HELP !! i appear to be near to tears over lunchbox contents

[MrsMorgan]

I do have pmt, so that may have some bearing it, but fgs, I seem to be spending a fortune.

3 dc, two and primary school, and one at secondary school. All have been on free school meals for the past few years (single parent).
I now have a job and so i'm not entitled to them anymore, and can't afford to pay for the school lunches, so we all will now need a packed lunch every day.

I am sat now trying to do an online shop and it seems to be costing my rather alot. What am I doing wrong ? What do you all spend on packed lunches ??

Ahh, thankyou lollipop

I should learn how to cook.

Shop at asda, tangerines, apples etc are cheapest. Mine have the same every day cos they like it and it's easy- sandwich- sliced brown bread (no bread buns- more expensive) with cheese or ham, marmite or jam for a treat, a drink of water in a plain bottle, fruit and a geo bar. That's it. Most expensive thing is geobar but asda do cheaper cereal bars. Asda often have a bag of tangerines or apples for a pound. Don't buy anything specially designed for packed lunches, cost a fortune in my experience. I try to have fair trade type principals but sometimes can't afford to. Every now and again they get a bit of pasta salad or similar. I second cooking ham and using it over a few days after main meal at weekend. I guess it costs about ten pound for the week.

Oh all of those "especially for lunch box" things; little cheeses and who knows what else are terribly expensive. Sometimes Asda do a promotion in their magazine "how to make a decent packed lunch" type thing.

individual portions of everything like water bottles and cheese and out of season fruit. I am at the prices!

DS's and DS have a roll with tuna/egg/cheese, a yoghurt (squeezy if on offer or a smart price with disposable spoon or straw if not), a wedge of cucumber, some carrot sticks and a piece of fruit (my parents pick us up a job lot of fruit from the market when they go to watch the football at the weekend).They have water in a reusable bottle, which I bought from B&Q when they were selling off picnic stuff for 75p each. Have just totted up and I think that comes to about £10 a week, which is still much cheaper than school dinners.

I dont give them crisps/biscuits or cake as I found that DSS's would often eat them and leave the salad or roll. They have them as an after school snack instead. I batch bake cakes, banana bread and flapjacks about once a month and freeze them in 5's (one each for DC), so I can get them out to defrost in the morning. This has the added bonus of meaning I cant comfort eat lots of them when I've had a bad day .

Your school might not allow it but have you thought about soup in a thermos? Very cheap to make a big batch of soup and the kids get something warm inside them too.

Thank's again for all of the ideas. It appears that I need to learn to bake.

I did once make a lovely banana loaf thing, but for some reason never made it again.

Will buy stuff for flapjacks tomorrow (if i can find a tray to bake them in).

I either make flapjacks or fairy cakes for my boys (will have two of them from Sept!)

But they are only small and not big eaters.

They have a refillable bottle DS1's was 1.49 from sports direct and DS2's was 75p from tesco (thomas the tank though lol)

Sandwich - either Ham, spread, cheese or Jam as a treat!

Fruit - banana, apple or tangerine (all cheaply bought in asda or tesco!) They only get grapes/strawberries payday week!)

I dont put crisps in but only because it takes an age for them to eat them.

Yogurt tube or pot

Or some cheese cut into squares or baby bel's if they are on offer.

It would cost around £22 for my two for school dinners for them not to eat them and it is cheaper to do it myself, especially as I make DH's at the same time!

Batch bake and freeze flapjacks, little cakes, ginger cake/banana cake frozen in slices.

Buy reduced price sliced bread/pittas and freeze for sandwiches.

Buy value fruit - apples and bananas v cheap.

No crisps, no cartons, no Dairylea lunchables , no chocolate, etc...

It really doesn't need to cost a fortune, but you can't cop out by saying you can't bake - everyone can bake! I have about four foolproof recipes which even I have managed to never mess up, and that's saying something.

The refillable bottles ! we have never managed to find any that don't leak, apart from those sports bottles of water. It's ok to reuse those isn't it ???

I went down my local library and found a book called "kids lunchboxes" or something similar. HAd lots of recipies for a big bake and lots of small cakes that could go in the freezer or store for ages. The frozen pear cakes were fab as you can take them out of the freezer that morning and they defrost during the morning and keep the lunch box cool.

Mind you, it also had a section about feeding your child prawn nd salmon wraps which I ignored!!!!!

DD's favourite lunch box item is a cold cooked sausage...our local butcher does great sausages which I buy and cook in a batch for the week. Very economical.

I got all the whines about how "everyone else" got sweets and biscuits but I said I wasn't the sort of mum who fed her child tooth rotting food (I would bake her cakes though) and she'd just have to live with it. As a compromise I sometimes put in a pack of chocolate buttons in on a Friday!

The only refillable bottles that don't leak are the ones shaped as monkey and tiger with integral cooling gel bit, available at Lakeland BUT you have to wash them out as soon as you get them home and if you put them in the dishwasher as a whole they will end up leaking. You can wash the straw bits in the dishwasher without them leaking but don't put the main body of the bottle in, the thread seems to stretch and then it starts leaking.

The only other never leaking container I have found is my little silver stainless steel thermos flask and they are so sodding expensive I would not recommend them for lunch boxes!

I reuse water bottles (evian etc), as long as they are washed out they are ok to use again.

I did send him with a few frankfurters in a flask with some hot water, and some bread rolls wrapped in tin foil so he could have hot dogs, he thought this was fab.

If you are cooking pasta one evening then cook some extra and pop it in the fridge, you can use it up to 2 days after.

I am getting a tad sick of making packed lunches now as ds won't deviate from ham and cheese, I'm quite pleased he'll be having school dinners.

The canteen at ds's school is very expensive so I do packed lunches, and cook in the evening.

You could choose one day a week they have school lunch and then feed them beans on toast in the evening to give you a break.

Flapjack very easy to make and you can drizzle the top with melted chocolate to jazz it up a bit. Try getting some foil tins from Sainsbury's and making the flapjack in those.

I bet you can learn to bake just a couple of things. It makes such a difference. Having said that I can't make flapjacks My friend makes them for her dh and she cuts them up, wraps each one in foil and he takes them to work. They seem to keep for ages.

I do the pasta/soup in a flask thing.

For cupcakes you can weigh your eggs. Then use the same amount of butter, sugar and flour and a bit of baking powder.

White bread ham and cucumber sandwich
packet supermarket crisps (every other day)
Apple or carrot
piece of cake or couple of biscuits
Sports bottle full of tap water

for two, this will add up to about £2 a day.

I've never thought about doing cucumber sandwiches.My dd would love those. I am doing that tomorrow. Very English.

We got loads of free drink bottles from watching a triathlon race. They were given to the competitors who discarded them when they had been used once. Bike races are also good.

Written down that looks really cheap

Buy some little plastic boxes. Initial outlay might feel a lot, but then you can buy enormous bags of crisps and things and decant a few.

Buy big packets of rolls, wrap them individually and freeze them.

Refil drink bottles with water or juice.

Make a batch of fairy cakes or flapjacks at the weekend, and wrap and freeze, like the rolls.

Carrots are usually very popular and cheap!

You'll get the hang of it, honestly.

Someone said school lunches are cheaper than a packed lunch - I can't work that one out. 3 dc at primary so that would be £30 a week plus 1 dc at secondary which would probably be £12.50 a week so that's £42.50 a week - total madness. No way do I spend that much on packed lunches.

Sandwich, fruit, yoghurt and flapjack/cake thingy plus water. if I buy cakes I simply buy what is on offer.

As someone else said don't be tempted by anything which says "Ideal for lunch boxes" as it'll be a rip off!

Aldi is great for cheap packed lunch bits, their yoghurts are v reasonable. That said, Sainbo's basics fruit yogs are 19p for 4 or something.

I always do extra of rice, couscous or pasta if I am doing it for dinner, then add chopped veg and left over ham or chicken and stick in a pot - nice change from sandwiches and almost free!

Not got school age DC yet but used todo packed lunches for me and DH. A few ideas.

If they like berries and yoghurt a cheaper easier way is to buy A big carton of natural yoghurt and frozen berries. Dollop some yoghurt into a pot, add some berries straight from freezer. Defrosted by lunch time and you have nice juicy berries to stir into yoghurt, plus helps keep lunchbox cool.

My mum used to buy big bags of e.g. Popcorn and give us a sandwich bag with some in. Did same with little pretzels etc.cheaper and more exciting than boring crisps!

Rather than giving DC only expensive fruit like cherries,make up fruit salad - apple, pear, banana, tinned mandarins and then maybe add just a couple of their favourites expensive fruit.

Homemade muffins are also a good place to start with home baking as they are relatively foolproof.

Leftovers are great - pasta mixed with whatever bits of meat and veg you have. Great way of using the pickings from a roast chicken or small scraps of ham and beef that would just fall out of a sandwich or might not be enough to fill a sandwich alone. Couscous is also good for the same reasons.

I refuse to pay the going rate for DD to have a school lunch when I know full well she will eat two tablespoons and leave the rest. Generally she takes a roll with either ham or cheese, a pot of yoguhurt decanted from a large tub, a couple of rice crackers, a piece of fruit (which generally comes home untouched) and a bottle of diluted fruit juice. Occasionally I'll make her a jelly or sling some rice pudding into a resealable pot. She doesn't moan (much). I would definitely second the avoidance of individually wrapped things. They are a take on.

Do you actually need to send a drink bottle? I know our school specifically advises against it on the grounds that water fountains are provided, and juice isn't necessarily a good idea nutritionally.

I agree with those who've said that carrot sticks are much cheaper than fruit (except apples, but they go brown).

I have a great Annabel Karmel recipe for oat and raisin cookies, which are even easier than flapjacks - I can run them up for lunchboxes in ten minutes flat.

Home made popcorn is good for an occasional cheap treat.

Many schools provide water for children having packed lunches so you may not need a drinks bottle.

My bugbear is that my dd has to bring all the rubbish from her packed lunch home. Yoghurt worked out very messy after the empty pot and dirty spoon was brought home!

You may need to check what the school allows you to take - my dds school doesn't allow chocolate but cake (and crisps) are fine.

Make sure your child can open the packaging (or can ask for help). My dd used to leave her cereal bars unopened and thought she was not hungry but it turns out she couldn't open it.