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Packed Lunch Tips and Tricks

36 Solutions

This page contains the following solutions.

September 11, 2008

Freeze a week's worth of lunchmeat sandwiches for your children on Sunday night. Place in ziplock bags or plastic sandwich containers. Freeze and take out the next day right before your children leave for school. Pack in lunches.

 
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March 19, 2005

put plastic cutlery in my husband's lunches for work. After him losing a couple of my "good" forks on the job site, he's gotten plastic ever since. Those I don't care if he loses.

 
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January 9, 2005

To save time in the mornings, make sandwiches and freeze them on the weekend. The sandwich turns out best if you start with frozen bread. Make the sandwich on the frozen bread, then pop it back into the freezer again.

 
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January 25, 2005

I buy canned fruit & spoon into small bowls with lids (allow room for the food expanding when freezing) for my husband's lunches. Frozen cups of canned fruits and frozen sandwiches will be thawed in time for my husband's lunches. He works construction.

 
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December 16, 2004

When I pack lunch for my school age children, I pack one for my younger child as well that way he gets a kick out of using his lunch box and we have lunch prepared if we are on the go at lunchtime.

 
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December 9, 2004

Slip "I love you" notes into lunches, pockets, or between pages of school books for your children or spouse. Costs nothing but means everything! But be careful!

 
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August 30, 2004

I live too far away from work to go home to eat and I can't afford $3-$4 per day that it takes to go to fast food restaurants. Since I live alone, I only cook 1 day a week, usually on Sunday afternoons.

 
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September 9, 2010

This is a tip that will help anyone who packs lunches! These days, we all need to tighten our belts and packing lunches is an excellent way to not only save money, but also to eat healthier!

 
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Silver Post Medal for All Time! 364 Posts
July 20, 2006

Making Lunch a Little Different. My DH brown bags his lunch. To make his sandwiches more interesting and to save time, I took three large frozen chicken tenders, greased them top and bottom with extra virgin olive oil. . .

 
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June 13, 2005

Avoid Juice Box mix-ups by placing a different sticker on each child's juice box or juice bag. Everyone can pick their favorite sticker and no leftover juices!

 
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February 8, 2005

Put tomatoes and lettuce in a separate container and place in your sandwich later to avoid mushy bread. Also, keep your mustard, etc. in the lounge kitchen (also to avoid mushy bread). By Crystal Podvin

 

Questions

Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.

April 4, 2011

I am looking for lunch ideas for hubby working on forestry gang. I have a tight budget, and he is sick of sandwiches. Any thoughts? Thank you.

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By Elaina

Answers

April 4, 20110 found this helpful

My son takes pasta mixed with tuna, sweetcorn and mayonnaise for a change.

 

Bronze Feedback Medal for All Time! 186 Feedbacks
April 4, 20110 found this helpful

If he has real good thermoses(that doesn't look right) he could take any leftover from the night before as long as it would stay warm. There is also chef salads. I have seen men eat them for lunch quite often, This is all they have for the meal, but they are really large salads, probably about the size of a plate and piled quite high. When I was working every now and then I would take some of that soup to go, but you need access to a microwave to heat it.

 
April 4, 20110 found this helpful

If you are comfortable in the kitchen, how about hand pies and stromboli? The most basic difference is that hand pies use a short crust (flour, fat, no leavening); and stromboli use a yeast dough crust. You can fill them with a ground-beef based filling, mixed with whatever vegetables you like; leftover meats and veggies; sausages; lunchmeats and cheese; ricotta and mozzarella cheese; you are only limited by your imagination.

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Go to a site like allrecipes.com and search the following terms:

Pasties
stromboli
calzone
samosas
runzas

Many ethnicities have a version of them. With many, you can cook them ahead and chill or freeze.

They can be eaten chilled or at room temperature.

 
April 5, 20110 found this helpful

Those sub sandwhiches my husband buys those big ones and cuts in halves and one sandwhich last 2 days so we buy3 then those little fruit cups,and those little six packs of v8 juice you can pour into thermos.or those tuna pouches, premade salad and put dressing in small container,and now they have those kits where you can make your own sub sandwhich sorta like lunchables hope this helps my husband takes his lunch we just experiment.

 
April 7, 20110 found this helpful

My son likes tuna salad or chicken salad on crackers. He also likes when I spread cream cheese on a tortilla, lay a thin-sliced meat on top and a row of midget (tiny, thin) dill pickles down the middle and roll it up.

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There are also cans of tiny sausages he could eat right out of the can.

 
May 10, 20110 found this helpful

This is a variation of a sandwich, but my hubby likes it, toasted frozen waffles, spread with peanut butter. Dot one side with raisins, and put apple slices in the middle. He also likes homemade tuna or chicken salad, and I send big leaves of lettuce, then he makes a 'wrap' with the lettuce leaves.

 
September 17, 20160 found this helpful

Cold noodle salads- I do many versions of pasta salads which make quite a bit of salad, are inexpensive and filling. Traditional tuna, mayo, celery, onion-is a great one; husband also likes this made with cooked red skin potatoes instead of pasta.

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Italian with salami and cheese, olives, tomato, and italian dressing mixed with a bit of mayo. Chopped chicken (use leftovers) and veggies and ranch dressing. You can adjust to your own tastes and use what you have on hand.

 
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September 26, 2005

I get bored with lunch, I need thrifty ideas and variety.

Lucy from West Covina

Answers

By terry r (Guest Post)
September 26, 20050 found this helpful

I usually make a dish from my dinner the night before for my lunch and if this seems to be too much of a good thing, I pack up the same dinner and fridge it and then have it 2 days later for lunch,,,I always make too much for dinner anyway since all the kids moved away.

 
By Peach (Guest Post)
September 27, 20050 found this helpful

Hi Lucy----
I pack lunch for work in the small square Ziploc or Gladware reusable containers. When I make my meals I always make enough for leftovers and I fill one or two little dishes for work each time I make dinner. I put them in the freezer and then heat them up at work in the microwave. I get a nice variety too!! If you like soups they also have containers with lids that don't pop off--they screw off. Even leftover pancakes and sausage can be frozen to eat later.

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Best Wishes for Thrifty and Healthy Lunches!!
Peach in PA

 
By Me (Guest Post)
September 27, 20050 found this helpful

Someone just posted the same thing a couple of days ago. You can probably find the info. in the archives.

 

Bronze Request Medal for All Time! 59 Requests
September 29, 20050 found this helpful

Here you go:

www.thriftyfun.com/tf50232660.tip.html

 
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May 27, 2012

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to pack for my ten kids' lunches? Two of them can't have anything with added sugar or food dyes and one of them can't drink normal milk and has to drink soy or almond and my oldest is allergic to mushrooms. What can I do? My kids are sick of the same old tuna fish sandwiches, with an apple, and a low fat sugar free juice and maybe some crackers. Suggestions?

By mc4lifes from Sydney, NSW

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March 26, 2017

The small lemon shaped plastic juice containers can be reused for a small ice pack. This is a page about using lemon juice containers as an ice pack.

A lemon shaped container for lemon juice.

November 13, 2017

This is a page about using a school lunch chart. This school lunch chart is a great tool to help make it easier to prepare your kids' lunch throughout the week.

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Each child picks their meals for the week, allowing you to prep ahead, and know what they are taking each day.

A chart of options to take to school for lunch, on a refrigerator.

July 21, 2014

This is a page about packing salad for lunch. Many delicious combinations of vegetables, fruits, cheeses and/or meats can create a fresh healthy lunch.

Woman Having Salad for Lunch

March 22, 2013

A great way to take a salad to work for lunch is to put all of the ingredients in a reusable glass jar. This page contains mason jar salad ideas.

A salad in a glass jar.

Archives

ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.

April 4, 2011

Does anyone have any ideas for lunches that do not require heating. My husband works outdoors and away from home all day and has a habit of constantly grabbing fast food. This can get really expensive!

 
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May 12, 2010

At the office, many of my colleagues buy their lunch at the local take-out, spending $4-6 a day!

 
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