The clip on Isla's bento box snapped on a Tuesday in June, in the middle of the hot spell, and for the last five weeks of term the lid was held on with one of my hair bobbles. Isla said it made the box look "a bit sad". She was right. The bobble also went missing twice and left the cucumber sliding about, so in the middle of August I gave in and bought exactly the same box again, £12.99, for the second time in two years.
That's the thing about lunch kit. A handful of pieces earn their keep every single school day, and a drawer's worth earns nothing, and I've owned plenty of both. Here is the sorting, with receipts.
The kit that earns its keep
The bento box is the star. It has two compartments, which is exactly what half a sandwich plus a pile of cucumber and a cheese portion need, and the lid has a rubber seal that has never once leaked yoghurt into a book bag. The first one arrived for Year 3 in September 2023 and lasted to June 2025, which is roughly 340 school days. That works out at about 4p a day for the box, and I wouldn't change anything except the clip. The new one has a slightly stiffer clip, and I've already warned Isla that I'll be watching how she opens it.
Alfie's dinosaur lunch bag cost £6 and has been on every beach and picnic bench since the Easter holidays. It's insulated, it wipes clean, and its zip is the only one in our house that has never needed a safety pin. Next week it starts doing a different job. Alfie has decided he wants a packed lunch on Fridays at school, which is a story for another post.
The two slim ice packs cost £3.50 for the pair and live flat in the little freezer under the stairs. In the hot spell Isla told me her cheese was still cold at noon, which from a nine-year-old is about as warm as praise gets. Last, a plain £2 screw-top bottle from the middle aisle at Lidl. It's ugly, it's blue and it has never leaked, which is the whole specification.
The bits I'd never buy again
The wax wraps went in January, when I decided we should use less cling film. A set of three cost £8.50 and they lasted about as long as my enthusiasm. They go stiff in the cold, they can only be washed in lukewarm water, and by February they smelled permanently of last week's cheddar. Alfie discovered he could peel the wax off in flakes with his fingernails, and Rob found a flake in his sandwich on a Wednesday. They now live in the drawer, and I use one to cover a bowl of dough, so they aren't entirely useless.
The second regret is a flip-top "leakproof" bottle, £5.50. It leaked in Isla's book bag in March and soaked her reading journal, which dried wavy and has been wavy ever since. The word "leakproof" was printed on the side in a very confident font.
I haven't included the things I never bought, which is a longer list than it used to be. I stood in front of a whole shelf of sandwich cutters that turn bread into small hearts and walked away with nothing.
What changes in September
The plan is to buy nothing new until something breaks. Isla's lunch stays as it is: half a sandwich or a wrap, a cheese portion, cucumber or carrot sticks, a piece of fruit, a flapjack or a biscuit, and water. Alfie's Fridays go into the dinosaur bag with whatever fits. I'm writing it down here so I can't talk myself into a lunch-themed shopping trip in the first week of term.
The sums: £37.48 on the kit that works (two bento boxes £25.98, the dinosaur bag £6, ice packs £3.50 and the plain bottle £2) and £14 on the things in the back of the drawer (wax wraps £8.50, leaking bottle £5.50). Just over a quarter of everything I've spent on lunch kit went on stuff I don't use.
