A newsletter came home from school a few weeks ago that said that the average cost of the lunch that a parent sends to school with their child is $3.43. The newsletter's point was that school lunch at $2/ day was cheaper and nutritionally just as good as what a parent would send.

It got me to thinking about how much I was spending on lunch for Comfort and Joy. I was pretty sure it was less - and significantly less- but I've been working to quantify it. For those of you who know who much I enjoy math you'll get a kick out of this. Yes, I'm using Excel and because thankfully it's doing the math for me.

First of all, I took into consideration the items that go into their lunches everyday. My girls eat the same sandwich every day. I tried to mix it up at first but they're toddlers. They don't like a lot of variety.

Milk [organic] for both girls: $0.96
Juice [organic] for Comfort for snack time: $0.20
Bread [3 slices]: $0.10 [Joy only takes half a sandwich each day]
slice of cheese: $0.09
slice of ham: $0.06
Peanut butter: 0.01 [bought on sale and with a Kroger coupon so I paid $0.45 for a 16 oz. jar. It's lasted almost 3 months so far.]
Jelly: $0.01 [This may seem low but Kroger brand jelly on half a sandwich - the jar has lasted over 3 months so far. I probably have another 2 weeks left before I need more.]

So everyday costs are $1.43 total for both girls.

Then there are the other items I put in which aren't always consistent:
baby carrots: $0.07
fruit cups: $0.22
clementines: $0.47 [this is a whole clementine and they each get half]
Goldfish crackers: $0.10 [I stockup when they're on sale for $0.88/ bag]
cookies: $0.42

My plan for building their lunches is a vegetable or a fruit [not both] and crackers or cookies [not both] and I usually alternate who gets the cookies and crackers each day and there's only cookies twice a week - at most.

So the average cost for "others" is probably $0.65-1.00 at the high end and $0.25 -.45 at the low end. This is a total for both girls/ per day.

And, I don't want to forget the start up costs of their reusable BYO Lunch bags, fruit cups, and cool packs. The total for all of this was $18.49 which I divided by the 180 days of school so it comes to $0.10/ day.

So, how much does it cost me to make lunch for Comfort and Joy each day? I decided to take the most expensive option of 'others' [which would be cookies and fruit cup - not that I'd probably pick that option but there you go] and plug a $1 into the formula:
$1.43 for daily stuff
$1.00 for 'other'
$0.10 for start up expenses
$2.53 = how much I spend each day for two school lunches

Not only is this significantly less than the national average but I think I do a fairly good job of a) sending food that is good for them to eat and b) sending food that they'll eat.

What do you remember taking to school for lunch? What do you pack for your kids lunch? Have you figured out how much you spend on school lunch?

I posted a week or so ago about the wonderful experiences I had in Revision and Discovery with Lani Diane Rich Well, not only can you sign up for her upcoming classes but you can try to win the classes for FREE!

Yep, hop on over to the NaNoWriMo blog to enter. If you have already signed up for Lani's class and then are lucky enough to win, you're money will be refunded. And isn't that an incredibly Cool Idea!

Tuesday the 23rd has some great freebies if you happen to have a Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop or a Starbuck's in your area.

First, Ben & Jerry's is having Free Cone Day. Check out the details at your scoop shop. Our's is closed so no free ice cream in Richmond.

Second, Starbucks is offering a free pastry when you buy a coffee tomorrow. Sounds like a wonderful idea unless you gave up sweets for Lent!

Enjoy!

The Richmond Spiders did pretty well this March but we're out of the game now. No matter whether or not your favorite team makes it to the NCAA Sweet 16 we can all take advantage of the great deals at Kroger. Joy and I did the grocery shopping yesterday afternoon and we did some stocking up. Nothing excessive and only 2 boxes of pasta. So far. I might go back and get some more because it's hard to beat .49/box.

I also found some great organic yogurt on sale which I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for a post by Dana at Mrs. Moneysaver. In fact, nothing I got was bought at full price and the only thing that wasn't on special or part of the March Madness promotion was a box of fruit snacks that I had a $1.50 off coupon for from Vocalpoint.

What did I get? Well, I followed the March Madness sales and The Grocery Game and this is what I got: some yogurt, bologna for school lunches, Pop-Tarts, pasta, deoderant, apple juice, Pull-Ups, crackers, and cheese. The total savings was $33.06 or 47%. Not a personal best but it was certainly fulfilling to see those dollars come flying off the register at the end.

Could I have bought more? Sure, but my pantry is in good shape right now. I decided to take a down-the-middle approach and take advantage of the great deals but not get so much stuff that it would be uncomfortable to live here, you know.

Here's a chance for you to win something good for your school and maybe something for yourself. Sounds like a great two-fer, doesn't it!

Box Tops for Education are having the Piece of Cake Sweekstakes when one school will win 100,000 Box Tops and there are daily prizes that you'll definitely think are Cool Ideas!

You can enter every day until April 30th so let's keep going so we can help our schools!

It's a great truism that when Ukrop's has a great deal it's a GREAT deal. And today I found a great deal on diapers. Sadly, it wasn't for Huggies which is our brand of choice. It was for Top Care Brand Diapers - all sizes were $4.99 with your UVC card.

Now, I know some people find that all brands are the same and I applaud you. It's not like that for us. We've learned the hard way that Huggies must be worn at night time. Other brands can be worn during the day time or nap time [if that ever happens again] but night time - not so much. At any rate, I grabbed a pack and we're set for the next 23 nap times! We'll save ourselves some cash which is always nice and hopefully, soon, Joy will decide it's time to move full time to big girl pants. And that will be the Coolest Idea of All Time!

Here's another great code from Restaurant.com!! Get a $25 certificate for $2 using the discount code BITE.

This offer is good until 3/16 so hop on over and stock up. Remember that most certificates are good for a year but read each restaurant's requirements carefully - and Enjoy!

Did you know that you can print Red Plum coupons from the internet? You sure can. If you're wanting to add to your coupon caddy this is another awesome source. Just in time for this week's grocery trip!

Sometimes work comes in waves and sometimes it all comes at once. Last week I had several mystery shops and reviews to write. This week I've been focusing on my writing. It was time. I'm done with the Discovery class I took and I was itching to get some stuff on the page.

If you're a writer and not familiar with Storywonk you need to hop over to the forums and check out the audio modules that Lani Diane Rich already posted. There are some real gems in there. I promise.

This was the second class I took with Lani and I loved it as much as the first. I had no expectations though that I would use what I was learning. Not like I did in Revision. That's not to say that I didn't think Lani would teach great stuff - she always does. But I didn't really think I'd find anything to put to use right away. I figured I'd try everything out and then put them back in my brain and let it sit.

What I found is that the Discovery process was a lot more useful to me than I thought. Silly me. I should have had more confidence in the process. And me.

But I like words. I always have. I'm less comfortable with other forms of expression like music and art. But I do like to watch television and movies. I also recognize the brain's capacity to give us great ideas seemingly out of nowhere and help us make connections that we might not have seen before. That's what the Discovery process is about. And more.

Revision is just what you think it would be about. Once you're done with your story Lani goes through story structure and how to take the story you have and revise it with out making yourself nuts. You will work hard because you'll be revising your story as the class goes on but Lani's not checking homework each week. She's just checking to make sure everyone has what they need in order to move forward each week so if you need more time - taking more time is fine.

How does Lani do this? First of all, she's Super Woman. She writes books. She has kids and cats and dogs. And she teaches these great classes online a few times a year. Discovery and Revision are coming up again in a few months. If you are getting ready to begin a new story [Discovery] or have a story that you are just finishing [Revision] I can't recommend Lani's classes enough. Her teaching is informative and fun and the class community is fantastic. This is definitely a Cool Idea!

So you know that I love getting money for stuff I do anyway. This is why I love Mystery Shopping. I'm gonna eat and grocery shop so I might as well get paid. Right?

Well, Swagbucks is like that, too. You're gonna do online searches so you might as well get something out of it and what you get are swagbucks. You get to decide what to do with your swagbucks just like they get to decide when to give you the Swagbucks but there are some pretty cool things you can get. Personally, I wait and turn mine in for Amazon certificates or PayPal but there are hundreds of choices.

Additional ways to get Swagbucks - you can download the Swagbucks toolbar and they release free swagcodes there. Also, swag codes get released on twitter and Facebook so it pays to follow them on those places.

Fridays are special in Swagbucks land because it's Mega Swagbucks Day and large denomination Swagbuck are given out. Seriously large in fact. So make sure you do some searching on Fridays because it could pay out nicely. And wouldn't that be a Cool Idea!