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?

@weewill is this England in a state school? I've never heard of one charging that much.

@Dogandacat are you in Scandinavia somewhere? How are school lunches financed? And procured and cooked?

I am now dreaming of the amazing school lunches I had between 1985 and 1989. Halcyon days of amazing home-cooked, filling, really tasty food that everyone loved and was made on site. It was a highlight of the day. It was not always completely healthy (spam fritters still on offer from time to time....) but we still talk about it now among ourselves.

There was also a tuck shop at break. Very non U now but it made school seem like less of a drag and that school got amazing results.

Aldi essential bread 35p
Aldi Ashfields ham (40 slices) £1.69
Aldi 6 pack apples £1.19
Aldi Rigid Multipack crisps (6) 89p

That works out £4.12 per week (83p a day) and will leave you with half a loaf of bread, 1 packet of crisps, 1 apple, and half a pack of ham left over too! A saving of £1.72 a day…which is £8.60 a week…or a whopping £335 a year (or £670 for 2 kids!!!!). Yes it’s worth doing pack lunches!

Primary dinners are tiny. I have to pack extra snacks for my 7 and 9 year olds if they have a school dinner. My 10 year old wouldn't last on one. I don't think lunchboxes are more expensive though. We tend to avoid pre-packaged snacks and use bento style boxes for portions of pasta, couscous, fruit, veg, etc.

Oh I put my then 5 yo on school dinners for convenience - imagining he was selecting a tempting choice from the menu every day - wrong! His teacher 'had a word with me' after a week. He had a cheese sandwich every day - which I could obviously send in with him for less than £2.40 a day (this was 2007!) along with some fruit & veg, crisps, crackers etc.

I think the price per meal for school dinner is going to increase too. Everything is going up. Why not this?

In terms of portion size, my DC's school allows the children go back to ask for more if they are still hungry & having the time before they are evacuated for other year groups in canteen.

I'm sorry but I laughed way too much reading this 🤣 cheese sandwich every day, for £2.40 🤣

He could have had a Tesco meal deal for 60p more and had some crisps and a drink. 🤣

Anyway back on topic, we do packed lunches. I can easily make a lunch for less than £2 a day. Some days it's ham/cheese sandwiches, cucumber slices, a yoghurt, other days he has a flask, with warm pasta in it, some crackers, a jelly pot and a tangerine. Mix and match. The odd packet of crisps or a chocolate busi unit goes in once a week too. His lunches definitely don't take up £12 of.my weekly shopping budget.

I think the most important thing is for your child to have something at lunch time that he will enjoy eating. A long time ago but I started having school dinners when I changed school at eleven - and they were awful! Consequently I ate virtually nothing at lunch times. Then I started taking a packed lunch and thoroughly enjoyed that. I did packed lunch for my son. I don't think it cost much but I never worked out the cost of it compared to a school dinner.

Ours are never cheap as dd and ds dont like apples etc. So they have Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in a tub
Sandwich, yoghurt, crisp, small treat
For example
When a punnet of strawberries last a day between 2 of them or go off its pricey.

One due to start school and hoping they like school meals. As i hate making lunches. I think their free as reception age.
One we pay for school dinners.
Then just leaves the pre school one to make and hes very much same foods day in day out and fussy due to allergies.

Eldest who has just left school tended to have canteen or would bung a pasty in their bag or similar.
At college im not sure depending on timetable whether he'll eat there or come Home

Thanks for working this out here... I was racking my brains thinking about the gross cost of lunches 👍🏼

@CaptainBarbosa I know bless him! it's made me laugh remembering it- he took a cheese sandwich through the entirety of primary- grated mature cheddar on a crusty bakery roll (I used to buy one every day for him when I worked in town ) When he went to high school he would have ham!! or ham and cheese- what a variety eh! He is now 20 yrs old and takes a packed lunch to work- has branched out massively and likes roast chicken as well!! and on a Friday gets a kebab for lunch- I still make him a frigging pack up I must be mad Oh and I have a full time job as well.

Sweden, tax money (worth it), most of it cooked. Google photos of Swedish school lunches and you’ll see.

We got a food thermos from TK Maxx and DD has leftovers of what we had the night before or whatever is in the bulk batch in the freezer. Its cheaper than school dinners and a decent sized portion. School dinners are teeny tiny portions and she comes home starving so end up paying for lunch and still paying for food to top her up.

Thanks so much for all the replies. Sorry for disappearing!

Really interesting thoughts. I didn’t consider that portions may not be enough for him (meaning he will come home wanting sandwiches and fruit anyway) or that the cost of the meals may increase. I also naively thought all school dinners would be the same price. I’m amazed some are £5 each!

The lack of faff in switching is very appealing, but I’m considering setting up a lunchbox cupboard so DS can put his own lunch together. I’ve also been YouTubing a bit and see some supermums prep sandwiches in advance and freeze them. Does that work?!

He is nearly 10 and eats almost as much as DH.

Well this is going to be a problem. School dinners are not 'tiny' but if a child is used to eating adult portions, then they're going to think they are.

They're a light lunch, just as they always have been. Child and adult portion sizes have changed a lot over the years, but they haven't changed at all in schools.

My 9 year old DS has always had school dinners but is going back in September with a packed lunch, the portion size is too small for him now. My older boys gained very little weight in years 4/5 when they were on school dinners (both got very skinny) so we moved them on to a packed lunch as well.
So I'd advise no but it depends on your school's portion sizes.

Our primary school doesn’t let you have school dinners on certain days- you have to pay for half a term in advance of school meals or they can have packed lunches.

Mine has been having packed lunches since year 3 when universal FSM ends. We always have packed lunch stuff in as husband WFH a lot now, and when I was working (on mat leave now) I would always take a packed lunch to work. Plus my son is a really good eater so I am able to get in at least a couple of portions of veg and a portion of fruit into his lunchbox which is eaten, and I know he’s had a really good lunch. It worked out cheaper for us and meal portions at school are pretty small usually. Such a personal choice though.

Mine are still at the free lunch stage and seem to enjoy them well enough. I plan to keep them on school lunches are long as they'll let me through primary. Then it's one less thing for me to think about!

DD10 has packed lunch and it works out cheaper.

She has a mix of ham/tuna/cheese salad wraps, with 2 fruits, a biscuit, a yoghurt and a packet of crisps - or a food flask of leftovers (I cook from scratch every evening and take leftovers myself).

I also don't find it a faff tbh.

She empties her lunch bag and throws the icepack in the freezer when she gets home.

I start dinner, and whilst it's doing something requiring little attention I make her wrap and put it in the fridge with the yog/anything requiring fridge next to it. I wipe the bag, add the non fridge stuff (biscuit/fruit/crisps) and put it on the side. In the morning DD grabs the icepack and fridge stuff, adds it to the bag, zips it up and off she goes.

Leftovers go in a plastic pot I know has a similar volume to her foodflask. In the morning I stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes, fill the flask from the coffee kettle to warm it. Tip the water, add the food, done.

Nonsense. You can do a healthy & filling packed lunch for a fraction of the cost.

Frozen and then defrosted sandwiches can go a bit "soggy" OP. Just a warning.

I find packing a school lunch in the morning whilst DS munches on shreddies no bother.

I'm not one of those parents though that puts much "variation" in there and nothing is like home made with love 😳

I tend to put a selection of the below in

Ham sandwich or cheese sandwich (always)
Crisps
A fromage frais and spoon. (Always)
Some carrots Barton's or cucumber sticks
A babybel
A club or penguin bar
A piece of fruit (always)

Colder months the flask comes out, and in lieu of sandwiches I pop in the odd hot food like;

Sausage and beans in a tin with bread and butter
Tomato soup (from a tin) with a buttered bread roll.
Left over pasta bake.

With them some snack things like the yoghurt, babybell and always a piece of fruit.

I'm lucky DS in a state school and there are no lunchbox police, they are happy to just see food in the lunch boxes. Kid lives of 90's packed lunches, did me no harm 🤣

You are not being unreasonable or lazy, but check with kids/parents/staff about portion sizes as they may not be huge. That said, if your school meals include things like bread/garlic bread/salad/veggies/pudding (and your child eats the whole lot), that may bulk it out 👍

Same price at our kids' state school here in Kent. Fairly usual to be £2-£3 a day.

When I had 1 I paid for school dinners. Now with 3 there is no way I can afford around £9 a day for lunches.