunches will cost more if you add fresh fruit and veg to them.

I wish both of mine would take school dinners every day cause packed lunches are such a blinking faff.

DS has packed lunch every day and DD twice a week.

We are £2.40 a day for school lunches.

It’s a very good point!

My ds has a mixture of packed lunches and school dinners, and the school dinners are a similar cost to yours. Some parents do say they save money making packed lunches but I was never sure it was a saving for me!

Packed lunches are a real faff, but primary school dinners are often TINY

School dinners are tiny, some schools they give the 10 year olds the same size portion as the 4 year olds. Given massive increase in food prices I can’t believe you will get a substantial school lunch.

We changed to school dinners 2 years ago and it's so much easier. Financially it's about the same and you don't have to mess about thinking of what to put in lunch boxes! You can always guarantee by Wednesday that a top up shop is needed for lunch box stuff because someone(DH) has had the munchies!

I found the portion sizes for school dinners not enough as they got to Y5/6

I can make a better meal for less than that, pasta and pesto, leftovers from the previous nights meal, carrots and pepper and apples rather than raspberries and cherries helps. Hard boiled eggs is a popular choice as well.

I would go with school dinners if we had the option but alas…we do not. Packed lunch is the only option in my DC’s school

My kids have had school dinners for year but what with the col crisis we are changing to dinners just 2 days a week.

At primary school, school dinners are worth it but when he starts at secondary I'd totally disagree. It's like a cafeteria, they can easily spend £4😯 a day! There is the option for Pizza at break time aswell as lunch. I've told my 13 year old ds how much I'm adding to the parent pay account weekly for those 2 days a week but they let them go into debt. So if he goes over its coming out of his pocket money. He can take a cheese sandwhich, fruit and a small snack 3 days a week instead.

*years

I think you can definitely make packed lunches for less than £2.55 a day, especially if you are making them for a full week. They can really be as cheap or expensive as you want to make them. You aren't lazy for not doing them though - they are a pain in the bum!

I wouldn't bank on the school dinners being more filling though. My kids used to complain they were still hungry after them. I think schools cater to an average child, so a child that eats a lot is likely to still be hungry afterwards, unless they can get seconds.

Oooh, it may also be the case that the school dinners increase in price as like you say, food costs are going up 😬

Clearly in the minority but pack lunches here! They can be made cheaper and my DS prefers them. I don’t find it a faff as DH & I have lunches too so making them anyway.

we got a thermos flask each so I can send Ds with warmed up left overs or soup when it’s cold. He loves it

When my DS was in years 5 and 6, school dinners were nowhere near big enough for him. I think it would cost me less than £2.55 to have given him enough food for lunch. Pasta and pesto, an apple and a couple of biscuits would cost less I think and be more filling. He moaned incessantly about the portion sizes (they were the same as in reception) and we moved to packed lunches.

School lunch for primary as so easy and the food is often ok.

Mine's at secondary now and we bulk make something like pasta or chunky soup on the weekend and child sorts herself out every morning, thermos or cutting up fresh veg. She'll also take plain yoghurt from one of those massive pots and then flavour it with frozen batch compote, just made blackberry which cost me the sugar and a lemon but will last around a month of school. We started this in the last two years of primary when she was a bit more competent at not spilling stuff.

Because we're not doing sandwiches, and we've pre-planned way in advance the outlay per week is quite small. It's all fairly veg heavy so I'm not overly concerned about fresh fruit although I do get it fairly cheaply from our local market when I can and only buy in season stuff. I would say her meals cost less than £1.50 per day.

I am lucky that I can do this, have enough freezer space and a child that is easy to feed but pre-planning is your friend here. The school lunches at my child's secondary school are not reasonable and I can no longer afford £2.50 a day for her to eat processed crap.

Gosh, I've always thought packed lunches are cheaper! Maybe I need to look into this again 🤔
I would say though, when my DS was 10, school dinners weren't enough to fill him up

DD has to have packed lunch now she's in secondary as there just isn't time to queue up at the canteen and eat the food, or so she tells me. Occasionally she'll buy a slice of pizza but that's it.

Packed lunches have been cheaper for me but do take more time. Things like sausages, pasta salad, tuna bap are great fillers along with a banana/apple and a muffin. I used to bake every holiday and keep muffins and cake in the freezer for lunch boxes.

Portions are tiny for school lunches are not nutritious enough. They seem to bulk it up with empty calories all the time bread/pasta/sugary puddings. My children didn't even know what a pudding was until they started school then suddenly they wanted something sweet after every meal!

When I was invited to have lunch at my children's school my portion was tiny, it was double what they children got and there was barely one portion of veg and no fruit on offer. I could do FAR better for a fraction of the price.

I would imagine that the companies providing catering for schools will, when contracts come up for renewal, increase their prices. That'll be really rubbish for schools because the meals are already more expensive than the funding you get for free school meals.

If I could my DD would have school dinners everyday, but lots of her friends have packed lunch and they don't get to sit together if she has school dinners. So she has packed lunch twice a week.

The school dinners are plenty for my Y5 (going into Y6 next week) DD, but of course appetites vary. They get a main with a carb and vegetables plus salad from the salad bar, dessert like yogurt, jelly, sometimes a cookie plus a piece of fruit and water or milk to drink.

Watch out for budget cuts. At local school the school dinners have shrunk and shrunk and now the 8 yr olds are complaining they’re still really hungry after ‘school dinner’. Think half a baked potato with a little cheese on top.

You’d be better off sending him in with a pasta salad. Just boil pasta, pour a tiny amount of oil on it, sprinkle with cheese and a bit of chopped cucumber / tomato and you have a filling nutritious cheap lunch. For variety tey different pastas eg gluten free, lentil pasta, pea pasta etc

Definately go for the school dinner. I don't live in the UK so it's packed lunches here and it's a pain. My DD12 is very active and eats a lot. Her lunch would consist of two wraps with chicken and salad, grapes,strawberries, banana,peppers,pepperami, couple of rice cakes, two babybels and a boiled egg. It's expensive. She still comes home starving and it's a rush to feed her before her evening hobbies.

Get him to check a portion is enough