Ok need advice nice lunchbox for £1?

gailey_2

I know theres tonnes menus and packed lunch thread on here.

I read quite a few.

But where im struggling is on costing it all up:(

especially over 2012 with things rising.

school dinners are £1.75 a day.so £8 a week £32 a month:eek:

Unless I can make decent packed lunch for less then its a pointless stress.

I buy value rolls/bread.
i buy reduced bread .

I can bake bread but find cost of bread flour, yeast not sure if cheaper than say reduced loaf picked up for 20p .

sometimes has value cartons, other times has squash in sports bottle.

fruit -most bags apples are £1 and dont include 10apples so normally around 20p per apple.

We shop lilds and aldis for fruit and forage at right time year.

I buy big bag raisens and put in sandwich bags

Sometimes make own ham or cook whole chicken as cheaper than prepacked.

Only buy butter and cheese on offer.

new school has no crisps, nuts or hot food policy.

cereal bars basic ones 98p or some from pound shop but work out 22p per bar as 6bars in a pack.

Im going to tray more home baked goods but need to cost those too.

eldest is started to get bored and hating taking packed lunches.

my toddler takes packed lunch preschool 1 day per week.

hubby takes packed lunches work but he has microwave can take hot food or or leftovers.

Has anyone costed and made full and tasty packed lunch for £1? is it possible?

As if I could would save me £3 a week £12 a month.

Been reading ideas but its just costing them.

Are there any recipies here that tell you

how many servings and cost per portiom?

thinking tray baked cakes and flapjacks cut into bar shapes.

What I would like to create is 4week menu planner of

something different each week
but all costing a £1!
Am I mad?

Its not cooking struggle with its costings.
Always remember on jaimies school dinners how he got frustrated how little he had to play with an costings.
Its economy of scales unless can make large quantity and freeze.

Also we pay £1.75 but dont they say costs 30 p at cost to provide kids meal and kids get less spent on then that prisioners?

pandamonium

Will watch this with interest as I'm not convinced that a packed lunch for my teens saves me enough for it to be worth the stress and hassle. Year 11 boy hates sandwiches and would rather get a 50p bag of chips, as he is allowed off school site at lunchtime. Not exactly the healthy option, but it's cheap and fills him up, and while this is available he will pick this every time. This is the commercial equivalent of the mothers who were pushing burgers through the school railings and difficult for a parent to fight. That chippy must do a roaring trade at lunchtime!
I'd love to be proved wrong on the cost of a decent lunch box.

rachbc

bread - 10p for 2 slices from aldi batch loaf, ham 18p (half a slice aldi french ham) apple 15p, chunk cucumber form aldi 10p (1/4 of 49p), little star yo 11p (£2 for 18) Water in bottle - free. Carbs, protein, 2 of 5 a day 64p.

DD would eat this day in day out but I also do pasta salad - 1/3 tin tuna (25p), pasta (10p max), squirt mayo and frozen corn (5p max) plus fruit and yog - 68p. Filled wraps - when I get wraps on offer (50p for 8 in B&M recently), left over rice dishes she eats cold.

But the formula is always similar - some carb (bread, rice, wraps, pasta, cous cous), protein (ham, roast beef, cream cheese, tuna, pnb, left over chicken, sometimes lo sausages), veg (peppers, carrots and cue are favs) and fruit (whatever on offer) and dairy. I may make a batch of flapjacks or muffins but they do't take them everyday - they really don't need them.

Others thing to try - hm pizza, cous cous salad, chicken drumsticks with veg sticks. I wouldn't worry about doing something different everyday - if you eat varied evening meals a little repetition at lunch won't be an issue nutritionally and kids (or my kids at least) quite like some familiarity.

SkintGypsy

I am considering this also, however I am not sure that for her £1.75 my daughter would have such a healthy and filling lunch. Right now she gets a whole meal roll with ham, homemade yoghurt, cheese string, two pieces of fruit. What she doesn't eat at school, she brings home and has for her snack after school. She eats her whole sandwich everyday, because they must bring their leftovers home.

With school dinners I've heard friends say their kid will get mash and rice, or some other such combo, then they get a sweet treat, such as sponge and custard. I'm not sure how they enforce how much they should eat, what they choose as being balanced, and how would I know if she's eaten anything at all?

At least I know that my money has been invested in a nutritious lunch, even if I whine everytime I have to pack it up!

rachbc

Exactly SG - even if you are spending £1.75 on a packed lunch its still going to be better than the £1.75 school dinner. For £1.75 I could cook a proper balanced, tasty evening meal for 2 whereas at school they will get 50p worth of goodness only knows what. DS used to come home ravenous after school dinners

cowboymum

Hum I've been thinking about this and I'm pretty sure I don't spend as much as school dinners cost (£2.10 per child per day).

I have a 10 year old and a 6 year old. 10 year old eats like a horse, 6 year old much less. I aim for 5 things in lunch box per day.

Trying to work out costings;

12 rolls £1.00 = 17p (for 2 rolls)
Ham £3.00 for 12 slices = 50p(2 slices)
Homemade flapjack = 20p (I'm sure someone else has done costings on these sort of things)
Apple(£1 for 7) = 17p
Drink (9 for £1.60) = 20p

Total = £1.24 plus a bit extra for butter. So this saves me about £2 per day on school meals (which the younger one wouldn't eat anyway).

Could be less if you use cheaper ham, slice up a cooked gammon or use other fillings. I make my own bread so that might be a little cheaper. I don't put crisps, chocolate bars etc into lunches. Could be seen as a fairly boring lunch but my boys love ham.

Home made cakes etc can be very cheap. Sponge mixes can be got at supermarket for about 7p, which makes about 12 fairy cakes (use these when I can't be bothered to weigh out stuff).

It s getting into a habit of baking I suppose - I really like baking so do it regularly.

Ideas for baking;

• Twinks hobnobs
• Flapjacks
• Fairy cakes
• Banana cake or muffins
• Rock buns

All v easy and quick.

t_obermory

I've just totted up what my kids lunch boxes cost and its less than £1 a day and I don't scrimp on what's in there.

I put baps in instead of sandwiches, 12 from Morrisons are £1.60 which is 13p a bap, if you buy the packs of 18 then per bap they're even cheaper. I put bog standard ham in it and it works out at about 20p a bap all in. I make the 12 up in one go and freeze them ready made, if I had a bigger freezer I'd do 18.

Then they have a piece of fruit -20p, some cherry tomatoes - 10p, a yoghurt tube - 10p and a treat -20p. I tend to buy multipacks of Rocky bars from Lidl when they're on offer or my son has Kinder Hippos as his school don't allow chocolate. They get squash in a sports bottle which costs pennies as I buy the biggest possible bottles of it.

Those figures are generous, you can get a piece of fruit for less than 20p if you buy what's on offer and if you bake at home that'll bring the cost of putting a sweet treat in down.

So their lunch boxes cost roughly 80p each a day. I could get that cheaper if I needed to. I think the key is to buy the biggest multi packs you can of things, preferably when they're on offer as that brings the per unit cost down.

If they're bored of sandwiches then pasta would be good, I haven't costed it but I'm guessing a portion of tuna pasta for example wouldn't be much more than 20p. Or you could buy a pack of chicken drumsticks and roast them, they could have one with a slice of bread or a couple of bread sticks. I think with the being bored of the food as long as you rotate what you put in well they won't notice as much that they're eating the same 5/6 things each day.

HTH's.

gailey_2

Thanks guys for replies.

My daughter loves school dinners.

However she used to come home hungry cant remember off top of head menu it goes in rotation always fish on a friday,roast once a week.

Its not the meals are bad generally ours seem fairly healthy and all locally sourced from nearby farms and companies within 40miles.
Its more portion are small everything including desserts are on plastic trays.

I actually brought a few of the school plastic tray from local carboots which daughter says is same as school and often serve kids tea on it so know how much it can hold.

Whats clouding my decision making is shes moved from large state primarys to very small village school. 132 pupils.The meals are made off site at kitchens in larger community primary and transported.
Maybe they have some margin of error but often she says most days shes offered 2nd helping even 2nd dessert which makes my £1.75 a day seem good value especially as school less than mile a way in different la is £2.15 a day now.

My 2nd child doesnt start school until next sept just missed cut off.
she takes packed lunch too preschool once a week and nursery breckfast , lunch and tea included in price.

But when they both in school its going to be £3.50 a day so £17.50 per week.

Then 2015 her brother starts and will have 3kids in primary.

we try and comprimise having school dinner one day a week and packed lunches 4days or if out food then sometimes do school dinners.

Her preference is cooked and feel really mean saying no.

I very good at budgeting grocery at home.

So need to find cheap option that she will enjoy taking, fills her up and is healthy.

When i said rotation meant same thing for 5days then next week something different.

shes nearly 7 and eats well tall and lanky seems to eat loads. recently we been getting packed lunch tantrums so have to make something good. since new school doesnt allow choc bars or crisps i have really struggled with lunches as to what to replace with.
shes ks1 so gets 1peice free fruit a day.

Looked at so many ideas and recipes here but when start toppting up how much things cost in shops getting harder.

Even wondered if bento type lunches might be cheaper.

shes not really one for cold pasta or salads rice maybe.

I personally dont like buying really cheap reformed ham.

I can get slipper joint from butcher for 6quid which makes weeks worth proper ham for packed lunches or we get nice stuff lidls/aldis.
e also sometimes if see reduced chicken c-op sometimes 2-3quid then use that to make sandidches.

even things like 1cucumber is least 50p and pack cherry tomatoes is £1 most places so that ends up working out 20p portion.

Have just sent hubby lidls get weekend deals.
soon aldis opening nearer us and new b&m next to lidls and morrisions so hopefully be able to shop around more.

Going to experiment with baking and try costing it up.

off to co-op later on hunt for reduced bread and used to get reduced bread all time spar had 8p loaves but its getting harder these days. we have huge freezer would rather buy nicer rolls/bread reduced than value if I can.

Also need to work out wheres cheapest for drinks as hate her squash bottle leaking everywhere.

Will have a play and report back.

guess depends whats on offer what meal plan we have that week will need to flexible to keep costs low.

gailey_2

shes gone off the value fromage frais 46p for 6 and likes those muller corners , i either try buy on offer or the cheaper aldi copy.
wondering if can try replicating muller corners?

one thing did try before xmas bit odd but you know the cake decorating ailse well sainsbuts has edible stars which mises with raisens git idea from free graze box.

wonder if can get small split tub as big as yogurt pot put plain yogurt one side and purees fruit or cake sprinkles on the other?

im sure if lunch was more interesting she want packed lunch.

need to cost up non reduced bread/baps with homemade too.

Tobermory that sounds so cheap at 80p

blackandwhitebunny

Gailey, This might help
http://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/Sheet.aspx?siteId=20&sectionId=85&contentId=320
It should take you to a page from foodafactoflife and halfway down there is a section on costing. The final link opens a spreadsheet which makes it easy to work out the overall cost of a recipe. Its called costing the ingredients.

Butterfly_Brain

pandamonium wrote: »

Will watch this with interest as I'm not convinced that a packed lunch for my teens saves me enough for it to be worth the stress and hassle. Year 11 boy hates sandwiches and would rather get a 50p bag of chips, as he is allowed off school site at lunchtime. Not exactly the healthy option, but it's cheap and fills him up, and while this is available he will pick this every time. This is the commercial equivalent of the mothers who were pushing burgers through the school railings and difficult for a parent to fight. That chippy must do a roaring trade at lunchtime!
I'd love to be proved wrong on the cost of a decent lunch box.

50p for a bag of chips :eek: It is £1.30 here :mad: