Savvy mum-of-three reveals how she spends under £10 a week on fifteen packed lunches
A SAVVY mum makes 15 packed lunches for her three sons for just £9.41 a week - and she's explained how you can do it too.
Lynn James, 42, saves hundreds of pounds a year by making home-made lunches instead of forking out for school dinners.
Each packed lunch includes five items per child per day - such as homemade flapjacks, wraps and fruit - which cost £3.13 a week per son or an average of just 62p per meal per day.
In comparison, school dinners cost around £2 on average, amounting to £30 a week for three children.
Lynn, also known as money blogger , lives in Hertfordshire with her three boys Dylan, 11, Josh, nine, and Jack, six.
She says her secrets include batch cooking on weekends and swapping brand names for supermarkets' own versions.
The thrifty mum also cut £40 off her weekly grocery bill by swapping from Tesco to Aldi, something she had to do after she left her corporate job to set up her blog.
She told The Sun: "I needed to cut costs drastically as my income was so much lower.
"Food shopping was the first place where I looked."
So how does Lynn make the cheap lunches? She starts off by writing a plan of the things that the kids enjoy eating and the ingredients that go into them.
The mum's savvy lunch meal plan
HERE'S what Lynn puts in the packed lunches for her three boys.
- Day 1: Wrap with chicken & mayo, apple, homemade egg muffin with feta and kale, carrot sticks, crackers – 61p per child
- Day 2: Sandwich with egg mayo, satsuma, yoghurt, kale crisps, cucumber – 61p per child
- Day 3: Sandwich with jam, banana, carrot sticks, homemade flapjack, yogurt – 47p per child
- Day 4: Sandwich with chicken and cucumber, apple, pepper strips, home made egg muffin with feta and kale, crackers – 72p per child
- Day 5: Wrap with chicken & mayo, satsuma, cucumber slices, homemade flapjack and homemade kale crisps – 72p per child
Total: Roughly £3.14 per child for the week or £9.41 for all three children
She then looks at the super six fruit and vegetable aisle at Aldi to see what is on offer for the week and plan lunches around those items.
"I always swap brand names for the supermarkets own as they are so much cheaper," she added.
The mum-of-three also advises to buy in bulk and stock up on discounted items to cut down spending in the long run.
She adds that it's worth investing in re-usable items - for example, she doesn't have to spend money on drinks as she sends the kids to school with tap water in a reusable bottle.
And just because she's shopping on a budget doesn't mean she'll have to reduce the quality of what she makes.
Lynn creates everything from scratch and never buys pre-prepared food to make sure she knows exactly what goes into each lunch.
Examples of things included in her lunchboxes are chicken and cucumber wraps as well as kale crisps.
Lynn said: "I make the packed lunches fresh each morning, but I also take time on a Sunday to make items such as home-made flapjacks and egg muffins in a batch for the week ahead."
She gets inspiration from friends and even instructors at her local gym, who make healthy eating plans for her.
By getting your children involved in the kitchen, parents can also make food a lot more enjoyable for everyone.
Lynn explained: "My boys actually prefer packed lunches to school dinners, occasionally they get food they don't like so would rather have the things they like in a lunchbox.
"They love being involved in the making process, particularly flapjacks.
"I think this makes them more likely to eat them.
"A batch of 15 flapjacks costs just 10p each and takes just 5 minutes to make and 30 minutes to bake - easy!"
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