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 ??

for my DD i split a pack of crisps into 2 little pots (if she is allowed to have crisps) so she doesn't get too many in one go. also malt loaf makes a great addition (and is often on special offer).
i once tried a dollop of soft cheese with breadsticks to dip but that was a lot of mess!

If you can still find them those little plastic containers for biscuits are a great money saver(I think lakeland called them 'biscuits for one')big packets of even chocolate biscuits work out cheaper than wrapped biscuit bars.

If your children like little boxes of raisins, rescue the empty ones from their lunch boxes and refill them from a big bag.

Again a bit of homebaking- I make muffins from spotty bananas and we have some warm for pudding and the rest get frozen. They can be put in lunch boxes frozen and have defrosted by lunch time.

The only thing I use that's sold for lunch boxes are those tube yoghurts-they save on teaspoons. I buy them on special offer and freeze,again you can put them in frozen and they defrost by lunch.

Aldi or Lidl nice & cheap for fruit, sandwich bars, peanut butter etc.

Frubes are often on special offer - buy them then & keep them in the freezer, frozen one in a lunchbox helps keep it all fresh & is nicely thawed by lunchtime.

(apols if all this has already been said, haven't read whole thread )

Aldi do really nice organic muesli bars - cheaper than the standard ones from more expensive supermarkets

I try and steer clear of sandwiches because my middle two (4 & 3) pick off and eat the filling then leave the bread, but they absolutely LOVE tuna pasta with some sweetcorn in it. I usually cut up some cheese into little cubes and put them in to give them a bit of a calcium boost, a bottle of water, some fruit and something homebaked like a slice of banana loaf or a muffin.

The BBC Good Food site is brilliant for easy-to-make recipes :)

oh yes - when I said sandwich bars (what are they? ) I meant those muesli bars - thanks, Kathy!

Mine have a sandwich- ham or cheese, apple, grapes, some type of cereal bar but not chocolate. No crisps. Plain water.

Back in the day...

I had sandwiches, a chocolate biscuit (penguin, club), an apple.

• Avoid expensive fruit! Buy in season stuff.
• Cheap fillings are marmite and peanut butter. (And probably healthier than yucky ham).
• Cream crackers are really cheap for variation on bread 'for a change'.

Alternatively, move to where I live - primary kids get free school meals (till Mr Cameron stops it )

Watch yourself with peanut butter, hubby & I got a bollocking for sending peanut butter sarnies in with the kids. I apologised profusely and said, "I didn't realise there were kids with allergies here" and was told that there were no known allergies but peanut butter is simply too dangerous.

Hm.

you could get small flasks and put in soup if they would like that.I also used to keep a few clean margarine tubs to put in a salad or pasta ,rice etc.

Ds1 doesnt really like sandwiches so I have to try different things in his.

He'll eat pitta bread (really cheap from the Asian shops) with various fillings.

All sorts of pasta.

Cheese and crackers

There's a brilliant recipe in the recipes section for mini quiches. I vary the veg in them and Ds1 loves them.

I have a little pot that I put in chopped up fruit/veg.

I'm going to try and do some home baked flapjacks and cupcakes this year.

Most schools police lunchboxes, so no cakes of any kind (even home made) or chocolate. DS's school would not allow anything hot like soup because of scalding hazards. Crisps a no no, no peanut butter 'cos of allergies. I found that my DD at secondary and shortly DS4, going in September would not take packed lunches 'cos most kids had dinners. The dinners queue was horrendous tho and DD quite often didn't bother.

You can stop cut apple from turning brown if you mix a bit of lemon juice in with it (so it coats the pieces)

Re the rolls, wait until one of the big supermarkets has a 2 for 1 on. Sainsbo's had a 2 for 1 on six packs of rolls, all sorts, granary, wholemeal, white etc for over a month. I bulk bought and froze them. Defrost the night before and they last a few days.

Marmite as a filling is nutritious and cheap. Re apples, its pyo season, you might like to consider this and store them for a few months, may be a little cheaper.

Tea loaf and flapjacks are dead easy to make and very cheap. Just bung the stuff in a bowl, measure a bit and mix. No whisking or any of that malarkey.

stickyj, your school might do that but none of our local schools object to a nice piece of cake in a lunchbox.

DD takes:

A sandwich - Best of Both with Ham, Tuna or Cheese.

A yoghurt - always have offers on in asda.

An Apple and/or Banana - Can usually get a bag of each for less than 3 quid and me a DH can have a piece of fruit with our lunches too.

Squash in a refillable bottle - they have water all day too.

Dunkers - as a treat 2 days a week.

Don't buy lunchables or anything in snack sizes for everyday. They're a rip off and if you do you might as well save yourself the worry and let them have school dinners, the difference in cost will be very little.

stickyj our school was going to outlaw cake until parents noticed that cake was on the menu for children having school dinners so they had to back down ! :)

i make breadsticks the kids have just eaten the batch i made this morning so batch two is in the breadmaker. i make pizza dough 700g breadflour, 1/2 flat tsp salt, 1 flat tsp sugar, 2 packs of fast yeast, 400ml warm water, 4tsp olive oil. I also add something extra like honey, raisins, coco powder, sundried toms, apricots etc. i pop it in the breadmaker on pizza dough it takes about 30mins, i then take it out a make it into sticks (my kids like them thick) and leave them on trays with baking paper on then you can to rise for about 30mins but you can pop them straight in the oven if you like. you can freeze them. you can make them into rolls to fill or loaves to slice.
i have two needing packed lunches at primary school and i put in
*sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter into stars etc. its usually ham or tuna or cheese.
or cheese and ham muffins (homemade in batches and frozen)
*pot of chopped mixed carrot, toms, cheese and cucumber
*pot of raisins
*breadsticks
*little stars pot and spoon
*pot of chopped fruit (kiwi, strabs, grapes etc)
*beaker with water and a splash of ribena
i sometimes add homemade cake or buns they have made themselves BUT sometimes they are not allowed to eat it.

i make breadsticks the kids have just eaten the batch i made this morning so batch two is in the breadmaker. i make pizza dough 700g breadflour, 1/2 flat tsp salt, 1 flat tsp sugar, 2 packs of fast yeast, 400ml warm water, 4tsp olive oil. I also add something extra like honey, raisins, coco powder, sundried toms, apricots etc. i pop it in the breadmaker on pizza dough it takes about 30mins, i then take it out a make it into sticks (my kids like them thick) and leave them on trays with baking paper on then you can to rise for about 30mins but you can pop them straight in the oven if you like. you can freeze them. you can make them into rolls to fill or loaves to slice.
i have two needing packed lunches at primary school and i put in
*sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter into stars etc. its usually ham or tuna or cheese.
or cheese and ham muffins (homemade in batches and frozen)
*pot of chopped mixed carrot, toms, cheese and cucumber
*pot of raisins
*breadsticks
*little stars pot and spoon
*pot of chopped fruit (kiwi, strabs, grapes etc)
*beaker with water and a splash of ribena
i sometimes add homemade cake or buns they have made themselves BUT sometimes they are not allowed to eat it.

DS2 takes ham sandwiches x 4 days a week and a cold sausage in a roll midweek. However, yesterday we discovered a fab Tana Ramsay recipe for what I call pizza swirls - don't know what she calls them. Basically make pizza dough, stretch out to a large rectangle. Pop on a layer of tom passata (we used pizza topping), parma ham (we used lunchbox ham) & grated mozarella (think she uses some oregano too), roll up as if a swiss roll; cut into slices around 1-15.cm thick, pop on baking sheet lined with baking paper and into oven for 20 mins. Lovely. DS had them hot yesterday and then today, as a trial for school, he had them cold and said they were even nicer cold . I feel like i've won the lottery as I really do despair about the monotony of lunches, same thing day in, day out - never mind the fact that DS1 rarely eats his lunch because other kids comment on it and make him self-conscious (and we're talking a bog standard sandwich or cold sausage in a roll ... grrrrr).

Now, shall go back and read thread for more ideas!!

Does anyone send in hot food in lunch boxes? Dd would love some warm soup with bread but I can't think what to put it in-ideally I'd be able to find a small, round, shallow flask type container that she can eat out of. does such a thing exist?!

Depends how old. Myt dd takes soup sometimes but she's in secondary school. I really don't think it's a good idea for little ones - the potential for spilling and not being abot to ope the flask is too great. And they need stuff they can eat really quickly - they need to finish and get out to play as soon as possible.

My DCs have only ever had packed lunches, but DS is very picky and wont eat ham, tuna, mayo, cheese, cold meat of any sort or yoghurt (unless it is in a tube) Neither would he eat jam, or nutella. He doesn't eat pizza, wont do cold sausages/nuggets or fish fingers and wont' have cold pasta either. So as you can imagine lunchboxes for him became very monotonous and a nightmare for us. As I am due DC3 in 9 weeks, I decided that, for the first time ever, cost aside, they are having hot lunches. He loves them and I can't wait!

Muffins are easy-peasy (you could even get the DCs to make them ) and you can freeze them. Pop one in lunchbox and it'll be defrosted by lunchtime. you can do savoury as well as sweet types too. I got a great book of muffin recipes from lakeland. most popular here are blueberry, banana or mincemeat.

Thermos do a wide necked jar which Lakeland sell, it is specifically designed for soup and stew.

here and here