School holidays - lunches/snacks

MrsSippi

So its that time of year again and the school holidays are fast approaching so I'm starting to factor in the extra cost of food/snacks for my 2 (aged 3 and 7) over the break. My 7 year old gets free school meals for the remainder of this term so i haven't had to pay out anything for her lunches up to now (during the week at least) but this will change in September.

Anyway I would love any ideas for what I could get to stretch for the lunches and snacks. My starting budget is £20 but this is a 'top up' amount if you like (I.e. I already factor in buying some stuff in our normal shopping budget - I just want to see how far I can stretch the additional £20). Fresh fruit/veg/salad will be included in my normal budget.

Both the girls seem to have massive appetites lately and are constantly wanting feeding (I don't mind this as they are both very active and a healthy weight).

So I was thinking one multipack of crisps as a treat to last the whole 6 weeks, plenty of fruit and salad, breadsticks and crackers (neither of them like rice cakes), occasional yoghurt, cheese (just small squares, not strings etc). They both like toasted sandwiches so that's one lunch idea. Buttered toast I've found to be a good 'filler upper'. I will also get some ice lollies as a treat. There must be loads of other ideas but I'm really struggling.

Normally I wouldn't post something like this as I would figure it out myself but I'm really struggling with ideas so would love any suggestions.

Ginmonster

I'm sure there's a few of us thinking the same thing about summer hols! A few things I was thinking of:

Jacket spuds with beans / cheese / tuna
HM pizza - add own toppings
Hotdog with hm wedges and salad
Houmous with pita strips and veg sticks (could be snack or lunch)
HM popcorn
Couscous with chunks of fried halloumi and veg mixed in
Stuff on toast - sardines, avocado (my 5 year old is clearly a hipster!), beans, peanut butter
HM flapjack is good and filling and you can put good stuff like fruit/nuts/seeds in

Prinzessilein

Instead of the buttered toast, you might like to give them peanut butter (other nut butters are available, but peanut is generally speaking the cheapest!) ...this would give extra protein and more filling power!...oh and try a nice granary bread....extra fibre, plus the yummy healthy seeds!

Oh...and apple slices, carrot sticks and celery chunks go will with peanut butter too.

Tinned Baked Beans...on toast or with a jacket spud.

Pasta (wholewheat if they will eat it!) with home made tomato sauce...just blitz up tinned tomatoes and add some pepper...or cold cooked pasta with tinned hotdogs cut up.


Baked eggs...they can have fun helping to make their own!...you ut little bits and bobs in to the bottom of a ramekin dish...snippets of ham, cheese, chopped veggies...crack a whole egg on top, add a spoonful of milk - or PLAIN joghurt, or cream cheese on top and bake for about 10-15 minutes to cook the egg.

As a hot-weather treat, freeze some bananas (I peel mine and wrap in foil first (the foil is reusable!) )...then take one out just before serving and mush it up...tasets REALLY like icecream!


Oh and you can freeze berries too...and pop a couple into a glass of water...makes it a bit more 'special' for the children!.....and maybe make healthy milkshakes/smoothies as a special treat?

Working_Mum

My kids are hungry teens now but
Make your own ice lollies - I use old Tupperware moulds I have had for years but you can buy newer equivalents from Home Bargains etc!!! My daughter went through a phase of sticking a lolly stick in a tub of (cheap basics brand) fromage frais and freezing that - she loved it!!

Make a batch of cookie dough , portion it and stick it in the freezer - the girls can help with this!

Make your own cheese straws with from a roll of ready made pastry which you can slice up and sprinkle with grated cheese or make your own pastry - Lidl do it at 79p a roll.

Sweet potato wedges

Anything with eggs - boiled, fried or scrambled! Omelette/fritatta is good too - eggs are around 20p each!

Crumpets with cheese - LOVED by my kids even now!!

My kids love dried fruit!! I would portion it up in little boxes (bought from the £ Shop) rather than buying raisins etc already boxed!

I would make lots of smoothies from frozen fruits - milk shakes with bananas and ice cream (cheap stuff from the supermarket NOT posh lovely stuff!!).

I bought wafers and rectangles of ice-cream and made ice cream sandwiches.

HM pizza was always a hit with my 2 along with bucket BBQ'd sausages and HM burgers.

I used to make a tray bake/flapjack and cut it into 36 pieces and keep in a biscuit barrel!

My children are teenagers now and are totally self sufficient and I miss these days of planning their school holiday treats!!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

A sandwich (ham salad/cheese salad/etc), cucumber sticks, yoghurt and fruit (grapes, blueberries, little pots of fruit you have chopped up for them) should cover them until teatime if they have a good breakfast - not a box of Cookie Crisps with no milk, as many of them seem to think counts.

If they know you have crisp or chocolate multipacks, they will be 'starving' unless offered lunch, when they won't be hungry or will just pick at stuff/leave it uneaten in the hope that you will give them the crisps and Kit-Kats. (Be prepared for them being wanted for breakfast as well).

If you actually make them little lunchboxes, you will be able to go out and have a picnic or they could camp out in the living room.

Then you could add in some baking as an activity - cakes and cookies are popular, you could make jam tarts, flapjacks - or even make play dough/slime (instructions on the internet).


If they want snacks, a couple of crackers, butter and some cheese (and grapes, etc, again) should be enough. It's important that they drink, so water needs to be available rather than fizzy drinks or sugary juices.


Other than that, you don't need to cook three meals a day for the entire time - it's about having fun, enjoying them, doing things you wouldn't during termtime and not slogging your guts out for six weeks.

Bored children complain more of being hungry than active ones, too. It's startling how kids that watch TV all day 'need' fizz and drinks and chocolate when they need nothing for hours if they're out enjoying themselves. Much like adults, really

CRANKY40

Scotch pancakes are really cheap and easy to make. My other suggestion is to go and have a look at the recipe index on the first page of the grocery challenge page.

PasturesNew

You don't need lollies, you make those by buying simple squash and diluting it as if to drink and then freezing in moulds...

Jam sandwiches, toast with jam on. With a 36p loaf and a 30p jar of jam they go a long way... ditto marmalades.
Cheese sandwiches
HM pizza, no need for "fancy toppings", just cheese/onion/tomato does the job
Alternate bread rolls with loaves of bread to make it look different - ditto baguettes and pitta bread/wraps etc.
31p packs of simple digestives (and other biscuits)
Bowls of cheap cereals
Make flapjacks with oats/golden syrup/dried fruit etc
Cheap bars of chocolate (30p/100g) can be used for flapjacks, or just to eat (L1dl = hard/snap; Morries = soft/melty but bit of a strange taste; A1di = soft/melty/tasty).
Keep an eye out for the "cheapest fruit of the moment" when in the shops - don't just buy what you went in for, check £/Kg of them all every time as seasons change fast with fruit
Cheese straws - just a dough recipe & cheese then bake, or buy ready made, add cheese/squash, bake. Twist or straight.
Pasties: Cheese/onion, Cheese/potato, onion. Make your own pastry, or buy ready made. Serve hot or cold.
Pasta salads are a filler... pasta, grated cheese, what else you've got, boiled eggs, potato salad .... big bowl, spoon.
Tinned hotdogs and hot dog rolls, with/without onions and ketchup/mustard can work out cheap if you inspect the prices and work out how much they really cost. Fry up a batch of onions and pop into the fridge in a lidded container and you can nuke the sausages/onions almost "on demand".
Cold banana custard, using cheap instant powder, can be made quickly and without effort. Then popped into the fridge in pots until needed.
Quiche, all manner of flavours there. Cheese/onion, cheese/onion/tomato, sweetcorn, bits of meat .... what you've got/like. Toss it in....
Omelettes, or cold Spanish omelette slices

Beans on toast, with or without cheese, is a tasty snack. Fish finger sandwiches are gorgeous. Ploughmans if you want to shove some extra salad stuff down their necks.

On hot days my mum used to just make up plain tomato sandwiches ... and orange squash - and take us to the nearest place where there was a bit of grass for her to read a magazine, and a bit of 1' water where we could splash about.

JIL

When my children were younger I didn't really do much baking. I made my own chicken nuggets and burgers but didn't do much with flour.

Fast forward a few years and I now make all-sorts and can't believe I didn't do this when the children were around to appreciate it.

One blog I would recommend is thrifty Lesley, there are loads of ideas on there from dips, houmous, bakes, scones and my very favourite granola bars.

I would add carrot cake muffins, Yorkshire tea loaf, scones, banana muffins. Mfin3 ginger cake.

Maybe get the family involved in making an afternoon tea, make extra and freeze.

Hope that helps.

Floss

Invest in a set of lolly moulds & wooden sticks (ebay) to make your own. Make a stock of ice lollies using fromage frais or value squash, wrap in baking paper or greaseproof paper and stash in the freezer. Your children can pimp them by dipping into melted chocolate & sprinkles.

Invest in 2 compartmented lunch boxes (if ypu don't already have them). Make up a daily box for each using your "snacks":
Make popcorn with the kids to put in
Cut cubes or sticks of value cheese
Cut apple & veg sticks
Add cherry tomatoes
Put in a handful of tiny cheesy biscuits (buy in big bags from The Range or Home Bargains)
Buy sausages, cook them & chill, then cut into slices & add to selection
Fill one space with hummus
Put in dried fruit
Bake brownies / Twinks / traybake/ cakes and add one portion each day

Your kids can then have a "Graze" type box of snacks of their own, at a manageable cost

MrsSippi

Thank you for all the replies, they've been really helpful and given me some good ideas. I always leave it to the last minute usually so this year I want to get it sorted early so that I can get some bits in and then forget about it!

Well_Preserved

Forgive me if I'm out of line in mentioning it, but there is an initiative called Make Lunch which seeks to provide meals for children eligible for free school meals during the holidays, and I think parents & siblings are fed too. It was started because of the awareness that it can be very hard for families to meet that extra cost, especially during the long summer holidays. I think it's supported by the Cinnamon Trust. Might be worth seeing if there's a local project.