I'm being pathetically indecisive about school meals vs packed lunch - help me make up my mind please!

[oneofsuesylvesterscheerios]

This seems completely pathetic but I can't make a decision. We're having a stressful time at the moment and my ability to be decisive has completely escaped me. Be gentle please!

Dd2 starts school in Sept and wants to have hot meals like dd1, who loves them.

I've been cooking at tea-time so that 1)I can eat with the dds at the table 2) Dh will have something substantial to warm up when he gets back from work.

School meals are expensive.
Dh and I are both working, me as a teacher and dh long hours, so we're very tired when we get in. It has been a PITA to cook most nights but I feel guilty if I don't and we've been badly organised with our shopping and meal-planning. I know I haven't been buying economically. But I cook from scratch, the food is good and the dds both have good appetites and are healthy.

Choice is this:
Both dds have hot meals at school - which would be expensive but if we budget properly and buy/eat accordingly we should be OK. (I might need ideas though.) Their school dinners are good quality and varied.

At tea time do I then make sandwiches /wraps /baked potatoes /soup and sit down with them? and what do I make for me and dh? I could eat later with him but we'd both want something more than the above if we've been working all day.

Or do I make them have packed lunch (which they don't want to do) and still cook a hot meal at tea-time?

Added complication is that my dad (3 miles away) will need to be visited most afternoons now, around tea-time; he has a condition that has meant he is now completed wheelchair-bound and we will need to check up on him. Tea-time needs to be fuss-free as much as possible.

Ideas? Like the Toy Story aliens, I'd be eternally grateful [simle]

or , even!

How about:

Let them both have hot dinners at school.
Cook a large amount of something nice for you and DH after they're in bed.
Give them some of yesterdays tea when they get
in from school while you sit down with them with a cuppa. (Or take it to your dads and they have it microwaved there.)

hope this helps?

or do a mix of days.....3 days dinners, 2 days packed lunch?

I do two day's school lunch, three day's packed. Can you vary like that?

The cost for two children eating a school meal every day is astronomical (over £100 pcm which when billed half termly seems a huge outlay) and even as a reasonably well-off household, I still can think of many other things I'd rather spend that money on!

Someone I used to work with cooked a meal late in the evening of a type where it could be easily reheated the next day - they liked to have a hot meal at lunchtime and sandwiches/soup in the evening. Would work just as easily to reheat in the evening, and you could mix and match with bulk cooking for the freezer and super quick to prepare meals

With popping into your Dad, having a quick, easy tea (that in time the children can do more of too) would seem to be by far the best thing to do

Thanks for replies so far. I did suggest a mix to dh but he pooh-poohed it (in only the way someone who wouldn't be doing much of the preparation/planning can !)

TheBolter - you're right about the bill for school meals. What I'd like is some sort of plan that means we aren't buying as much food at the supermarket to counter the cost (fat chance?)

I costed it out...£2.10 per meal(x2 for 2 dcs) which meant the two dcs at home would have a cooked lunch. This meant no evening meal to clear twice for dcs and then DH and I. It also made it easier to have a packed lunch for dinner at a park or something after school. And it wasn't that much more expensive than what I would have spent on a packed lunch, but it ws still more.

My dcs now have packed lunch three times and school lunch twice a week.

I have been wondering the same - DS starting school in September and I am 8.5 months pregnant and have no decision making ability whatsoever

School dinners are £1.90 a day. DD will eat a hot meal at lunch time in nursery so they could then just have sandwiches for tea.

Does a packed lunch work out as that much cheaper by the time you have twisted your mind into knots coming up with options the school approve of and your DC will eat

Well I suppose that plan would theoretically mean that you'd be buying less food at the supermarket for your children, which was what I hoped may happen when I tried dd1 on full-time school meals a couple of years ago. Of course it doesn't quite work out like that - it's infinitely cheaper to provide their main meals at home!

Another thing that bothered me was that I couldn't be sure that they were getting enough nutrition via cooked meals at school. No matter how healthy they are touted to be, they are still cooked to a measly budget, and without wishing to sound precious, I'd rather provide my children's main meals at home where I know what's going in them, and I know that the standard of food we eat is pretty high!

You don't know how much they are eating either - when dd2 used to come home and proudly say she had eaten 'three mouthfuls of potato and a doughnut' I found myself cooking for them anyway!

Have similar dilemma, but think we'll go with school lunches as DS is dairy allergic and DD doesn't really get much of a chance to have normal things like cheese on pizza, macaroni and cheese etc. She thinks lentil pizza is normal!

Actually may not be such a great idea after all...

DS 1 is going into year 10 and DS year 6. Since te begining of school days they have always had a packed lunch.

DH picks up anything they may need on the way home from work and makes the lunch while the kids are in the shower and having breakfast. It takes minutes to make and because they have to bring everything home we can see what they have eaten (by the amount of food that comes home)

Advantages are
1 It is cheaper than school meals
2 We get to monitor the food they eat throughout the day - Not in a controlling way but I can see if the have had a cheese sandwhich they aren't going to have a bread and cheese based tea.
3 We get to match the food up with the likes eg Stew in winter in a big flask, cold pasta with chicken in summer etc

Disdavantages

Can't think of any

I also think you need to consider what her friends will be doing at lunch, if everyone is sitting eating school lunches you may find your child is on a separate table with her packed lunch.

I totally agree with your thinking upahill, but dd's big argument is that of PosieParker - school meals are a big deal at their school and the majority of the kids go for them.

I wouldn't be worried about what they eat; how much etc. as they are both good eaters and will give most things a try...

having said that, dd2 is more likely than dd1 to try it on a bit and, given a bit of leeway, might fanny about a bit. Iirr, though, the reception kids are closely supervised at lunch and dd2 wouldn't argue with a dinner lady!

see how indecisive I am? I'm even arguing with myself

Ok How about trying the first term on dinners, the second term on butties and after Christmas see what they prefered and roll with that!

oooo yes that's a good idea. thank you.

My DC never get two cooked meals a day - I don't think they need it. They have packed lunch and then cooked dinner in the evening. DS has packed lunch as all his friends do. I think its good if they can have the choice to do as their friends do as long as they are eating properly, healthily and you can afford it!

If they have a cooked balanced meal at lunchtime, I would do either a sandwich or cold/deli style meal for dinner.

Once they were in bed, over a glass of wine, I'd do a stir fry or spicy pasta or something quick and tasty for DH and I.

In terms of supermarket shop and meal planning, you just then need to meal plan weekday dinners for you and DH and family meals for the weekend, plus sandwich fillers/cold dinner stuff for the DC. Things like a whole roast chicken might work well, you and DH have it hot one night, cold leftovers can be had by your DDs the next night with raw veg/breadsticks/in a sandwich.

That is an emminently sensible and straightforward post, taffetacatski.

It really is all down to planning planning planning

Now then, when can you move in?

have you had a school dinner OP?
at my DCs school you get a chance to eat a school dinner with your DCs once a year - they are awful IMO.

packed lunches all the way here.

No, haven't had a school dinner, but they had a big overhaul a couple of years ago and have now got an award and the menus look fine. and dd1 LOVES them.

It's the financial aspect that's the clincher for me.

When DD3 starts school next year I would be paying for two lots of hot lunches, so 4 pounds per day thus 20 pounds per week. That's a third to a quarter of my weekly shopping budget! I can feed all 5 of us for lunch for a week for 20 quid.

Yes, agree the bill each term will be a bit of a killer, but I guess I have to counter that with the time not cooking each day will save and the fact that we will be having to take less time to eat so we can visit my dad points to the school meals option. Hopefully the money spent will be worth it if it makes life a bit less stressful at home.

Some great ideas here, so thanks.