Is it cheaper to do packed lunch?

[Twiglett]

if school lunch costs £1.42 a day

I tried to work it out based on

juice - 50p (litre carton over the week)
bread - 90p
meat - 2.80
fruit - 1.80
crisps / treat - 2.00

works out at £1.60 a day

so I'm right in thinking a school lunch is cheaper .. or am I going mad some way

My DD would eat a baked potato every single day, thats why I do packed lunch. She's terrible! We get sample menus sent home and they look lovely, but she says ergh to nearly every meal - if they don't want the meal, they can have a baked pot or sandwiches. Its much easier for me to give her a packed lunch.

Plus - nearly £10 a week versus £2.16...

One thing to factor in is that with most school meals you get what you're given. Thus if your kid really hates what's on offer, it's not a saving at all.
But to me the important thing would be the quality of what they eat.
Is anyone here getting the "new improved" school lunches yet ?
Any thoughts ?

School dinner at our local Primary in Northern Ireland is £2.20 per day - set menu - no alternative options.

DS has unfortunately got expensive taste in fruit mamag. I usually ask him what fruit he would like before I do the shopping and then get it within reason. This week he asked for nectarines which are about 40p each. I bought 3 and he had one last night. But today has taken two plums. This is for morning snack, mind you, because as per previous post he has dinners.

Infants should get free fruit snack daily - this does include raw carrots some days.

Milk should be subsidised till the term they turn five.

DD has school dinners and they have just gone up to £1.60 so considering packed lunches....

wow colditz your bread loaf is cheap! Plus a 50p loaf won't last a week will it?
If I have to do packed lunch I do two rolls (80p for 6 from Sainsbo's) so that's 25p a day before you start, ham from the deli at about 50p a slice, couple of bits of fruit at about 20p each (eg nectarines £1.50 for 6, mamag what is your 10p a go fruit???) salad bits say another 20p min (English cherry toms) and bottle of water. Plus a bit of home-made flapjack. That's more than I spend on school dinners plus I don't have the time so I only do it on trip days thank goodness.

Our school dinners are very good tho and I know that Ds1 and DD do eat them and make good choices. I am well aware that this is not the case for many children (I've seen them with a fishcake and a bowl of custard...)

I can barely get dd1 out of the house in the morning, so school meals are immensely better value for us (and have explained to her that there's No Custard and No Ice Cream in packed lunches )

DominiConnor - yes we're getting the new style menus - this is the primary menu. Sounds ok to me - but then I've got one of those rare children who would rather eat Broccoli than chips anyway!

I'm in Northern Ireland too Butterflymum. But seeing as I do packed lunches I have no idea how much school dinners are. I might find out when she starts staying to 2pm and be there for lunch.

Our meals are £1.75 for primary school - is this unusually expensive?

I think your school lunches are cheap at £1.42 per day. They're £1.60 at DC's school.

I don't do juice or treats and no fruit (because it's free at school) but carrot batons, olives, sweetcorn etc. I reckon my DC's lunches work out at about a tenner a week for 2 of them, which compares to £16 if they both had school lunches.

But the lunches are also an invisible expense iyswim - they are using up food that is in the house anyway, and would be thrown away if they didn't use it in the case of stuff like cucumber, carrots etc., because it doesn't last. It's expenditure I don't really notice and doesn't get wasted. I'd definitely notice £16 a week going out of the household.

I haven't counted up what packed lunch costs me, but I work on the basis that I know what, and how much, he's eaten.

I know he's getting what he likes, and because they have to bring home everything not eaten (inc. empty wrappers, half empty yogurt pots yuk), I can guage how much of it he's had.

So even if our school lunches were good (they're not, had one last term on my governors visit) I'd probably still send packed.

Hmm my friend decided to swap to packed on that basis, cue opening the lunch box up to find an untouched bagel etc...

Yes Bozza, but at least now she knows, whereas before they could just be leaving 90% of school lunch, but you don't know about it.

One problem at ds's school is they are allowed out to play when they're finished. So ds eats only wehats necessary so he can rush out to play. He often finishes lunch on the way home.

So £1.15 must be really good then!

At least that's one wee bit of "pay back" for paying £2,600 per annum in council tax (and that's not even the top rate!)

Yes can see that side of the argument clumsymum. DS and his friend had also apparently run out of time to eat their morning fruit as well. Will see if things settle down over the next few days.

bLIMEY £2,600 IN COUNCIL TAX!!!

what council is that?

Glasgow - the problem is that all the wealthy suburbs are outside the city boundary (but of coruse use the services), so that the average Council tax band is A (I think the norm is D) - so that those relatively few houses that are in Band G and H get really hammered.

do you have to stick to sarnies all the time? What do you eat for lunch? dd has a variety of food. We mostly all eat the same lunch so so as well as sarnies, she also has bagels, spanish style tortillas, rice, bean or pasta salad, quiche, sausage pies, wraps, etc. Her sarnies can be filled with left over meat from cooking too, roast chick or sausages etc. Or she will happily eat jam or choc spread if I am short on time. She doesn't have crisps every day. I often do a big fruit salad we can all share, or stawberries with natural yoghurt. Her flask is filled with iced water.

Ours have to have lunch and it's included in the fees without a specific charge so that's simple but in general also cost in the time you take to make the packed lunch and all the hassle of that.

We started with new improved menus last year(london). It lasted a few weeks then we were back to pizza and chips. The food was always running out, no time to eat pudding etc. my daughter was allowed less than 7 minutes to eat her food. Then they had the bright idea of letting the older (9 and 10 yr olds) serve the food, so of course they were giving their friends large portions and some children were getting a teaspoonful od rice or whatever. I really object to paying for something she isn't getting so we are back to packed lunch.
today she is having tuna, pasta and sweetcorn, acarton of yogurt and a plum. Oh. and a bottle of water. Yesterday she had a chicken sandwich (sunday lunch leftovers), a packet of dried fruit and a little tub of stewed apple. She eats the lot.

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