Frugal school lunches for young children

Kid lunches can get pricey (and unhealthy) if you aren't careful. I thought I'd share some of my tricks for making sure my toddler eats healthy foods that don't take too big a bite out of our grocery budget.

I brown bag my lunch every day at work, but the virtue stops there. I tend to favor prepared foods, like frozen entrees, single-serving yogurts, individually wrapped string cheese, etc. Frozen entrees are the priciest item, but I don't buy them unless they're on sale. Still, they're not as cheap (or as healthy) as home-made.

For my son's lunch, though, the options are pretty limited. Gerber's makes a little toddler-sized TV dinner, but our kid won't eat meat. If he suspects we've tried to sneak some flesh onto his plate, he'll hold it up and ask, "is it a amimal?" No, Gerber lunches are out even if they weren't as expensive as my Lean Cuisines.

1. Yogurt
His classmates bring fancy organic baby yogurts, or single-serving yogurt cups with cartoon characters on them. Well, I've watched him eat yogurt, and he'll only get through about half of one of these expensive cups before he gets distracted by some other food. Plus, it's pretty hard to re-seal those single-serving yogurts. And the flavored yogurt (which of course is all he'll eat) is full of sugar. So we buy large containers of Stonyfield Farms strawberry yogurt, and large containers of plain yogurt. I mix half strawberry and half plain together in a little tupperware cup and send it in his lunch. It's sweet, but not too sweet, and much cheaper than the alternatives.

2.Leftovers!
When we make pasta, rice, or tofu (his staples) for dinner, we always make enough for a couple days' worth of daycare lunches. His teachers generously heat up his food
for him. Another popular daycare entree is quesadillas, but we have to watch out. If he notices we're packing quesadillas for his lunch he always wants to eat them for breakfast. This morning, he ate almost his whole lunch before school and I had to make another one.

3. Veggies
He likes broccoli stems, which is fine with me because I like the flowers. When we make broccoli, we always save the stems for L. He'll also eat raw greenbeans, and sometimes he'll eat raw carrots if they're cut into thin strips. He likes baby carrots, but it's cheaper to buy large carrots in one-pound bags and cut them up.

4. Fruit
This is pretty labor intensive, because he still insists on having his apples sliced thin and peeled. But I'm willing to do it if it means the little prince will actually eat something besides starch. He also likes grapes, blueberries and strawberries. Guess what he gets the most often? Apples! Even tho they take more prep, they're the cheapest and the most plentiful.

5. Bib
This is not a food, but it is a frugal tip. He might be old enough to tell you his age all by himself, but he still can't hold a spoonful of yogurt level until it gets to his mouth. I pack a huge plastic bib that goes over his arms in his daycare lunch box. Less spills means less stains, and his clothes last longer. Any second his peers will start teasing him about it, or he'll notice that not everybody wears one. But for now, the bib stays.

Any more frugal ideas for kid lunches? Put 'em in the comments!