Two years ago, I wrote about why I sent my children to school with packed lunches which was, in essence (a) because I like to know what they’re eating and (b) I can make a well balanced packed lunch for around half the price of a packed lunch.
Even with rising costs, I can still put together a packed lunch for much less than the cost of a school dinner but it’s not as easy and I have to be very organised with baking on a Sunday night and looking out for deals at the Supermarket so I have been considering school dinners recently to make life a little easier.
I keep going back to my original reasons for deciding on packed lunches though.
With a packed lunch, I know exactly what they’re eating and seeing as our school don’t let them throw anything away, I know exactly what they’re NOT eating too. If they were on school dinners, I wouldn’t know what they’d actually eaten and to be fair, on the rare occasions when either of them has had to have a school meal they haven’t eaten much at all and certainly nothing particularly healthy.
I also know that I can still pack a healthy packed lunch for less than the £2 odd a day that school dinners cost.
Packed Lunch Cake
Savoury – I still make cheesey pops for Master Frugal or if he does have a sandwich, it’s just a bread bun with jam or peanut butter because he’s not a big sandwich eater. I buy a pack of 12 bread buns for £1.60 ish which makes them 13p each so Master Frugal’s savoury a maximum of 20p. Miss Frugal’s is more expensive as she has egg mayo, tuna or leftover meat from our tea. She also sometimes has Tuna pasta so I would say hers work out to around 50p a day.
Crisps – there’s always special offers on and I can usually get a six pack for £1 or less which makes them around 17p a packet.
Fruit – Packs of apples work out at around 23p per apple and upwards whereas bananas work out from 14p upwards.
Cake / Chocolate bar -I do make cakes on a Sunday night to freeze for the week ahead but more recently, I tend to see if there’s any offers on at the supermarket on chocolatey biscuit bars. I’ve just had a look online now and one supermarket has a pack of eight Breakaways for 77p which means that they’re about 10p each which makes it about the same as my packed lunch cake. I don’t see anything wrong with putting either a cake or a chocolate biscuit in their lunch box – a little of everything in moderation and all that.
Yoghurt – A squeezy yoghurt works out at around 16p each as they come in 6 packs for £1 usually.
Drink – We use double concentrate squash which I stock up on when it’s on offer (which is often) and it works out to no more than 10p per drink.
20p/50p – Savoury
17p – Crisps
23p – Fruit
10p – Something sweet
16p – Yoghurt
10p – Drink
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96p / £1.26
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What do you think? Are you a packed lunch fan or a school dinner lover?
Just in case you’re still on the fence, I asked some lovely ladies what they thought about the packed lunch vs school dinners decision….
My son starts this September and he will have packed lunches as he is a bit fussy and I don’t want him going hungry and I dont want to waste money if he wont eat anything.
Jenny, Mummy Mishaps
I opt to send Roo to school with a packed lunch for two reasons. Cost, a school dinner costs £2.10 per day and I can make it cheaper. Quantity of food, Roo can be a little fussy and I have no record of what she would have eaten with a school dinner, packed lunches means all rubbish brought home so I know what she has or hasn’t eaten.
Sarah, Boo, Roo and Tigger Too
We started the last school year sending Sausage with packed lunches but allowing her to have school dinners on Friday, which is pizza day. But after a while, we noticed her lunch boxes were coming home with most of the food untouched, so we spoke to her and it turns out she’s just not that keen on packed lunches, so she now has school dinners everyday. Our school only charges £2 a day, so for £10 a week (probably less than we’d spend on things for a packed lunch) she has a choice of hot meals, dessert and a drink, all of which seem fairly healthy. I like the fact that she has something warm.in her belly on cold winter days too.
Jayne, Mum’s the Word
Mine have packed lunches, we tried school meals but the veggie options were so heavily dairy based that we had to give up.
Chris, Thinly Spread
My son tends to have school dinners in the winter and pack up in summer as they sometimes get to have a picnic if the weather is nice. He announced that when he goes back he definitely want to have school dinners…his reason is that year 2s get to serve themselves lol
Clare, Seasider in the City
Having been a dinner lady many moons ago I go for packed lunches – the school policy is that no rubbish is allowed to be thrown away at lunch so I know just what they have – or haven’t eaten! It’s fab to sneak in little notes in to lunchboxes too and make them smile!
Annie, Mammasaurus
Dylan does a mixture – school dinners on my work days when he has cubs aswell. It just saves me time. Plus I am not very adventurous with lunch box ideas. Chloe takes sandwiches and other bits but she also has money in her school account to get the odd treat. Her school is cashless so whatever she buys I can see in the account as it lists everything she buys!
Emma, Emma and 3
Little man has school dinners, his choice and the school do a great system of where they choose over a 3 week timetable which changes every half term and the choice suits him.
Angie, Cakes, Photos, Life
Noah’s going to be having packed lunches, we both tried the dinner his school offers on his intro day and we weren’t impressed at all unfortunately. I’d rather spend a few extra quid a week on packed lunches just so I know he will eat something!
Cas, Mummy never sleeps
We do school dinners – one of the first things our school did when it became an academy was ditch the county school dinners in favour of a private company who do the most amazing dinners. My two come home raving about the choice, the new options on the salad bar and the fact the custard is like ‘real’ (*ahem*) custard like they get at home. They have the ingredients explained to them, cultural needs and allergies are all catered for and they did a fantastic session for parents where we got to taste it all first. Captain Crunch goes into school to promote the meals and if there’s something that isn’t popular they substitute it with something else. Oh, and the only frozen things they use are peas, sweetcorn, green beans (out of season) and curly fries on treat days. They make their own bread and chips.
Jenny, Cheetahs in my shoes
We do packed lunch three days a week and then school dinners on days when we have swimming after school as there isn’t time to fit in dinner otherwise. She also had dinners on a Friday as its pizza Friday. Unfortunately she prefers school dinners to mind but that’s because they always get tasty puddings.
Rebecca, Here come the girls
Free school dinners. As Chris says the veggie meals are either cheese or Quorn based so mine tend to have meat than the veggie choice.
Aly, Plus 2.4
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[Jayden]
Not meaning to offend but personally I think that although cost effective eating crisps and sweet stuff every day is not great for kids. My dd has packed a typical lunchbox would include tuna mayo wrap, chunk of cuc/carrot, piece or pot of fruit, yoghurt, piece of cheese, box of raisins, water/milk or occasionally apple juice. Very occasionally she will get a Treat of crisps/choc biscuit but the way I see it is that I can control what she eats at school, she does moan sometimes that everybody else gets crisps everyday but most days her lunchbox is empty so she can't be missing them too much! I tell her to eat the cheese after her fruit as it is good for her teeth. I do still prefer packed lunches to school dinners, I do them for a lot cheaper than the £2 per day. My son is starting secondary school and is a glutton, he would eat junk and fizzy drinks all day long if I let him haha, we have come to an agreement that he will have a mix of packed lunches and school dinners and I will be throwing in some fruit for his break time every day, it's harder to control what they eat as they get older but hopefully I can encourage him to eat healthily alongside his junk
Thanks for the cheese pops recipe, I will defo be trying these for dd, she loves pastry/bread etc x
mine have packed lunches & they have the occasional school dinner for a treat…I buy the Asda wrapped chocolate digestives that used to be 99p for 20 but they've now gone up to £1.20 – outrageous!
Great post. it's really interesting seeing what everyone else does. Thanks for the quote!
I think a packed lunch is a great idea, no matter your age. I could buy stuff at the campus café daily, or I could save a lot of money by packing something myself. I know which one I would prefer to eat too
Like you I like to know what my children are eating and their school has the same 'nothing gets thrown away policy'. Thanks for including my ramblings too xx
This is interesting. I love the mix and match idea and that might be the perfect compromise for us next year. My husband is from a family that relied on free school dinners as his main meal a lot of the time (yes I married a chav ha ha). I had packed lunch because I was because I was brought up as a veggie and back in the day veggie school options were minimal. Obviously we each think our own upbringing was the better option so allowing school dinners on treat and swimming day might be just right
Personally I see no nutritional value in biscuits and cake and crisps. Surely fruit a wholemeal roll or sandwich and some yogurt or/and an other healthy snack would save alot of time and money. There is alot of sugar otherwise. Just my thoughts
I think it depends what your kids will eat. My 1 year old would eat nothing but fruit if you let him. My 3 year old hates it so I have to be inventive e.g. banana loaf, currant fairy cakes, fig rolls, fruit juice, “best of both” bread etc. He is really weird about texture and I remember being like that through my childhood. My Dad still tells embarrassing stories about how I used to hide fruit in my gym bag! My health visitor said to look at their diet over the whole week to make sure it’s balanced. So lunches might be a bit sugary but if other meals are balanced it all works out