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

That's very interesting SueW.
Did your numbers include labour costs ?

Hmmm,I think the cost is beside the point (within reason)
We are a nation who thinks nothing of splashing out on expensive 'leisure' items for ourselves and our offspring,yet quible over 10p here and 5p there.

Speaks volumes.

As you know,I am Food Nazi Commandant,however my dd has school luch as
a) It is pretty good food
b)I like the idea of eating together,not being in some Walkers crisp side table purgatory (as usually happens)
c) I really can't be arse putting a packed lunch together meself.

Packed lunch here too!
My ds school has a cafe system and I know he would eat rubbish plus he says it is all disgusting.I give him sandwiches fruit a cake and either water or a carton of juice.It costs very little as dp has packed lunch too so it is part of shopping and works out less than a£1 per day.I always buy special offers for packed lunches

Fife council school meals are £1.45 a day.There is quite a good choice. Here's one from this week

Monday

Soup of the day

Roast Chicken
Haggis
Jacket potato

Salad bar

Bread basket
Side salad
Turnip
Mashed potato

Ice cream and fruit
yoghurt
fruit

Lunch pack

Orange juice

As far as i'm aware, they can have

soup and a main course and unlimited fruit juice and bread and salad

or a mani course and pudding with unlimited juice, bread and salad

or a packed lunch with a glass of fruit juice.

My DS1 goes for a school dinner twice a week because he loves them, whereas Ds2 only goes if its absolutely necesary.
Up until P3 they get fruit 3 times a week as a snack in class. They get mile up to P7, which costs the parents £7 per child per term.

For me, its not about the money, although packed lunch is a lot cheaper, its the fact that I know my DD would eat about half of the meals on the menu but would choose to eat a baked potato EVERY DAY! Oh yes. I much prefer packed lunch for her and I do try to vary it. I just don't want her eating the same lunch day in, day out.

I tend to do packed lunches. I did do a trial of school dinners and for 2 kids it was working out over £70 a month plus they were both coming out of school ravenous and were clearly not eating the school dinners. So we went back to packed lunches. Cheaper imo and they were eating it.

by the sounds of it there really isnt a difference in price,just depends how frugal you are.ive tried both.cooked lunches,,you dont know what your kids eating,plus my daughter who is a very small eater says the lunches are minescule.I dont do the sarnys anyway i get her to do them the night before for her and her brother.with sarnys the kids are made to bring what they dont eat home,which is usually just 3/4 of a yoghurt smeared over the inside of my sons bag.Juices are bad for kids teeth so water is much healthier and cheaper.plus i dont want my kids having puddings at school and thinking its a good idea to have sweet after every meal,id rather give them something at home as an inbetween meals filler.then i can say,put your stuff away then you get a choccy bar.

DS1 is so faddy and tries to get away with not using a knife and fork at home! School dinners forces him to eat up and use his cutlery. Seems to work.
Also our school are canny. Grated beetroot hidden in chocolate cake. Tried it and it's delicious!

Our primary sch prints a menu for 3 weeks of lunches which is then rotated through the year. It's £1.90 per day and you can decide on a daily basis whether to have school lunch (if you think it's something your child will eat) or to pack a lunch. The standard of food is pretty good.

My dd has egg allergy which rules out 99% of puddings (which we don't have at lunchtime at home - I'd prefer fruit) and although she eats like a locust she can be fussy so we're starting with packed lunches - the children all eat together at the same tables so there isn't any segregation. I do think she might be more inclined to try new foods with her new classmates so we'll be trying that next 1/2 term (5 years into parenting and I'm still stupidly optimistic!).

But to answer, yes, I can pack a good healthy lunch for a lot less than £1.90 per day.

I agree with sobernow - we had a period over the end of the summer term when we had to provide pack ups - school trips, summer picnic etc - and I kept having to remember to bob to the shops to get bread rolls, ham etc that we just don?t have in otherwise.
Do not in fact find the lunch an invisible expense, we get through all we buy fruit and veg wise and if I have to do lunches I have to buy loads extra. Plus I leave for work before 10 past 7 three mornings, it?s all I can do to get 3 up, breakfasted and half dressed by that time
lol at moondog, can?t be arsed, I feel the same way.

Typical school lunch for mine might be:
Salad bar - maybe cucumber, toms, grapes. Roast chicken, roast pots, brocolli. Apple sponge and custard or maybe fruit (orange, kiwi, apple). Milk for a drink. I think that?s great for £1.45. My two are instructed not to drink squash and they have taken that on board completely.

ya have to be careful swapping between packed lunch an cooked as in a lot of schools they sit in different areas and my daughter sits by her best friend,if i swapped to cooked she wouldnt be able to sit by her,as shes nearly a teenager thats very important to her

3littlefrogs - your school sounds terrible - have they no idea? I could organise things better than that - and I'm terrible.

Our lunches have gone up to £1.70, but I'm happy that its balanced and dd is getting perhaps more variety of food than she'd sometimes get at home. They can choose meat or veggie, but then are presented with a full tray of food which includes 2 veg servings, so they can't opt out of the veg. They have to have eaten a certain amount before they are allowed pudding. Food is made on site and I see the local veg van every day. They still serve things I'm not too keen on like pizza and biscuit as a pudding occassionally but overall its ok - even 'local organic' beefburger!(yeah well that's hampshire for you).

It is the school meals people who are in the minority here. Conisdering the content of most people's packed lunches that is not really a good thing. Luckily dd loves dinners - esp broccoli and cooked puddings (never served at home!)so no prob there.

BTW they started serving bread as an extra reacently so maybe servings were a bit small, esp for the older kids.

Free fruit/veg scheme is great - I think govt should extend it at least to all primary kids, not just KS1.

I have just decided to try my two on school dinners after realising from this thread I spend way more than the £1.85 they cost! Their menu has improved greatly 'herbed chicken thighs' today!

Realistically I am also pregnant and have not the energy to prepare their lunch in the morning nor cook them a 'proper' meal in the evening at the moment so I am hoping they will get something in the way of nutrients though school because my attempts to cook lately have been rather dismal!

My childrens packed lunches this week have cost either £1.86 or £2.18, depending on whether they have a cheese portion or not.

Innocent fruit smoothie (from pk of 6) 65p
Bread roll (from pack of 6) 16p
Philadelphia cream cheese 17p
Cucumber sliced 15p
Drinking yog or organic yog 31p
Grapes (a handful seedless green) 42p
optional cheese portion (organic ched) 32p

No crisps, no bisciuts and no choc.

We don't have the option of school lunches so I had no idea of how much they cost.

I was interested enough to work my figures out...

Real loaf £1 - 20p per day
Organic ham £2.99 = 60p per serving
Organic Cream Cheese £1.79 per tub = 18p per serving
Fresh fruit £0 (we grow loads)
Salad £0 as above
Yeo Valley organic yoghurt £1.49 per 4 = 37p each
Baby Organix Raisins £1.99 for 12 = 16p per box
We only drink water (give that child a halo)

That's £1.51 per day against school lunch cost of £1.90 and even if I didn't grow fruit at home I'd have 40p to spare each day for good quality fruit.
Admittedly £1.90 is the highest school lunch price I've seen on this thread. But I am buying organic food from Waitrose so my packed lunches could be cheaper too.

if you wanted to do a real comparison you would have to factor in the cost of tea at home - as this might change, depending on what they've had at school. ie if they've had a packed lunch are you more inclined to do a proper cooked tea, whereas if they've had a hot school dinner is it egg on toast for tea? a packed lunch might well be cheaper, (it is, after all, sandwich-baased) but packed lunch and tea might not be cheaper than school dinner and tea.

This is interesting actually as I always thought packed lunches were so much cheaper!! However our school doesn't offer hot lunches and it really pisses me off. There was a possibility thy could restart but not enough parents wanted them!!

I have 2 kids so we get through approx

2 x loaves of bread @ 80p each = £1.60
1 x pack salami = 99p
1 tin tuna = 60p
mayo/butter/sweetcorn etc = 50p
1 x cucumber = 70p
3 x carotts = 40p
2 packs yoghurts @ approx £1 each = £2.00
1 bag apples = £1
5 school bars = £1
5 boxes raisins = 30p
1 pack biscuits or treats = 50p
TOTAL = £9.59 or nearly £10, therefore £1 each. I suppose not too bad really. Although I do add extras sometimes!!

I also agree if they had a hot lunch I would be more inclined to do a snacky supper of beans on toast or soup and bread, so the savings aren't really there

Agree with Moondog, couldn't have put it better myself!

DS started school today. School dinners £1.60 per day which sounds about standard. We are in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, and the school meals service was singled out as providing a good service by the Welsh Assembly Government long before Jamie's campaign (but good luck to him all the same - I think he should extend it to include hospitals as couldn't believe the dreadful tat I was served up after giving birth to DD recently....but that's another thread).

My SIL works locally as a school cook and she reassures my that at Primary level there is a hot meal and a pud each day, usually cooked on site, that are nutritionally balanced. Plus I have used some of her recipes for our meals at home (adapted to serve 4 rather than 150 obviously!) and they are great.

The younger children, such as DS, are served by the teachers or assistants and so get a proper combination of things on a plate (rather than the potential for just potato etc). They are allowed to go up to the "counter" to be served from yr 3 onwards, where there are additional choices of jacket potato or sandwiches, so I suppose there is potential for the pickier ones to get away with poor choices then.

DD is a good eater and generally eats whatever's on the plate. He would have a similar 2-course lunch at the day nursery he attended so he is used to having a hot meal in the middle of the day.

Think packed lunches would generally work out more expensive for me despite the various marvellously frugal costs quoted by some in this thread.

Am off to pick up DS now and see how the day went, plus ask what he had for dinner and if he ate it all of course!

Schoold dinners at Linconshire primary is £2.20, no choice. DD has pack up every day.

£1 on meat
£1 on bread rolls (won't eat sliced bread)
30p on cucumber
70p on pepper
£1.50 on custard pots
£1.50 on strawberries/blueberries/mange tout

So £6 a week on packups, definetly cheaper than school dinners. Plus its healthier. Schoold have recently said that they now offer veg at every dinner, shame its normally fried onions, tinned chooped tomatoes or baked beans - hardly fresh veg that kids would/might eat! I'd feed a dog better and have told then so

I'm really pleased that so many of the school dinners mentioned here sound so nice - my dd is having packed lunches because i was really underwhelmed by the school dinners on offer at her school.

I would love not to have to do packed lunches - what a pain. I really hope herts county council have to improve things under the new reforms. I mean 'creamed potatoes', 'beef pie', 'jam pudding and custard' - what century is that from?!

Before I start, I suppose I should point out that if you can afford it then spending money on organics/speciality bread is alright if that's where your priorites are.

I don't have kids yet (trying ) but my husband has packed lunches. I reckon I spend less than a £1 a day (and he eats double sandwiches - i.e. 4 slices of bread for 5 days) by using bread at 24p/loaf or HM for ~10p/loaf (smaller loaves though) cheap fillings (including left overs) and a piece of fruit and a snack (HM flapjacks, tiffin, etc). He gets water or tea from work but I'd give the kids either water or diluting juice (

I choose packed lunches at the moment because i am not happy with the quality and quantity of the school meals. We all have packed lunches - 2 at school, 1 at college, me and dh work in NHS - no quality food there, so I try to buy reasonable, not necessarily cheap, lunch box food.
However, I have always been happy to purchase childrens clothes/ school uniform etc from charity shops, jumble sales and second hand uniform days. We have never owned a new car, and didn't have "holidays" until ds1 was about 10. The only other thing I have not compromised on is their shoes. My child benefit is earmarked for shoes,football boots etc so they always have a good quality pair that fits. So yes, it is a question of personal priorities. I consider myself very fortunate that I am able to afford good food for my family. i know there are a lot of people not so lucky. However, I am constantly amazed by people I meet every day who spend a small fortune on cigarettes, alcohol etc.

Our school's lunches have just gone up by 20p to £1.55. When I was at school it was 55p a day.

DD is there today and it is pizza with salad (gorgeous homemade pizza) or Veggie pasta. On Monday it was Mac cheese or chicken fricasse. SOmetimes they get offered soup or they get cake and custard or fruit.

They were saying that most children take fruit and they've had to make sure that they ordered more fruit as there was higher demand. DD loves going to school dinners but she doesn't like a lot of things so she chooses when to go and I do a packed lunch on the other days. Ds can't wait to start school and go to school lunches. I've also had a school lunch and it was delicious and I got offered a slice of bread too. I really think the lunches are good since they changed the way and cook them in the school now.

In p1 and 2 they get free fruit and then the school charge 10p a day. I just paid £16 for a year of milk too.

We dont have a choice its always packed lunches for us as our schools dont do lunches.