50 // The 5 best lunch packing supplies to invest in this year
The 5 best lunch packing supplies to invest in this year (so you won’t have to again next year!)
Tried and true favorites from a dietitian mom and her family of five
With everyone stocking up on back-to-school supplies, I wanted to share our five favorites for the coming school year. These are the ones you will see me share on social media throughout the coming year and ones that I have already found to be tried and true favorites after over five years of packing lunches for my family of five. Plus, I talk about the longevity of such items so you hear my perspective on cost per use and how investing up front in a solid lunch packing system can save you money and prevent food waste year after year.
In this episode, I share the numbers of what I spent so you can get a sense of what kind of investment to expect, what I like about each of the recommended options, plus the links and coupon codes you want to grab these items yourself (should they be a good fit for you and your family budget). As always, you can see all of my favorites on Amazon here.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] I had the joy of getting to go back to where I'm from Washington state and see a bunch of girlfriends this weekend that I hadn't seen since in about three years now, really, since before COVID and many of them have gotten to become moms since I last saw them and some of them who were moms before COVID now have kids who are entering, you know, preschool or kindergarten.
[00:00:21] And while I was there as often happens, I got asked lots of fun questions about feeding their kids. To what lunch boxes to buy, what is the best bento, things like that. And so what I wanted to do as we get back to back to school is share what our current setup is for this year, especially because I know as I share it throughout the coming school year, I'll probably get lots of questions about the products that we use.
[00:00:46] And so I figured this could just kind of be a homepage for all the information that you might want to reference at different points in the year, but also to help give you some of my. into how I kind of think through picking lunch, packing items for my kids with our own family budget. And just give you some kind of perspective on how you can buy some really quality lunch, packing supplies for your kid and with an upfront investment, how it can last you years and years to come.
[00:01:15] So in this episode, I'm going to share with you our lunch packing. And the current products that our family is using to pack lunches for my three kids going to school. But also next week, just as a teaser for episode 51, I will be sharing kind of a compare and contrast of different bento boxes, just so you can kind of hear my take.
[00:01:34] As I physically have them in front of me, I have majority of the products on the market. And so rather than you having to buy them and test them all out yourself, I figured I could do that on the show on Monday. So for the purpose of today, let me go ahead and jump into what ones we will be using this year.
[00:01:53] Hey mama, I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies and virtue podcast. In this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas, kitchen, organizational systems, spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence based in grace. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen.
[00:02:12] As a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, I want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter. And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the meal times messes moments and ministry of motherhood.
[00:02:33] So the way I wanna think about it is regardless of what your family's budget is for what you want to spend on school supplies, let alone lunch packing supplies, you know, for some families they might use Ziplocs and calculate very little upfront cost. And that's totally fine. This is not to suggest that you need to buy any of these product.
[00:02:53] Or that you should feel the burden of budgeting for any of these products. I know every family's budget is different. I just wanted to share with you what we have chosen to do for within my family. Again, I have three kids. I have a daughter who's gonna be entering third grade. My middle daughter is gonna enter first grade and my son, this will be the first year ever that we have kids in full-time school.
[00:03:13] He will be in pre-K and he's gonna be turning four. So he's gonna be doing two. Two years of pre-K, but this is kind of his pre-K one year, but the first time that he's ever gone Monday through Friday, and really the first time that I've ever had all three kids in school, Monday through Friday, they've.
[00:03:29] Gone to school just like two or three days. And so I'm excited for the opportunity to have some time to, you know, take care of life, but also pour into this business. But I share all of this because it's been an evolution and I do have the blessing of getting to sample a lot of these products over the past few years.
[00:03:46] And many of the companies that I'll compare and contrast on Monday's episode are ones that have, you know, sent me samples that I've gotten to kind of check out and play around with, with my own family, which has been really fun. And, you know, a, a perk of this job that I don't take lightly. That is. You know, I'm really thankful that we've gotten to have different options to try out over the years that said, I also choose which products I want to invest our own family's money in when it comes to which items I wanna send with my kids to school.
[00:04:14] And part of that is because with my oldest being eight and in third grade, we've been using bento boxes. Since she was in mom's day out at two years old. And so I've been able to test and see the wear and tear of things and kind of how things work over time. And I've been able to kind of see how my kids eat overtime.
[00:04:31] You know, do I want lunch boxes with bigger spaces for more of like sandwiches or like almost like a whole bagel size or are they more like snacky bento boxes? And we want, you know, five compartments versus three. And so some of this is a really personal choice and I just wanna like preface this episode.
[00:04:48] By no means. I want you to feel the pressure that I'm telling you what to do, but I know many people ask me, just tell me what to do. I don't wanna go research all the items out there. I just wanna know what you like best and what you use. And so. Take this with a grain of salt, know that you can search all my favorites at my veggies and virtue shop.
[00:05:06] You can do this at any point. And just specific to this episode, you can look up my lunch packing favorites, but if you use my Bitly link, it's just Bitly. That's B I T L, or excuse me, B I T dot L Y. Slash veggies and virtue all spelled out one word, veggies and virtue. So again, that's Bitly B I T dot Y slash veggies and virtue.
[00:05:26] That'll take you to my Amazon shop, which shows you lots of my favorites for different products from different feeding ages and stages in the lifespan. But there is a, there is a list there for my lunch packing favorites that you can access in case any of these, you wanna see any of the ones that I'm talking about today or.
[00:05:41] Or you want to explore some of the other ones that I'll dive into in episode 51. So diving into what I was going to share with our lunch packing favorites, I wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of how much of these things cost. And if you are trying to budget where you might wanna be prioritizing.
[00:05:57] what I personally feel is most worth the money. And so when it comes to kind of the overall cost, I wanted to think about, okay, if a family had a hundred dollars to spend on lunch, packing supplies for a child, for some of you that might not be a big ask for some of you, that might be a tremendous amount of money.
[00:06:15] So again, this is not suggesting that you need to use that amount of, or that you need to invest that amount of money. But I also want to encourage you how it's an upfront cost that continues to pay out year after. Because depending on the product you buy, the depreciation is really low. But if you're, if you and your kids take care of these items, God willing that they don't forget or lose, you know, their ice packs or their water bottles and things like that year to year, the items that we are using this year will last us for years to come.
[00:06:42] So while it makes this specific year that I bought these specific items a little bit more. I don't anticipate having to buy them again in upcoming years. So I just wanna give that upfront as I kinda share these costs. So you know, that, you know, as I share often, especially on my Instagram, my husband and I often he's in marketing, but he and I often talk about cost per use.
[00:07:03] So if you break it down to the cost per use, versus just the upfront cost of some of these products that, you know, help us save on our food budgets, because we're not buying individual packer, you know, packages of this and, you know, spending more in other areas, the cost per use can work out to be really advantageous for families.
[00:07:21] So with that being said, I want you to think about what the priority is and what the biggest ticket. And for us this year, the only lunch box that I'd never owned was the planet box. And this is one that I'd really wanted to try. And yet we just hadn't and we had several others. And so I didn't feel like it was worth purchasing until we had kind of worked our way through some of the other ones, but as some of the plastic based ones that we've had for years needed to kind of be phased out and they just, you know, more the plastic in scratch.
[00:07:48] And the more I try and transition our family to using more like glass or stainless steel products, we decided to get rid of some of those older products. That, again, I'll talk about what some of the plastic based ones are in. Episode 51, but I decided that I wanted to invest in the stainless product.
[00:08:05] And so we bought the Rover planet box, which is the one that has like five compartments. You can go to planet Box's website, they have a great sale going on again, depending on when you listen to this episode, they have a great back to school going on. Excuse me, back to school sale. That's what I got.
[00:08:19] And it was 30% off and it worked out to be, I'll have to look, but I wanna say around $45 per box, maybe it was like 42. Dollars with a 30% off. And so that is, you know, more expensive than some of the other bento boxes out there. But again, I anticipate that this one will, will pay for itself in the years to come.
[00:08:41] And so it was an upfront cost, but it was our biggest cost. So what I would encourage you to do is think about what is your family's budget on how much you're. Able or comfortable spending. And, you know, if you're just getting into the lunch packing world, you may want to buy a less expensive option and kind of, you know, practice proof of concept before you invest in something.
[00:09:00] That is a little bit more of the higher end type bento boxes. But for the purposes of this episode, I just wanted to share with you what we're using. And so we are using the planet box Rover this year and it's the kids were, I will, at first they were a little disappointed cuz they've had a lot of cute bento boxes over the years and they all looked the exact same when they came, the kids were like, what?
[00:09:21] You know, these aren't. But then as soon as I sent, I showed them that they each got their own little magnet. They were grinning ear to ear, super excited, decorating it with these little magnet sets that you get included with it. And another thing I love with the Rover box, because it's one of the boxes that is not leak proof.
[00:09:37] It doesn't have that gasket that seals each of the containers or each of the little compartments. It does come with the little containers that fit within it. You know, they're not too tall, they fit the dimensions of the Rover. So I really like that. And encourage you if that's something that you might.
[00:09:52] You know, you can look at my Amazon shop, the Bitly slash if veggies in virtue, or you can also go to planet box.com and use their coupon code if it's during the back to school window. But I know I looked at Amazon before I jumped on here and they were running a special on the Rover as well. And so you might wanna check there also, but I think having your upfront cost of what your biggest item is, and honestly where your priority is, if, if you maybe have.
[00:10:16] Bento box from last year. So that's not where you need to invest in this year. Then your biggest cost may be in, you know, this year we're gonna invest in replacing water bottles. So for me, I looked at you. What's the highest to lowest price of the five items that are our five favorites for this year. So number one, favorite is the planet box Rover, and that was around the $45 price point.
[00:10:38] Again, I'm gonna give you all these favorites. So you know that it's kept under a hundred dollars and help you kind of think through my thought process on this second, we love the simple, modern kids, water bottles. They have so many cute designs. I've linked a lot of these on my back to school. Or a lunch packing favorites list on my Amazon shop.
[00:10:57] And these are by far my favorite water bottles. We've tried it feels like hundreds over the years between just my kids and their preferences. And also. As a registered dietician. I'm often curious about a lot of different cups and styles and straw dynamics and things like that. And so we've tried many, but these simple moderate ones are great.
[00:11:15] They have 'em in a 10, a 14 and 18 out size. Last year for school, we sent the 14 out size that seems sufficient for our kids, but this summer we got the 18 outs and have loved it for the summer because they are stainless steel water bottles, and they have hard lid on the top. Versus like one of the like softer spouts, like a camel pack like lid would have I like that from an oral.
[00:11:37] Mo, or excuse me, from an oral motor like development perspective, that it is a hard spout. However, it does make the water bottle a little bit more heavy. And so depending on the age of your child, I would just encourage you to make sure that this, you know, if, if it's too heavy of a water bottle for them to carry or, you know, too clunky for them to refill, or, you know, just makes their little backpack on their little body too cumbersome, you might wanna err on like the 10 out size.
[00:12:02] And just make sure that, you know, they know how to refill it if, and when they need to at school. So that simple wa modern kids' water bottle, all the cutest designs for literally every style, if you're into. Muted neutral tones. They have ones for you. If your kids into, you know, paw patrol and Mickey, and like the character thing, they have those, if you like more kind of generic ones of trucks or oceans or mermaids or unicorns, they have literally everyone.
[00:12:25] And so my kids have yet to find one that they don't love and we can, you know, keep 'em really clear between the kids and put a label on them, which gets me into our third favorite. Of labels for kids going back to school, you have to have some labels that you like, and that are functional for your family, depending on the needs of your family and how many items you have to label and things like that.
[00:12:46] You know, you may find different options. What we have used since my oldest was an infant are MAs labels. I love MAbelss labels. I've shared them multiple times over the years, and they're just one that have been tried and true. I know that over the last eight years, a lot of other companies have come to market since Mabel's labels, but I really like them as a company.
[00:13:04] I've had the opportunity to work with them several times and I think they're just phenomenal company. I think their labels are excellent. They don't, you know, wipe off in between washes or in the dishwasher. They're very, very durable, rarely do we have to replace them. You know, you can put 'em on clothes and shoes and backpacks and other things.
[00:13:21] But for the context of this episode, they're great. They have, you know, some of the water. Like little rings, those little silicone rings with the kid's name on it. They can wrap around the water bottle now, or they have the more traditional labels that you can also, you know, stick on their bento box on their lunch bag, on their water bottle, anything like that.
[00:13:37] And that is definitely one of our favorites and something that we'll be using for my kids this year as well. Mabel's labels also often does back to school sales. So definitely check out their site. And if you want to use my coupon code, you can use veggie. V E G G I E S 10, four, 10% off. And I also have that linked on my shop page.
[00:13:57] So you can go to veggies and virtue.com/shop and scroll to the bottom. And you'll see all my affiliate codes for any of the things that you might want, but also for that coupon code specific to maple labels. Then the fourth thing that we're honestly still working through. So this will be something I'll have to update as we go.
[00:14:16] But as I was out of town right before I was out of town, I should say my kid bags and backpacks came and we ordered from lands. And this year we've tried them before, had a lot of success with them as a family, our personal preference tends to be lands in or pottery barn for backpacks and lunch bags because they are by far the most durable.
[00:14:32] We're not having issues with them. As I wash them over the course of the year, you know, the little water bottle holders. Aren't you know, tearing holes in them, you know, anytime I've let my kids kind of buy the cutey other little. From other places, even if upfront less expensive, we end up having to replace a midyear just with the wear and tear.
[00:14:49] So we did buy from land's end. I didn't opt to embroider the lunch bag, which is a good thing because as I got home and our planet boxes arrived, I realized we're about a half an inch too short. So even though I measure and measure and reme. And cross measure about this because I'm getting questions all the time about what bentos fit and which lunch bags, this combination did not work for us between the planet box Rover and the lands and enslaved lunch bag.
[00:15:17] So I don't want it to be a struggle every day. I mean, we can probably really finagle it in there, but knowing that if I can get it in there for a kid, for my kids, you know, in the morning or something, or, you know, More ideally something that they're packing themselves. I wanna make sure that it's something that's really easy.
[00:15:32] It's not something that's a daily struggle that we just don't need to have. So I'll probably be going back to the drawing board now that we have our planet boxes look into maybe getting the lunch totes that come from planet box instead, because those of course fit their products. So to be determined on that, but it is an added expense.
[00:15:47] The lands N one we got on sale. They also have great back to school SP sales. And so you can get a lunch bag. From them for, you know, 12 to $16, I would say with the sale prices that they've had recently. However, if you're doing the planet box Rover, you'll probably need to reevaluate and, you know, I would probably, at this point, just encourage you to get the planet box lunch bag that comes with it, especially while they're having.
[00:16:11] They're back to school sale, but factoring in the cost of a lunch bag is also important equally. If not more important is finding a lunch bag that fits because every bento Box's dimensions are gonna be different. I'll talk about that on episode 51, but no one wants a lunch bag and a lunch box that don't fit together.
[00:16:26] If you're not buying them from say like the same company. So back to the drawing board on that, but since our planet boxes just arrived literally before lunchtime today I haven't gone back to the drawing board yet. And so that will still be. Our TD fourth favorite that we have to pick out, but the fifth and final thing that, you know, kind of wraps it up pretty easily.
[00:16:47] And obviously is the ice packs. I have these saved in my Amazon shop as well. The ones that we have been using year after year, they're really economical. They're really slim. They just fit in again. There's obviously many different options. These are just ones that have worked for us. They've been tried and true for years.
[00:17:04] we haven't had to replace them, except for, as we add kids, we have to buy more because we need more lunch. Or we need more ice packs for the greater quantity of lunches that we're packing. But outside of these, these are just some really slim ones that I get on Amazon. And they're normally about five to $10, depending on what the price point is when you buy.
[00:17:23] And so between the five favorites that I've mentioned of a bento box for us, that's the planet box Rover, a simple modern water bottle. A set of MAs labels that works for the items that you need a lunch tote to fit the fit, the bento box and or maybe the water bottle and an ice pack. You should easily, especially if you capitalize on these back to school sales, you should easily be under a hundred dollars per lunch packing set.
[00:17:49] And again, that's a higher upfront cost right now, but coming from me and the experience I've had as a mom and as a dietician, this is a cost that continues to pay for itself. Day after day, week after week, month after month, and especially year after year, as these are really quality products that will also help cut down on your food waste and help you to kind of think about your own shopping habits as well, so that you're not spending as much at the grocery store when it comes to actually packing these lunches.
[00:18:17] So I hope that this was helpful. If you wanna hear a little bit more about the pros and cons and ins and outs of each of the different brands and styles of bento boxes, if you're still kinda on the fence about which one you. Or say you've already bought a lunch bag and the suggestion of this planet box doesn't fit your lunch bag, stay tuned and come back for Monday's episode.
[00:18:35] Cause I'm gonna review all of that then, and hopefully help simplify the decisions that you need to make before your little ones go back to school.
[00:18:47] It has been a joy having you on podcast today. And if you've enjoyed it as well, I have a quick favor to ask. Do you mind hopping over to apple podcast and leaving me a written review? This will only take you a hot second, but it truly blesses me every time I get to read what one of you right over there.
[00:19:02] And it allows me to bless others through this podcast. And the episodes to come. The other thing that you can do is to take a screenshot of this episode and tag me over on Instagram at veggies and virtue, I would love to see what action steps that you're taking from this episode, and also to support your family in the journey moving forward until next time.
[00:19:20] Thanks for coming over to chat at my kitchen counter. Remember that you'll always have a seat and a snack waiting for you here.
