Packing lunches for tomorrow and as I was repackaging big containers into little lunch sized portions I started to wonder how much money am I actually saving by doing this?
It’s no secret that buying in bulk is cheaper then buying conveniently packaged items but I never really sat down to figure it out.
So I did a total breakdown of Gio’s lunches.
Mine verses Theirs
THEIRS
Lunchable $1.99
Goldfish individual bag $.42
Snack size M&M bag $.15
Motts Applesauce pouch $.50
Grand Total = $3.06
MINE
Homemade Lunchable $.74 total
– pepperoni $.41
– cheese $.25
– crackers $.08
Goldfish $.25
M&Ms $.04
Applesauce $.22
Reusable pouch $.04
Grand Total = $1.29
Yep! It’s worth it!
Holy cow. The difference is $1.77 per day in just one child’s lunch! And I have 3 kids!
By shopping sales, breaking down packages and utilizing (mostly) reusable containers I am saving approximately $5.31 a day OR 26.55 a week OR $106.20 a month! (Based on a 20 school day month)
That is a TON OF MONEY. People are always looking on how to reduce their grocery budget and so my advice is to shop the sale items and buy in bulk (then break the packages down yourself)
In just lunches I am saving about $1200 a year. To me that’s worth the extra few minutes it takes in the kitchen
Things to note:
* The pricing of “my” lunch items is based on the sale price I got and divided into the portions you see here. I only buy certain items if they are BOGO (crackers, cookies, cereal, pasta etc) There is always a BOGO cracker in the store and that is the one I’ll grab. I have no cracker loyalty, ha!
* The pricing of “their” lunch items is based on the price that I got from the Walmart grocery pick up app divided by the number of servings
* The applesauce pouches are KIDDZO brand. I’ll link them. I get the box of 50 on amazon for $19.99 and can reuse each pouch about 10x each. That’s how I got to that cost per use.
* Is this the healthiest lunch? Nope. But my picky 2 year old will eat it all up. I’ll fight the food battles at home instead of sending them to school 👍🏼
* There is more pepperoni/cheese and crackers than it looks like in this photo. I usually do an ounce of cheese, 10 or so slices of pepperoni and 5 crackers.
* Do your kids eat way more? Probably. This is my 2 year olds lunch. My big kids eat different foods and larger quantities but the concept is still the same.
* Do I ever buy convenience items? Yep!! Just grabbed a bunch of boxes of Motts applesauce pouches for when I’m lazy or for baseball game snacks. But they were BOGO and I had a coupon making them only $.26 a pouch. Thats comparable to the price of my homemade ones so I snagged as many as I could.
* Just a tip! I always make more than one lunch at a time. I generally make Mon + Tues lunches on Sunday (when I’m already making Sunday lunch so the stuff is all out). Wednesday is a wildcard. They will buy lunch or I will throw random stuff in their lunchboxes (hello leftover slices of pizza, I’m looking at you). Then Wednesday night I make lunch for Thurs + Fri.
So there’s my grocery budget tips that no one asked for but I felt compelled to share.
Go save yourself some money this week 🙌🏼
Here’s that KIDDZO applesauce link:
https://amzn.to/2TxdLIt
Hope you’re having a great week!
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XO,
Danielle
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