Frugal Family: Make Lunches in Bulk. Save time. Save money.

It is astounding to me how many mothers complain about having to make lunches each morning while running late or forking out for lunch orders because they had nothing in the cupboards.

Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer the "a little organisation now saves a lot of stress later" approach to life. School lunches is no exception.

Sandwiches freeze well and stay fresh on a hot day to be nicely thawed by lunch. This was one area we were able to significantly cut back on food costs by planning ahead and making a single trip to collect everything on the one shopping day.

Why keep dashing out the store for bread at 7am at around $3.50 a loaf? Now I buy 6 loaves at Aldi for 99c each, a tub of Aldi margaring at 98c and go to the deli counter at Coles for the cold meat (devon, ham, chicken loaf, etc). You know, I used to buy little premium packs of ham and chicken loaf in the dairy section in cute 100 or 200g packs until I did the math - it works out almost triple the price of getting the same thing directly from the deli!

In a couple of hours, you can make up an entire fortnight's worth of school lunches. No more morning stress... no more overpriced canteen orders... no more complaints from the kids because you only have a choice that morning of vegemite or more vegemite. Simply good time and financial management.

Once you get into the habit, you'll wonder how you ever managed beforehand.... and you'll be surprised just how much of a cost-saver this can be.

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.