Frugal Family: Prepackaged Play Lunches

Roll-ups, muesli bars, multi-pak chips, le snacks, fruit jelly cups and overpriced cheese sticks. No, no, no! As appealing as they may be to your kids and as convenient for you, these prepackaged snacks are going to quickly run up the grocery bill.

In a perfect world a fresh supply of fruit would always be on hand and your children would love nothing more than a healthy crisp apple for recess. The reality is we are busy and the kids want to eat rubbish and use the fruit you pack as a cricket ball.

Buy Bulk, Package Yourself
A significant cost-saver I have found is buying or making the foods the kids want and packing them myself.

An example of this was sultanas. All three of our kids loved those little boxes of sultanas and would consume at least 2 x 6 packs a week.

Before: Buying Coles Farmland brand I could purchase a 6 x 40g sultana packs for $2.03.

Now: Buying a 1kg bag of sultanas at Aldi for around $3.70, I can make 25 x 40g packs. To get 25 prepacked boxes would come at a cost of $8.46!

Result: We saved almost $5 just on sultana boxes by buying bulk and putting them ourselves into small re-usable plastic containers. It takes barely any effort.

I like to package my own recess snacks on Sunday night for the week so they are just as convenient to grab and pack in the mornings.

This also works well for items such as:

• dried fruits
• tiny teddies (again, go for the box and make your own 'packs' using cheap zip-lock bags)
• BBQ shapes and like products
• Popcorn (make it yourself for next to nothing)
• Pretzels (big bag for around $2.50 makes around 15 small zip-bags)
• Jelly cups (as opposed to $1.00 each, you can make these for under 10c in your own container)
• Cheese sticks (buy bulk and cut them yourself)

... and the list goes on and on.

When you need the convenience without the cost, consider packaging your own play lunch foods.

New Series: The Frugal Family

Financial straight-talker Dave Ramsey tells people to "live like nobody else (now) so that you can live like nobody else (later)."

The truth is that life is filled with wealthy individuals on meagre income aswell as those households struggling despite bringing in impressive amounts of cash. In most cases, it really isn't a matter of what you have so much as what you do with it.

In a future series, I'll be dealing with creating and managing a household budget - that balance between how much you earn and how much you actually need. For now, I've decided to start with the simple and practical things you can do today to cut back living expenses.

Baby steps can make a difference. A little effort and planning has helped our family cut almost $100 each week off the grocery bill alone. That's a whopping $5,200 saving each year just at the supermarket! I'll be using the frugal Family series to share the everyday hints, tips, recipes and ideas we used to accomplish that goal and others.