How inexpensive can you make a school lunch?

[powellrj]

My DD changed schools last year and even though her lunch now costs more, there is no way I can make a lunch like she gets at school for under the $2.20 she pays to eat there. They have a salad bar option that is included as a side item. She eats a nice salad every day along with her regular tray lunch and milk. The salad she fixes at school would cost me more than $3 at home to make!

 

[Pigeon]

I can't do it for cheaper than the school lunches. The school lunches, particularly once out of elementary school, are pretty good, reasonably healthy and have lots of alternatives. They have a great salad bar every day.

While we are frugal, my goal isn't to feed my kids the cheapest stuff possible. For example, I could feed them more cheaply if I gave a bologna sandwich instead of turkey breast or used those cheap punch type juice boxes, but I don't want my kid having that stuff on a daily basis. So to make a decent quality lunch, no, I can't do it cheaper, although I do make them sometimes if that's what the kids want. Mostly they buy lunch.

 

[punkin]

DD12's school doesn't have lunches this cheap. On the rare occasions she eats school lunch, it costs me over $5 and the quality is horrendous. She prefers to take a sandwich, fruit, chips and drink from home. That never costs me more than $3 per day.

 

[wishesuponastar]

I estimate about $1 or less

For the Week
Loaf of Whole Wheat Bread $1.50
PB-get a month out of a jar-so $0.75
Jelly-homemade from berries in garden $0
Carrot sticks-$0.25
Homemade cookies-$1
Water-$0
Pretzels-$0.25

So about $3.75 for the week-maybe $5 if I use occasional juice boxes or honey instead of jelly

My kids would not eat pb&j every day. I wouldn't want that every day either.

I guess I could make more food at dinner to provide left overs for lunch then I would be paying less than $3 for school lunch.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

Lunch at my son's school has been $2 in the past, is now going up to $2.25. I let him get school lunch a few times a month. I make lunches for my husband almost every day, also. Average:

Bread, 20 cents (about 20 slices for $2)
Lunchmeat, 50 cents (about 5 servings for $2.50 on sale)
Cheese, 15 cents (16 slices for $2.50)
Chips, 50 cents (I buy single-serve pouches)
Fruit, 33 cents ($4 for 3 lbs, about 12 small apples; or 1 banana, 1 pear, etc)

Less than $1.75. I always give him water to drink.

My son probably wouldn't eat the school lunches most days and they don't have any options to choose from, there's no pizza line or salad bar or anything. You get the hot meal, period.

This year I'll be making 3 lunches per day, as my youngest heads off to kindergarten. They'll have a snack every day and I'll send juice money for him to have juice with snack. Parents provide snacks every day for a week twice per school year.

 

[njmom47]

Ds would take 2 pbj or pb/banana sandwiches, a bottle of water, and 1 or 2 snacks. I try very hard to buy my bread at the Entenmann's outlet (whole wheat, 3 for $3), store brand peanut butter (he doesn't like anything fancy) and jam, granola bars (10 pk for 2.49 of less), case of water 3.99.
Seems like it would be quite inexpensive...but he makes up for it when he comes home from school!

 

[DawnM]

If you buy pre-packaged, it is going to run high.

Individual serving items (juices, chips, cookies) are just higher priced.

When my kids went to school (we now homeschool), I would buy in bulk at Costco and package them myself into ziplocks or containers. The boys liked to take milk in a thermos for drinking.

Dawn

 

[miralys]

I always do leftovers for lunch, even in high school when I took my lunch. If you are looking to do sandwiches, here is a website that breaks it down to cost per sandwich.


http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/sandwich/sandwich_calculator.shtml


Also if you have a bakery outlet, they sell more than just bread there. You can get english muffins, hoagie buns and even little dessert packs there to help keep bag lunches interesting at a low cost.

 

[labdogs42]

I hate packing lunches, too! My DS usually buys during the school year, but I have to pack his lunch in the summer. He doesn't like peanut butter, so I usually make him a ham sandwich or a chicken wrap and then send some fruit, a pudding, or cookies, and some other snacks like granola bars or goldfish and a drink. I'm sure it costs me more than school lunch!

I don't usually buy LUnchables, but whe the small ones are on sale for $1, I stock up. He loves ham and crackers and for $1 these are a deal! They are on sale at Target this week, so grab some if you want some easy go-to lunch stuffers!

 

[sk!mom]

1 1/2# lunch meat around $5

Just that right there for 2 kids for 5 days = 10.25 so about $1 day per kid
even if I figure in another side besides chips I add about $1.25 more for the week.

2 kids for 5 days so 10 sandwiches from only a pound and a half of meat? Is that right?

I was thinking that I only get maybe 4 sandwiches per pound- figuring a quarter pound per sandwich.

I pack DD15's lunch so that she has a healthy lunch not as a money saver. The school lunches here are unbelievably unhealthy.

DD will take some type of leftovers- veggie chili, whole wheat pasta. If we don't have leftovers, she normally takes a whole wheat turkey wrap. The wraps are $4 for 8 and the turkey I buy is normally around $6 per pound. So a wrap is probably around $2. I'll put low fat cream cheese and some spinach or lettuce on the wrap too. She takes fresh fruit and water every day. She also takes a yogurt or wheat thins and baby bell to have after school before ballet.

 

[SDSorority]

I have no idea how much our lunches cost, but it can't be too much. I try not to send the single serve packs of anything - it is so much cheaper to buy a bag of pretzels or grapes and dole them out myself. Here is an example of what I send:

Water bottle (refillable)
PB&J or cheese & crackers (turkey some days, but that's more expensive)
healthy snack (grapes, strawberries, carrots, apples)
salty snack (pretzels, goldfish)
dessert (usually 2 cookies)
extra for snack time (granola bar, veggie booty, sesame sticks, chips & hummus)


I don't think I'll ever take the time to figure out how much that costs once I break it down, but I wonder if it's under $3? Some days I wish my kids would eat the school lunch, I would happily pay the $3 rather than make 3 lunches at 6:30am!

May I ask- what's "veggie booty"?

 

[neatokimmo]

2 kids for 5 days so 10 sandwiches from only a pound and a half of meat? Is that right?

I was thinking that I only get maybe 4 sandwiches per pound- figuring a quarter pound per sandwich.

I pack DD15's lunch so that she has a healthy lunch not as a money saver. The school lunches here are unbelievably unhealthy.

DD will take some type of leftovers- veggie chili, whole wheat pasta. If we don't have leftovers, she normally takes a whole wheat turkey wrap. The wraps are $4 for 8 and the turkey I buy is normally around $6 per pound. So a wrap is probably around $2. I'll put low fat cream cheese and some spinach or lettuce on the wrap too. She takes fresh fruit and water every day. She also takes a yogurt or wheat thins and baby bell to have after school before ballet.

A quarter pound sandwich for lunch is huge.

 

[punkin]

May I ask- what's "veggie booty"?

It's like "Pirate's Booty" only with some veggies. It's pretty decent, but my children prefer "Pirate's".

 

[neatokimmo]

OP I save money on lunch on the go by buying what is in season and prepping it myself.

Little cheese cubes that I cut up myself are cheaper than cheese sticks (more flavor variety too). We eat sliced chicken breast sandwiches. Way cheaper than lunch meat without all the salt. We also have stuff she likes to dip like carrots, broccoli and cucumbers. This month, we are able to buy little pickling cucumbers for about 10 cents each.

Someone mentioned sushi being expensive. Once you get the big pack of wrappers (that last forever for $10) and learn to roll it yourself, it is super cheap. A little bit of rice, a little bit of veggies, a little bit of meat.

 

[Irin997]

A quarter pound sandwich for lunch is huge.

I agree. My husband and I just bought 1lb of ham, 1lb of turkey, and 1lb of provolone for the week and it "should" last us the whole week.

 

[sk!mom]

A quarter pound sandwich for lunch is huge.

Maybe the wraps aren't as expensive as I'm thinking then. Deli turkey is almost always on sale for $6 a pound at the store where I shop. I generally buy 2 pounds per week. DH and DD probably take a wrap 3 times per week each but they both will snack on turkey. Just eating a slice here or there when they want a healthy snack.

 

[MrsPete]

During the year my daughters generally buy lunch at school because I have not really been able to find a way to make a lunch for much cheaper than $3, the cost of a school lunch. The girls like the lunches and they have a very good selection and to be perfectly honest, I work full-time and having one less thing to do in the morning is worth the small difference in price. One of my daughters will be going to summer school this summer and I will need to send her with a lunch every day. This got me back to thinking how much does it cost to make a lunch.

How much does it cost you per day to make your own lunch? By the time I do a drink, sandwich or other main item, fruit, chips, etc. the cost is close to $3.

If you're spending $3 on a bag lunch, you're making expensive choices. Probably individual bags of chips, etc. You can absolutely spend less. It's easy to make a bag lunch for about a dollar:

Juice boxes are the best combination of easy and cheap drinks. At $2.50 for 10, that's only .25 per drink. A peanut butter & jelly sandwich is only about .25 as well -- assuming that you're buying inexpensive bread, value-sized peanut butter, and store-brand jelly. A $3 bag gives you about ten apples, making them roughly .30 each. If you add some store-brand chips or pretzels hand-packaged in a ziplock snack bag, you're still under a dollar. And, of course, this assumes that you finish off the loaf of bread and the bag of apples; if you "pack" only occasionally and some of your ingredients go bad, you're not saving.

However, that doesn't include your time in putting it together. THAT matters too.

 

[kinntj]

I buy the meat from the deli counter and will buy a lb. of each. We like Turkey or chicken and ham. We will buy salami once every few months as a treat. The ham is the 98% fat free and low sodium.

Last year our kids bought lunch from the school a lot. This year, they want to pack their own, so I'll keep easy to put together fixings. I'll buy the big bags of baked chips and cookies on hand.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

If you're spending $3 on a bag lunch, you're making expensive choices. Probably individual bags of chips, etc. You can absolutely spend less. It's easy to make a bag lunch for about a dollar:

Juice boxes are the best combination of easy and cheap drinks. At $2.50 for 10, that's only .25 per drink. A peanut butter & jelly sandwich is only about .25 as well -- assuming that you're buying inexpensive bread, value-sized peanut butter, and store-brand jelly. A $3 bag gives you about ten apples, making them roughly .30 each. If you add some store-brand chips or pretzels hand-packaged in a ziplock snack bag, you're still under a dollar. And, of course, this assumes that you finish off the loaf of bread and the bag of apples; if you "pack" only occasionally and some of your ingredients go bad, you're not saving.

However, that doesn't include your time in putting it together. THAT matters too.

LOL- won't even let DH use ziplocs. Flip top sandwich bags all the way!

 

[mjantz]

How old are your kids? My kids started packing their lunches 2 days/week when they were in 2nd or 3rd grade. I put up a chart with appropriate choices & as long as they picked one from each category everything was good. Since I used a mix of containers & baggies that's what they used too.
Also, I invested in a wide mouth thermos that they could pack with leftovers. Chicken nuggets, chili or Mac & cheese were big hits.