Save Money: Easy Meal Planning Trick for Kids' Lunches

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The benefits of meal planning are clear:

1. It saves you money by eating out less.

2. It helps you waste less groceries.

3. You prepare your food so you can control the ingredients.

4. It saves you time to do it in advance.

5. It can also save you money.

Preparing school lunches every day doesn’t have to be a pain. It’s tough to figure out exactly what everyone wants to eat each week. Having a trick up your sleeve can make it easy.

You won’t have to frantically come up with something to prepare every day because you’ll be purchasing items in advance that the kids picked out. It allows for variation in their diet and keeps everyone happy. Use this simple trick as a meal plan shortcut.

Save Money: Easy Meal Planning for Kids’ Lunches

I found that it would take a great deal of time every morning to put together a decent lunch. I also found that my youngest would dump her half-eaten lunch into the garbage when you get home. She told me she didn’t like having a sandwich for lunch. All along she never told us.

I decided to get my kids involved in the meal planning process. Each week they have to write what they would like to eat for that week. They have to include the main part of the lunch with the snacks they want.

After purchasing the items, I put them into snack containers and put them all in one basket. Each day they have to pick out two snacks that they want for school. It also makes them more responsible.

This cuts down on prep time, deciding what to buy, and making sure they like and eat their lunch. It also saves money by not throwing the food out.

Also selecting snacks in advance ensures that we have enough for the week. We keep these separate from the rest of the snacks in the house. It also guards against  running out mid-week because someone ate all of the snacks.

I keep the snack basket right above the fridge and take it down in the morning.

The Bottom Line

If you plan meals in advance based on what your kids want to eat, it makes meal planning much easier. They will waste less food and you will save money by default. If you have a separate basket to house the snacks, it keeps things organized and kids can pick out what they want to put in their lunch.

 

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