£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

armchairexpert

Ooh, now school lunches is something I can help with! No hot lunches (or canteen/tuck shop/whatever this is called in England) at our school, so it's pack or perish.

Generally: I have tried things like the thermos, and also picky things like crudites or crackers and dip, but what I find is that the kids are so impatient to be done with lunch so they can play, they don't eat enough. So I gear things towards: easy to eat fast, minimal mess. I don't know if they have to sit and eat for longer in a school with hot lunches - in which case ignore!

THINGS I DO:

Pasta salad, which is just penne, pesto, bits of chopped ham and olives or whatever I have in.
Pizza is a big one. I am lazy and don't make my own dough, I just buy the bases, but they take ten minutes to assemble and then the girls get slices of cold pizza for at least three days.
Mini muffins, savoury or sweet.
Things on sticks! A mini sausage on a toothpick, that sort of thing. Think retro party kids' food.
Wraps are more popular than sandwiches here for some reason. Or I just give them slices of cheese and salami and crackers to assemble themselves.
Cold boiled eggs. Scotch eggs are even better if you can bear the faff, which I cannot.
Leftover dinner! Today I sent them with chunks of cold roast lamb and cold roast potatoes with a little pot of gravy. Ridiculous but popular. I will also make extra coleslaw or potato salad with a dinner and use those in lunches.
Homemade sausage rolls. Also faff, but you can make a lot at once and freeze, then bake a few in the morning from frozen.
Cheesy vegemite scrolls. Marmite in your case. Get a sheet of puff pastry. Spread with Marmite. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top. Roll up. Slice so you have pinwheels. Bake until puffy and golden. Also works with jam.

The_Arrowmaker

Good plan to move from school to packed lunches, especially when your children are having a proper dinner in the evening anyway, but...

His school lunches cost £2.10 per day, and I'm thinking I can make some nice stuff with an extra £10.50 a week in the food budget

I wonder whether you might be able to squeeze the packed lunches out of your current food budget, rather than add an additional £42 every four weeks (in term time) to it. Without freeing up that extra £10.50 per week for something else, are you not rather defeating the object of cancelling the school lunches?

I mean this very kindly, but I wonder about your wish to make elaborate packed lunches for your children. Keeping things simple will not reflect badly on you, and your time may be better spent on your business. Sometimes as parents it's important to be gentle with ourselves. Quick and easy lunches do not have to be unhealthy or monotonous (although the young Arrowmakers have gone through phases of loving the same thing day after day after day). Wrap, sandwich or pitta with peanut butter, marmite, cheese or hummous; a piece of fruit; some chopped veg or salad and a yogurt are simple, healthy and tasty choices which will hold together well until lunchtime and beyond. Also good to provide food that will stay fresh for the day, so that if it goes uneaten at lunchtime it can fill a hungry tummy on the walk home from school:money:.

Poundland do decent 'clip and lock' boxes for...£1. Pop them in a lunch bag with a long strap (Argos do a couple of different styles) so that it can be carried across the body by your children keeping their hands free (otherwise you know who'll end up carrying everything :rotfl:).

enthusiasticsaver

I also wonder where does the saving come from if you are cancelling school liunches only to up the food budget?

bizzie

Variation on the veggie scrolls is pizza pinwheels. A ready rolled puff pastry sheet spread with jar of pasta sauce (or thick homemade) as a base layer, add chopped peppers / sweetcorn / tuna, topped with grated cheese rolled up along the long edge and cut into 2cm thick slices and cooked until golden. Think I got this off a children's cookery programme a few years back where the children did the cooking.

Treadingonplaymobil

Thanks for all the school lunch ideas! Liking the sound of the various pastry/homemad pizza options. And yes, I'm hoping to free up some money, but I am not going to pretend, with my current challenges sticking to the food budget, that I can produce an extra 5 meals a week (even children's ones) for exactly the same money. My aim is to add £4-5 a week onto the shopping budget for lunches.

Also, I just think it's nice to have a nice lunch, and DC1 is doing something he doesn't want to do (give up school lunches) because of the budget, so I'd like to make it a positive and rewarding experience for him - he knows we are saving for the extension, and has had it presented in this way (saving money on lunches = more efficient saving for the extension), and I'd like that to have a positive association for him. If he decides he wants a cheese wrap every single day, I will not be complaning though! Also discovered yesterday that lunches have gone up to £2.30, so even more potential for saving (£11.50 per week).

Yesterday's list:
1. laundry, again. Done, although rain is making it tricky to get more than one load a day on.
2. ironing, again. Done. Woohoo!
3. continue to work on DC3's project with him. Not done. Must focus on that today.
4. pack orders for smaller business. Done.
5. clean dining room. Almost done, need to organise and declutter all the art supplies.
6. Order DC1's birthday presents. Done. £80 in total, around half our usual spend. Quite proud of that.
7. batch cook bolognese-type sauce with all the leftover slightly sad vegetables that we brought back from holiday with us. Done. Enough for 900 people to come for dinner.
8. Book trampoline place for DC1's party. Not done, going to make sure both friends can do the day first, although they have provisionally said yes.
9. Start knitting socks for a relative's significant birthday. Not done, remembered something else (cheap) that they really wanted and ordered it with DC1's presents. <£10

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 30: day 3

Last day of the summer holidays! Not sure whether to cry or celebrate. I will miss my little team when they go back to school, and I am nervous about all the extra hours I will have to work and the risk of not actually making any more money. Just got to throw myself in and hope I swim I suppose.

Good news - the car passed the MOT yesterday with absolutely nothing needing doing. It has an advisory note about a bit of work that will cost around £150, but it can be put off for a month or two.

to do today
1. laundry, again.
2. ironing, again (although only a little bit, as I cleared it completely yesterday morning)
3. finish DC3's project with him.
4. finish cleaning dining room.
5. make pasties.
6. batch cook something packed-lunchy while the oven is on. Maybe just small pasties.
7. DCs back to swimming lessons, boo.
8. library for end of the summer reading challenge.
9. nip down to school to buy jumpers for DC2.
10. redo stoozing snowball calculator. I know our DFD will have dropped back, and I need to calculate, face the music, and update signature.

to do this week
1. plan DS1's birthday party. Done, just need to give invitations out tomorrow.
2. get the house tidy and decluttered ready for new term at school.
3. start a list of camping supplies that need replacing/repairing for next year - will be much better to do that in stages over the winter than in one big spend next May.
4. have a look at last month's food spends and see where improvements can be made.
5. make some packed lunch supplies and freeze for DC3, who will now have lunch at preschool 3 days a week.

to do this month
1. keep the total spend for the month below £3,500 (last month was miles better than the previous average £3,900, going to try to repeat the feat).
2. get my new website finished and launched (crosses fingers, toes and eyes).
3. just work as much as possible and make some money back to recover the enormous shortfall that faces us this month!

Cherryfudge

Good news about the car.

I hope the new term goes well - for you as well as them. Re: your list of camping supplies: I bet people will be selling off bits and pieces cheaply rather than store them over winter (that's how I bought a barbecue for a fiver). It may be worth checking 3bay and local ads as well as the sales (or even put an ad on your supermarket's board: camping items wanted.

Savertobe

General progress with debt busting

I wonder whether it is time for a new SOA - to take account of changes such as new income and paid off utility debts (if indeed this has taken place now). Your doing well with money saving but you probably need to sit down and reflect as a couple where you want to be in 2 years when the bedroom space will be more urgent for you/new car also needed/secondary school looming etc. I found running a simple spreadsheet showing debt and the reduction each month quite satisfying (if this is possible) it tends to keep the momentum up - on its own it does not cut expenditure of course. Your SOA is static and it could look better if all the calculations are correct.

Work out when you're able to borrow more for the extension and keep this as your goal. Try to avoid burning out as you are so busy. There is only three ways to improve your financial situation - (other than changes in gov policy such as tax breaks) reduction in lifestyle - money saving habits but maintaining lifestyle - increasing income. You do all these but less perhaps on reduction in lifestyle. It might be worth some short term pain to get to a slightly better place.

Keep up the good work

Treadingonplaymobil

Good point on the camping gear Cherry, must think about what we need (mainly cooker related).

Savertobe I'm holding off doing a new SOA until DH has that payrise in his hand (or at least his payslip), as I'm still convinced something's going to wrong at the nth hour. I do have one ready to go when it happens though, with fractionally more wiggle room in some areas and a chunk towards saving for the extension. No extra debt payments though - any extra money I earn will go towards that.

Off for a bath and an early night before the stress of first day back at school!

to do today
1. laundry, again. Done.
2. ironing, again (although only a little bit, as I cleared it completely yesterday morning). Done.
3. finish DC3's project with him. Done.
4. finish cleaning dining room. Not done, busier afternoon than expected.
5. make pasties. Done. Yum.
6. batch cook something packed-lunchy while the oven is on. Maybe just small pasties. Done.
7. DCs back to swimming lessons, boo. Done.
8. library for end of the summer reading challenge. Done, they are very proud of themselves.
9. nip down to school to buy jumpers for DC2. Whoops.
10. redo stoozing snowball calculator. I know our DFD will have dropped back, and I need to calculate, face the music, and update signature. Not done.

to do this week
1. plan DS1's birthday party. Done, just need to give invitations out tomorrow.
2. get the house tidy and decluttered ready for new term at school.
3. start a list of camping supplies that need replacing/repairing for next year - will be much better to do that in stages over the winter than in one big spend next May.
4. have a look at last month's food spends and see where improvements can be made.
5. make some packed lunch supplies and freeze for DC3, who will now have lunch at preschool 3 days a week.

to do this month
1. keep the total spend for the month below £3,500 (last month was miles better than the previous average £3,900, going to try to repeat the feat).
2. get my new website finished and launched (crosses fingers, toes and eyes).
3. just work as much as possible and make some money back to recover the enormous shortfall that faces us this month!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 30: Day 4

Back to school day! How exciting. Have decided I am going to throw poor DC3 straight in on full days (although she is only in Mon-Thu, so only two days left of this week) and just see how she copes. We only live three seconds from the preschool, they can call me if she's totally lost the will to live.

I am so looking forward to getting on top of the house. It's funny, nowadays I can really see the correlation between being short on time/energy and the increased desire to shop - I've mentioned it before, but once again I have really had to resist the urge to buy things that would be useful if I had lots of time (books and equipment for random new hobbies, nice house stuff, relaxing bath things). I understand now that what I am trying to buy is the illusion of free time, not the actual thing. Hopefully that urge will decrease as my free/working time increases with DC's preschool hours. And maybe I'll actually get to use up some of my acres of sewing/knitting/crafting supplies!

As I type I am sat three feet from the most enormous spider, which has apparently decided to come out from its hidey hole and keep me company on my first mega-early start of the term. I think I could have coped if it had left me all on my own for this enterprise.

to do today
1. packed lunch for DC3
2. clean the dining room
3. bake sourdough.
4. bake flapjacks.
5. make a quiche.
6. batch cook columbian black bean stew.
7. redo stoozing snowball calculator. I know our DFD will have dropped back, and I need to calculate, face the music, and update signature.
8. email my parents with ideas for DC1's birthday present
9. catch up on the many work bits on my list.
10. give out invitations for DC1's birthday (only two!).

That list is looking rather longer than I intended for my first day of peace in seven weeks!

to do this week
1. plan DS1's birthday party. Done, just need to give invitations out.
2. get the house tidy and decluttered ready for new term at school. Not exactly done ready for the new term, but at least I've made a start.
3. start a list of camping supplies that need replacing/repairing for next year - will be much better to do that in stages over the winter than in one big spend next May.
4. have a look at last month's food spends and see where improvements can be made.
5. make some packed lunch supplies and freeze for DC3, who will now have lunch at preschool 3 days a week.

to do this month
1. keep the total spend for the month below £3,500 (last month was miles better than the previous average £3,900, going to try to repeat the feat).
2. get my new website finished and launched (crosses fingers, toes and eyes).
3. just work as much as possible and make some money back to recover the enormous shortfall that faces us this month!