Fill the Backpack: Healthy Lunches on a budget

As a part of the Fill the Backpack campaign I was sent a ton of yummy, delicious goodies to literally fill the kid’s backpacks. I was thrilled that I the companies we worked with all have products that are healthy, free of dyes, preservatives and chemicals, and make me feel good about including a little “treat” in the kids’ lunches.

Popchips included small snack packs of chips. I seriously love these. They are so tasty! I may have snuck a few from the kid’s bins.

Stonyfield sent us coupons for free yogurts. I have been a fan of Stonyfield for years, and the girls loved that I was able to pick up little containers of yogurt instead of the big container. It’s cheaper to buy the big tub and put it in little containers to take to school, so this was a special treat!

Sunmaid included boxes of raisins. I’m not crazy about raisins since my kids have had dental issues, so these were eaten at home and then the kids immediately flossed. You might not be so obsessive about clean teeth though.

Stretch Island sent a package of fruit leathers. I adore this company as well. I bait the kids into thinking they are getting a treat with these-even though it’s sweet and sticky, and full of fruit sugar it’s a great alternative to the junk food in the checkout aisle at most supermarkets. Again though I am careful about the kids flossing or brushing soon after eating these, especially with the 12 year old’s metal mouth.

Healthy Lunch Ideas

We try to stretch our budget just like most families, but I also have my eye on how healthy the kids’ lunches are. I want to make them appealing and fun, but I don’t want to send them with 500 grams of sugar either. (Their teachers might not be happy about a sugar rush!)

This year in an effort to make packing lunches easier I came up with a system.

Each child gets:

MAIN dish-a protein food to help them sustain their energy all day. This includes leftovers from dinner, peanut butter sandwiches for the 6 year old, hormone and nitrate free lunch meats, tuna salad, or plain yogurt.
FRUIT-My kids LOVE fruit, so any kind will do. Apples seem to be the least favorite right now since they need to be cut and covered in lemon juice (they used to love it but prefer other snacks now)
VEGGIE-They also love certain veggies. I usually include babycut carrots, cucumbers, celery and sometimes salad (yes, they LOVE salad).
SNACK-This is where we get to have fun. The kids have bins on top of the fridge with their names on them. Snacks get divided COMPLETELY EVENLY (anyone with more than one child will understand the importance of this). The fun thing about this is I can put something that’s fairly healthy like nuts or homemade popcorn and some “treatyish” foods like bars, fruit leather, etc.

So far this has been working out really well. It also helps that all 3 older kids want to pack their own lunches with minimal supervision from me. (SCORE!)

Lunchboxes and water bottles oh my!

What do we pack their food in? Each kid has a bag they picked out. My favorite combo though is these adorable Crocodile Creek lunchboxes with a Laptop Lunch box inside and a flat cold pack if I need to keep things cold. The younger kids just got these adorable Crocodile Creek stainless steel water bottles from Olly. I adore them! So cute and functional.

The 8 year old received a monogrammed lunch bag I really love. I’ll have to find out who made it. It has a cold pack lining, folds flat when not in use, and is so cute! The 12 year old picked out a boring blue lunch bag, I think he’s past the age where I can find cute stuff for him.

Do you have a system set up for packing lunches for your kids?

Kelly

Fill the Backpack Sponsors:

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Fill the Backpack is sponsored by Ziploc and 20th Century Fox. Our sponsors generously donated compensation to help fund our Dream Classroom project. Other sponsors donated products to fill the 16 backpacks that we will be giving away, and sent additional products for my family’s use.

About Kelly

Kelly Whalen is the founder of The Centsible Life, a blog where motherhood and money meet. Her goal is to help readers live well on less. Kelly is a mom to 4, and loves that she can stay at home with her kids, and still pursue her passions for writing, personal finance, and social media. You can often find her on twitter and Facebook talking money and motherhood.

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http://yodelingmamas.com Amy

I keep saying I’ll start a system, but I haven’t. I love the snack basket idea you also mentioned at our Twitter party and really (I mean really) am going to do it this time. Since I only have to pack 1 lunch 3 times a week, it’s not too bad, but I should start good habits now!
http://www.sherpadecoaching.com De Yarrison

Hi Kelly, I LOVE the idea of the snack bins on top of the fridge! I’m gonna start this today. Another idea that I do is putting applesauce (I have homemade from my dad’s apple trees, but organic store bought works just fine) into small containers and sticking them in the freezer. I put them in the lunchbox in the morning and by the time lunch rolls around they have anything from “apple water ice” to plain old applesauce. And so much cheaper than buying them already in the single serving containers.
Barb @ My Daily Round

Yes, my system is my husband. Just kidding. He does the sandwiches and the cold stuff, and then I put everything together in the morning. I dump all the snacks together into one basket, and keep it on top of the fridge.

My one issue is watching the size of the containers that go into the lunch box. When there’s a thermos and a small Rubbermaid container, things get a little hairy.

We have an Amelia’s Grocery Outlet near us in Woodlyn, just off of 95. I’ve been able to pick up lots of healthy items for lunch like fruit salad in fruit juice, organic fruit juice boxes, and Barbara’s chocolate chip cookies. With three in school and two at home, every little healthy and inexpensive shortcut I can come up with helps a lot.