School dinner @ £1.20 vs a lunchbox meal?

Cornishpixie_2

Our School dinners are going up all the time. About to go up £1.90. Every time the supplier changes so does the menu, thus kids can't say "I'll have a dinner friday as its pizza and chips, cos 1 week it is then isn't. (menu being sorted apparently:rolleyes: ). Decided as I have to cook a meal in the evening anyway they are better off with packs. Ditto DS3 at pre school, as was costing £16-50, a month. It was ok when he was having a jacket potato, but he wouldn't eat things like, curry, chilli and couscous.
I seem to stick to a budget better this way. I have a weekly shop delivered and top up with fruit and veg (usually whatevers on offer), from local greengrocer. You would be surprised how much you do find to put in packs that you have already got in.:D

bertiebots

As I have a weekly food budget of £50 I simply cannot afford school diners. It would cost just under £30 p/w for 3 children so they have had packed lunches most of the time they have been at school. When my eldest was at juniors he had school meals but they have nearly doubled in cost in the past 5 years.
I make my own bread so it works out about 10p a day for that for all 3 ..then fruit , a bottle of water from the tap and a yoghurt or choc mouse. I think it probably costs me about a pound a day for all 3. I use basics tuna at 35p a tin, basics ham, choc spread, basics soft cheese, basics cheese slices ....all very cheap and home made cookies and buns too .

CravingSaving

Hmmmm.... I am off now to do a proper costing of the packed lunches I make. I have only really guessed until now. Will post result later, then take a good hard look at ways of cutting it down further.

I am hoping I will be happily surprised. We'll see!

fizzel81

thank you for all the answers, advice etc i meant to ask his teacher today if she can get hold of a sample menu of the school dinners and when i went shopping tonight buy the boys pack up stuff seperate from the rest of the shopping to cost it all out, im buying bread at the moment (much to my disgust) as the bf melted the side of my bread machine but he is replaceing it this month with a panny when he gets paid so the cost will be lower once i have new bread machine

Poppy9

I make packed lunches for my OH for work. He either has sandwiches or pasta. Pasta is his favoured option and until the price rose was dirt cheap.

A 69p bag of pasta and a tomato sauce (typically 2 tins of tomatos, fresh garlic, chopped peppar and onion) will make him 4-5 days worth pasta.

Costed

70p bag of pasta
70p 2 tins of tomato
5p fresh garlic
65p peppar
10p onion
£1 cheese (I do like nice cheese)

which is about 80p a day.

Plus 1 apple, 1 banana

Sandwiches for 2 days:

£1.40 large sandwich loaf (uncut) from local bakers (will only last 2 days as I cut thick)
£1 cheese (I can't stand smell of tuna so he always has cheese:D )

which is about £1.20 a day but some of the bread will be used for a slice of toast in the morning.

DD (13) sandwiches - went she has them

1 roll - probably about 20p as she likes the nice ones from Bakers
1 slice of chicken 30p (as she likes nice fresh sliced chicken not processed stuff)
1 bottle of lucozade 70p (she has issues with not drinking enough but I know she will drink this)
1 cereal bar 30p
plus apple

total £1.50 + £1.10 for chicken tikka wrap mid morning or 50p for slice of toast from school canteen. £2.60/£2

DD school starts early (8.30) and lunch isn't till 1.10pm. DD hungry by mid morning break 11am and lunch is 2 hours away so she goes to get a wrap or piece of toast.

CravingSaving

Blimey, its quite an eye opener when you start costing things down to price per slice of bread or ham etc....

For 3 kids, who all had slightly different things in their lunch boxes...

Bread 6p per slice x 6 (90p wholemeal loaf - reduced price)
Ham 32p per slice x 2 (£3.26 for 10 thick slices of "proper" thick crumbed ham - reduced from £6.52 :eek: )
Peaches 2.5p each x 3 (result - punnet of 4 reduced to 10p!)
Crisps 15p per packet x 2
Boiled egg 30p x 1
tsp value coleslaw 2p x 2

I dont think that looks like a huge lunch compared to some I have seen posted on here, but they all had a sandwich, a piece of fruit and either a packet of crisps or a boiled egg. That would certainly do me for lunch!

I make that £2.36 for all three lunches = 79p per lunch I know the ham was quite expensive, but it was a treat to have nice ham! Now I know how cheap that works out, I will NEVER go back to school dinners again (except for the odd [strike]I cant be arsed day[/strike] emergency.

Sorry to have hijacked the original thread. I still think that £1.20 is good value for a cooked meal, depending on the size of the portion and if it is food that your child will actually eat, rather than leave on the plate, and whether they are likely to have a hot meal in the evenings.

frasersmum123

We pay £1.85- and the concoctions they have are bizarre! The last time my DS has school dinners they had Curry, which he said he didnt like, so my £1.85 was used for some rice and brussel sprouts!

I think it all depends on what they have on offer and if the child will eat it. £1.20 is still alot to spend if you little one doesnt want to eat it, and comes home starving.

Chuzzle

Would just like to add my 4 penneth!:D

My ds2 is year 6 and they have just upped the price of school dinners to £2.05! We get a 4 week menu at the beginning of each term so in advance I can see what they are having and when. DS2 ony has school dinners once a week and that usually a friday cos its chips day! The rest of the time he has pack up. Although he doesn't always get time to eat it all as pack up people go into the hall at different sittings depending on their year group. So for example last week he was last sitting and got about 15 mins to eat his lunch whereas this week he is first sitting so gets as long as he wants to eat. DS1 is year 11 and again has school dinners once a week on PE day and if I'm feeling flush he might get it a 2nd day as well (pie day!) but at £3 a day I don't do it too often.

bellybabe_2

My boys have always had packed lunches - OH is a teacher, and told me that even if the food were healthy (may have changed since we first made the decision), they simply don't get enough. From what I hear, it hasn't changed, especially if your class is last in the queue. :rolleyes: That said, they also only get 10 minutes or less to eat packed lunches and often come home with food and still hungry because they weren't given enough time...we see the effects on their moods, their frustration, and their manners - school has taught them to wolf food down like the dog. :mad:

Since I qualified and started work, we took steps to streamline our organisation so we make up at least a week's worth of sandwiches every Sunday, or cook some sausage rolls (their special unhealthy treat!), and freeze. Then each evening making packes lunches up is just a case of gathering the requisite bits.

Yesterday we got 3 loaves all reduced to 20p, so used 2 to make at least two weeks' worth of sandwiches for both boys, using less than half a pack of cheese (we buy the kilos for about £4.50), and a few spoons of honey (20p max) - so £2.25 + 60p = £2.65; we would add to that not more than one value pack raisins (a handful most days for DS1), maybe a bag of apples, frozen tube yoghurts to keep everything fresh, always bought on BOGOF so max £2, and cheap crisps for DS1 (DS2 has stopped eating crisps). The we'd add to that a hm treat - made chicken pie with thursday's chicken last night so made jam tarts with spare pastry - cost probably not more than 30p (I'm tight with the jam ).

So I'm sure that would be under £9 for 20 lunches - about 45p per day if my maths is any good. I'm wedded to packed lunches even though it's one of my most hated jobs.

BB

Lyndsay_21

my childrens school dinner is £9 each pw and at the moment they are having school dinner everyday
tbh i prefer them to be having a school dinner as when they had packed lunch i would always forget to make it, plus then it was carrying it there in the morning and along with a coat and bookbag.

i am sure there are days they dont eat some of the stuff but i know the majority of the time they eat most of it. plus the school dinners are very good in the school and made fresh onsite

here is todays menu:

Haddock and tuna fishcakes
vegetarion option: cheese and egg flan
low fat chips
baked beans and coleslaw
Oaty Rhubarb and Apple Crumble and Custard
Additional sweet options: Cheese and Biscuits, Fruit, Fruit Yoghurt