Isla came out of school on Friday 4 September, day two of Year 6, holding an empty lunchbox, a full water bottle and the sentence, "I was starving by two." I looked at the box. Half a sandwich, a cheese portion, carrot sticks, an apple and one flapjack square. That has been her lunch since January 2025, and at the age of ten it has stopped being enough.
I opened the spreadsheet that evening. Isla's packed lunch averaged £1.31 a day in 2025 and £1.39 so far this year. Since 3 September, her first eight school days, it comes to £12.16, which is £1.52 a day. That is the number I don't like, and it is entirely my fault.
What I got wrong in week one
I over-corrected. After the starving comment I bought everything she said she wanted, which included shop-bought cereal bars at 38p each, a multipack of yoghurts and a bigger loaf than we needed. The first two days were the old box at £1.39 each, then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday came to £1.70, £1.70 and £1.78. By Wednesday I had found three bar wrappers in her book bag, and half the yoghurts were still in the fridge when their dates came round. Isla had said "everyone has them", which is always true, and always the least useful information.
The other thing that didn't work was packing a second sandwich. I put in a whole round and a half, and she brought the half home on Monday because she'd spent playtime in the library and run out of time. I should have asked what she was hungry for, because the answer wasn't more bread. It was something to eat at two, which is a snack and not a sandwich.
What the Year 6 box looks like now
A whole sandwich instead of half. Two pieces of fruit, one for lunch and one for the afternoon break. A bigger flapjack, cut from the Sunday tray in twelve rather than fifteen. A pack of breadsticks, which are cheaper than the cereal bars and don't leave a wrapper in the bottom of her bag. The £12.99 bento box copes with a whole sandwich if I cut it into triangles and stand them on end. We own two, so there is always a clean one.
- Whole sandwich, bread plus ham or egg: 36p
- Cheese portion: 17p
- Carrot and cucumber sticks: 15p
- Two pieces of fruit: 32p
- Flapjack, a twelfth of the tray: 30p
- Breadsticks: 10p
That is £1.40, and it's the box I've packed since Thursday 10 September. The three days since then came to £4.20, which, added to the £7.96 for the first five, makes the £12.16. The flapjack tray is the thing that does most of the work: oats, butter and syrup for £3.60 a tray, so 24p a square cut into fifteen and 30p cut into twelve.
Where it sits against the dinner
School dinners at Isla's school are £2.85 a day from this September, up from £2.75. She says they're always cold, and I don't push the point, because plenty of her friends eat them and enjoy them. A packed lunch at £1.40 is £1.45 under that. If she takes a lunch on 183 days, which is what she managed in 2025, it saves £265.35 over the school year. I'll check that against the spreadsheet in July, because I don't believe a number until it has a column of receipts underneath it.
Once it's properly cold I'll go back to the food flask I bought in April (£14), because pasta from a flask on a Monday, using Sunday's sauce, comes in at under 30p a portion and she has asked for it twice already. Alfie is on free infant school dinners and takes a packed lunch on Fridays, about £1.10 a go. He wants "the same as Isla" and gets half of the same, which he calls unfair.
The sums: £1.52 a day over the first eight days, £1.40 for the box I'm packing now, against £2.85 for a school dinner. That is £1.45 saved a day, a lot of flapjack, and one sandwich that finally fits.
