Easy Grab & Go School Lunch Prep

Okay, so if you’re anything like me through the week you’re probably running in circles like a chicken with its head cut off! YIKES!! Yeah, it’s not a pretty site guys lol. My 8 yr old sons schedule is about as busy as any adult I know which can make the week pretty hectic. I’m always trying to figure out ways to simplify life at home so that I can spend more time doing what I WANT to do as opposed to what I HAVE to do (because, DUH)! I came up with this system for making lunches a while ago mainly because well… I HATE (YES hate!!!) making lunches lol!! With this system, its become a breeze!! I love the fact that it requires absolutely no thinking whatsoever because OBVIOUSLY, I need to preserve my brain power for 3rd-grade homework every night… ahhh the joys! Here’s what I did…

So first off, I always ALWAYS ALWAYS make sandwiches for the entire week on Sunday evenings. I do this because as I stated before I HATE making lunches and mainly because I HATE making sandwiches!!! Like with a passion guys!! Not to mention my son takes TWO sandwiches (or a sandwich and a launchable) to school every day (yikes)!! So what I do is take an entire loaf of bread (you heard that right… ENTIRE loaf smh), get out my cutting board and go to work making 10 sandwiches for the upcoming week. After I make and bag the sandwiches and load them into the bottom drawer in the refrigerator. I also pre-cut and bag any fresh fruit or veggies that he will be taking during the week and store those in a drawer in the fridge along with cheese sticks and gogurt… gotta give em options guys!! lol.

Next, I bought these hanging baskets from At Home and had to finagle them a little to get them onto my pantry door. Unfortunately, the door to my pantry is about half the width of a normal sized door… what a nightmare that was!! However, if you have a full-size pantry door there are plenty basket systems that are affordable and simple to put together, I’ll link a few below for you guys.

After finally getting the baskets hung I labeled each one based on the 5 categories of items that go in my son’s lunch. I tried to fill each basket with at least a few options from each category, that way he can pack his lunch according to what he’s in the mood for. I mean, no one wants to eat the same thing everyday right!?

So in the first basket, we have chips. I buy the huge variety box from Costco so that we can have a few different types.

In the third basket, we have dessert. I’ll usually fill this with a few different types of cookies, cupcakes, or maybe fruit snacks depending on what I buy.

Lastly, we have our snack basket. I try to keep a variety of snacks in here since he has to take at least 3 per day between a classroom snack and an after-school snack.

With this system, all he has to do is open the pantry and go right down the baskets and follow the instructions listed on each basket. Then head over to the bottom drawer in the refrigerator and grab his sandwiches, pack everything neatly in his lunchbox and put it in the refrigerator. Just like that lunch is made in less than 5 min!! I mean it doesn’t get much more simple than that! If you want to simplify your after-school/after-work routine I urge you to try this system or something like this, you WONT be disappointed!!