My husband gets up at 4:30 every morning so he can drive an hour to his 6 am work shift. For a couple of years the extent of my participation in his morning (and lunch) was a kiss goodbye and rolling over in bed. Hopefully to sleep another couple (or 3-4) of hours.

Unfortunately, I came to realize my dear husband had no interest or time in packing lunch, snacks, or beverages for work. This meant a huge “gas bill” because he’d purchase meals and treats when he’d fill gas in the morning. Also, I don’t even want to know how many dollars we’ve spent on vending machines. For the cost of two bottles of pop out of the vending machine we could purchase a 12 pack of cans or a 6 pack of bottles, and that’s not even trying to take advantage of sales.

My frugal minded self just can’t stand that waste of money on “convenience.”

We won’t even go into the discussion of how unhealthy these food choices are, on top of all the money wasted. So, not wanting to lose out on my mornings (of sawing logs), I decided to start putting his lunches together the evening before.

That worked about as well as asking my two year old to not pull out new toys before putting away any other toys he had out. Between me not remembering (or ignoring, or just being plain old lazy) to pull it all together the night prior, or my husband forgetting to grab all or parts of it, that attempt was a train wreck.

(History has shown that unless I hand things directly to him there’s no guarantee he’ll take them to work with him. Even then if he gets distracted by something on his way out the item might be sitting there on the counter until I notice it later.)

So my frugal-self won out over my lazy-self and I started getting up with my husband to make sure he had his packed food and beverages.

1. Not Packing Any/Enough Beverages

My husband likes drinks. He grew up in a household that had more containers of juices, pop, milks, Gatorade, and teas in the fridge than food. I never really gave it much thought, being from a home that almost always drank water with everything, except being surprised over the quantity every time I’d open the fridge.

Fast forward seven years now, my husband NEEDS drinks beyond water to go to work. He will drop five-ten dollars a day at the gas station and vending machine: on energy drinks, pops, teas, and Gatorade. I fought it for a while, but came to recognized that the battle wasn’t healthy for our relationship and I needed to get on board and help him or not complain over the mega bucks being wasted on packaged beverages.

Now I make and pack him:

• A 25-30 oz coffee with Ghirardelli caramel and cream. (He never used to drink coffee, I’m happy that’s his caffeine beverage of choice now versus Mountain Dew and Monster)
• A 30 oz insulated mug of ice water. He’s not a huge fan of water, but if it’s there he’ll drink it. If I didn’t pack it, he certainly wouldn’t do it, but I feel good knowing I’m getting at least some water into him daily.
• A 16-32 oz additional flavored beverage. This one varies depending on what I have on hand. If I find juice or chocolate milk on sale at the store I’ll pick up a few and portion them out into 16 oz glass Snapple jars that I save, (otherwise he’d drink the entire half-gallon in a day). We also have a SodaStream that I use to carbonate water. I don’t have any of the sugar-ladened expensive SodaStream syrups to add, but I typically add an individual drink packet to it. My husband seems to like them just fine. He at least doesn’t complain about them, or ask me to not bother packing them anymore for him; which is his nice and gentle way of saying he doesn’t care for something I make.

All these drinks are made in reusable containers that he brings home every night. I wash them and then just fill again in the morning. Making for less packaging and money waste, along with what I’d like to think is healthier beverages.

2. Not Packing Enough Food

I learned fast that just packing a container of leftovers or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and calling it a day wasn’t going to fly. My husband drives an hour one way, works a ten hour shift, and then drives home. That’s a long day with two breaks and a lunch sprinkled in. I’ve learned that having some sort of food for each break and the commute is ideally what he prefers. I attempt to pack a variety of foods.

• Snack for the ride down is typically a granola or breakfast bar (either homemade or store bought). Sometimes if I find foods on sale I’ll buy things like HotPockets to quick heat up before he leaves and they’re still safe to eat while driving.
• Breakfast for first break is usually a portion of oatmeal bake, egg bake, or bread pudding that I’ve made. I found one of the best ways to make sure I have breakfast foods on hand is to make a large batch of one of these and then he’ll have enough to last the whole week. Then I rotate on to the next kind the following week. He doesn’t mind the same breakfast for a week straight.
• Lunch typically is the dinner leftovers from earlier in the week. I try very hard to have at least one or two servings of leftovers from meals I create during the week for easy pack-able lunches. The unshed tears are definitely there when all of dinner is polished off and I’m left scrambling for something quick and easy to pull together the next morning. Luck is rarely on my side where I have bread AND sandwich fixings at the same time.
• I try hard to send SOMETHING healthy in his lunch box every day for second break. He’s very willing to eat pretty much anything, as long as it doesn’t involve more work for him; which means apples need to be cut and cored or oranges peeled, I’m okay with that though. I also often pack bananas, homemade unsweetened applesauce, carrot sticks and dip, or celery pieces with peanut butter. Almost all the time the food gets eaten, although I do know if anything comes home uneaten it’ll be from this group, lol.
• For the drive home, or whenever he chooses to eat it, I try to pack some sort of treat. Often it’s homemade cookies, muffins, slice of pie, or bars. After holidays it’s usually the leftover candy lying around that I don’t want me or our son to eat.

3. Not Prepping (or at least Planning) the Night Before

No matter what I’d tell myself the night before to get out of preparing his lunch then and leave it for the morning, it’d never work out as well or smoothly as I con myself into believing nine hours earlier. I’ve learned the hard way that life is much easier when there’s at least a plan the night previous.

If that means knowing I have cookies, breakfast bar, banana, leftovers, and egg bake ready to go, that’s just fine.

I also have to filter all of our lovely (disgusting) city water. Making sure that I’ve filled it up completely so I’m not scrambling filling his beverages in the morning.

When I’m really on top of things I even prepare the drinks the night before. Setting the coffee pot to be ready to start immediately when we get up and push the button. (If I was truly smarter than my appliances I’d know how to program the auto start on the coffee pot and not even worry about it, but in the meantime, manual effort will have to suffice.)

This step makes a huge difference in the stress and smoothness of packing lunches.

4. Not Packaging Leftovers in Individual Containers Right Away

This one took me a while to figure out. Dinner leftovers went right into the large containers that each type of food all fit in (meat in one, potatoes in another, vegetables in their own as well), breakfast casseroles went directly into the refrigerator in their baking dish and desserts like bars and pies stayed in their large pans as well.

The problems with this were threefold:

1. I never knew how many servings I had. There could be leftovers for one or four lunches from dinner, but I didn’t know for sure.
2. I ended up doing twice as many dishes sometimes. If I’d put the food in a larger container to start with, then transfer it to individual portion containers that means more dishes (which you know I despise if you’ve read my 60 Minute Morning Routine).
3. It took me longer to prep the night before or day of.

I’ve learned to immediately put food into single serving containers when transferring them to the fridge. It means I can make sure my husband takes veggies, along with the main dish. I’ve noticed that otherwise it was often overlooked. I also have a better feel for the rest of the week’s meals. Knowing whether or not we need to have more leftovers is quite helpful.

Now I only have to wash the baking dish, and the travel containers my husband brings back to me. Still more dishes than I’d prefer, but less than I was washing previously. Now when I prepare the night before I can note the containers ready to pack, and it’s good to go.

5. Not Having Quick Snacks On Hand

It is very frustrating for me to pack his lunches when I have no easy to grab snacks on hand. My personal goal in life is to make all of our snacks from scratch. I often make things from scratch, but it doesn’t always get done. Then I’m scrambling to come up with something out of thin air by 4:30 am, not good.

When I am on my game more, I typically have homemade muffins, granola bars, cookies, or bars available to pack. Even better, I freeze them and just pull out what he needs the night before. For when I’m not, I’ve found having breakfast and granola bars, or pudding packs from Aldi’s are a cheap (although not as healthy), shelf stable, acceptable substitution in a pinch. I just make sure I have them on hand for the days my homemade snacks run out.

It’s amazing how much a vending machine or gas station charges for food and drinks; I can make days’ worth of food for the same amount of money spent on one item from these places.

The price of “convenience” is huge and I work hard to not waste our hard earned money on it. My husband is very sweet and tolerant about his bagged lunches. As long as he’s getting food, he doesn’t complain about what it is.

I hope this helps you circumvent the problems we had to work through on our own. Making your packed meals a success from the beginning.

Do you have any other suggestions to make bagged lunches work better or what mistakes to avoid? Let us know in the comments.

~ Caylin