It is astounding to me how many mothers complain about having to make lunches each morning while running late or forking out for lunch orders because they had nothing in the cupboards.

Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer the “a little organisation now saves a lot of stress later” approach to life. School lunches is no exception.

Sandwiches freeze well and stay fresh on a hot day to be nicely thawed by lunch. This was one area we were able to significantly cut back on food costs by planning ahead and making a single trip to collect everything on the one shopping day.

Why keep dashing out the store for bread at 7am at around $3.50 a loaf? Now I buy 6 loaves at Aldi for 99c each, a tub of Aldi margaring at 98c and go to the deli counter at Coles for the cold meat (devon, ham, chicken loaf, etc). You know, I used to buy little premium packs of ham and chicken loaf in the dairy section in cute 100 or 200g packs until I did the math – it works out almost triple the price of getting the same thing directly from the deli!

In a couple of hours, you can make up an entire fortnight’s worth of school lunches. No more morning stress… no more overpriced canteen orders… no more complaints from the kids because you only have a choice that morning of vegemite or more vegemite. Simply good time and financial management.

Once you get into the habit, you’ll wonder how you ever managed beforehand…. and you’ll be surprised just how much of a cost-saver this can be.

Roll-ups, muesli bars, multi-pak chips, le snacks, fruit jelly cups and overpriced cheese sticks. No, no, no! As appealing as they may be to your kids and as convenient for you, these prepackaged snacks are going to quickly run up the grocery bill.

In a perfect world a fresh supply of fruit would always be on hand and your children would love nothing more than a healthy crisp apple for recess. The reality is we are busy and the kids want to eat rubbish and use the fruit you pack as a cricket ball.

Buy Bulk, Package Yourself
A significant cost-saver I have found is buying or making the foods the kids want and packing them myself.

An example of this was sultanas. All three of our kids loved those little boxes of sultanas and would consume at least 2 x 6 packs a week.

Before: Buying Coles Farmland brand I could purchase a 6 x 40g sultana packs for $2.03.

Now: Buying a 1kg bag of sultanas at Aldi for around $3.70, I can make 25 x 40g packs. To get 25 prepacked boxes would come at a cost of $8.46!

Result: We saved almost $5 just on sultana boxes by buying bulk and putting them ourselves into small re-usable plastic containers. It takes barely any effort.

I like to package my own recess snacks on Sunday night for the week so they are just as convenient to grab and pack in the mornings.

This also works well for items such as:

• dried fruits
• tiny teddies (again, go for the box and make your own ‘packs’ using cheap zip-lock bags)
• BBQ shapes and like products
• Popcorn (make it yourself for next to nothing)
• Pretzels (big bag for around $2.50 makes around 15 small zip-bags)
• Jelly cups (as opposed to $1.00 each, you can make these for under 10c in your own container)
• Cheese sticks (buy bulk and cut them yourself)

… and the list goes on and on.

When you need the convenience without the cost, consider packaging your own play lunch foods.

Financial straight-talker Dave Ramsey tells people to “live like nobody else (now) so that you can live like nobody else (later).”

The truth is that life is filled with wealthy individuals on meagre income aswell as those households struggling despite bringing in impressive amounts of cash. In most cases, it really isn’t a matter of what you have so much as what you do with it.

In a future series, I’ll be dealing with creating and managing a household budget – that balance between how much you earn and how much you actually need. For now, I’ve decided to start with the simple and practical things you can do today to cut back living expenses.

Baby steps can make a difference. A little effort and planning has helped our family cut almost $100 each week off the grocery bill alone. That’s a whopping $5,200 saving each year just at the supermarket! I’ll be using the frugal Family series to share the everyday hints, tips, recipes and ideas we used to accomplish that goal and others.

Shop-A-Dockets have been in Australia since 1986, and savvy shoppers have been using them since then.

The great news is that you no longer need to spend a single cent at the supermarket to take advantage of the savings. Did you know you can download the vouchers and print them off at home?

Hotdockets.com.au is the Shop-A-Docket online voucher site. Simply enter your postcode to search for savings in your area.

We tend to do this for pizza occassionally and the price difference is well worth the minimal effort to print out a voucher before heading off to Domino’s.