I am a real stinge so
when it comes to saving money I think about it a lot. Although, now, with 3 young kids I am also in
the predicament of wanting to save time as well, and often the 2 things don’t
go hand in hand.
But one thing it can
work out for school/kindy lunches. If
you get ahead of the game you can save time without spending lots of money on
packet snack foods from the supermarket.
One thing I haven’t
managed to progress to is packing the lunches the night before, that would make
the mornings a lot easier…but on the nights that I remember to think about
that, I just feel too tired and really cant be bothered leaving the couch.
5 things I do to make
packing lunches easier
1. Firstly I make a list of options, so I
don’t have to think so hard each morning.
This is my list: Feel free to cut
and paste and change it as is useful to you
Tuck Small/handful snacks in
muffin cases
e.g. orange/ handful of raisins
- 1 sandwich / 1 muffin
- 1 yoghurt
- fruit roll up
- chocolate biscuit
always water bottle, sometimes
a little juice packet or something
|
|
IN LUNCH BOX
- 2 fruit
-2
bread/starchy
-1 dairy
- 1 healthy
treat/snack
-1 treat
Drink/water
bottle
FRUIT
•Fresh or
canned fruit – fruit kebabs, chopped fruit in a tub or fruit salad, easy peel
mandarins, vegetable soup in a flask,
•Dips/Hummus with vegetable sticks like
celery, carrot, cucumber
•Celery sticks with a thin spread of peanut
butter topped with sultanas.
•Jelly and fruit
* Cherry
Tomatoes
* Cucumber
pieces (with a little salt?)
STARCHY/BREAD
•Slice of
Raisin toast or bread, pikelets, pancakes or scones with a little margarine or
fruit spread
•Lightly spread muffins and crumpets
•Rice cakes topped reduced-fat cream cheese,
vegemite or sliced banana
•Small pita bread or wraps (spread thinly with
cheese spread or peanut butter, grated carrot, sprouts and roll up to serve).
•Wholemeal crackers with a slice of low fat
cheese
•Mini Wheats breakfast cereal
•Handful of home made pita chips (cut pita
bread into triangles, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake 180ºC for 15
minutes until crisp).
*Left over
rice/pasta dishes
*Sushi
*Corn thins
*Muffins
*Cold Noodles?
HEALTHY SNACK
•Popcorn with a few dried apricots or sultanas
DAIRY/Protein
•Slice of low fat cheese with carrot and
celery sticks.
•Low fat cheese cubes or sticks.
+Cheese
toasties
+ Franks/small
sausages (cut octopus legs and little eyes)
+ Yoghurt with
a handful of muesli on top
SNACKS
*Pretzels/Popcorn/Pikelets/Crumpets
- I buy a loaf of bread per child, sometimes
more… then I spread the whole lot with spreads of their choice e.g. My son
likes honey, jam, peanutbutter and mixtures of the lot, but my daughter
only likes marmite (sometimes marmite and cheese) So I make up a whole loaf slitting the
spreads between the lot then putting the sandwhiches back in the bread
bags labelled for each kid
If you wrap your sandwiches
in glad wrap, you could do that now too, otherwise it pays to put something in
between each sandwich to stop them from sticking together, e.g. Small pieces of
baking paper. You can reuse baking paper
over and over again.
Then in the morning I
just grab a sandwich from the bag and throw it into the lunch box.
- In the holidays or at some other “fun” time
I will make pikelets or scones or another form of baking snack, we will
have a few for out lunch or morning tea fresh and then the rest will be
frozen in bags ready for lunches.
Make sure the items are not going to stick together when you freeze
them so that you can just pull out 1 or 2 or how ever many you need each
day.
- I am lucky enough to have a dehydrator so I
will often buy the bulk lot of bruised apples or other fruit and spend a
day, peeling, slicing and dehydrating apple pieces, grated apple, or
purred apple into fruit roll ups.
(This is also good when I need some fruit for a slow cooker meal or
a dessert base)
So now that I have shared
all these ideas and thoughts on making easy, healthy and most importantly cheap
lunches for the kids…I should really get off the computer and go and make
some!!
