Packed vs School Lunch
Compare packed lunches against school meals over a school year.
About Packed vs School Lunch
Both options are priced per child per day, then scaled by school days and the number of children. The difference, repeated over roughly forty school weeks, is the annual saving from packing lunch. Kids' lunches are bought five days a week, so small per-day differences compound into hundreds of dollars a year and a habit of comparing unit costs early.
Formula
Packed vs School Lunch
Weekly = cost per day x days x children; school-year savings = difference x 40 weeks
- 40 weeks
- Typical length of a school year for lunches
Worked example
With the default values below, Packed vs School Lunch returns Weekly Packed Cost of $12.50. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Packed lunch per dayminimum 0
- 2.5
- School lunch per dayminimum 0
- 3.75
- Days per weekaccepts 1–7
- 5
- Number of childrenminimum 1
- 1
Results
- Weekly Packed Cost
- $12.50
- Weekly School Lunch Cost
- $18.75
- Annual Savings (Packed)
- $250.00
- Annual School Lunch Cost
- $750.00
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Packed vs School Lunch
- 3Weekly Packed Cost= 12.50
- 4Weekly School Lunch Cost= 18.75
- 5Annual Savings (Packed)= 250.00
- 6Annual School Lunch Cost= 750.00
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Packed vs School Lunch calculated?
Weekly = cost per day x days x children; school-year savings = difference x 40 weeks Both options are priced per child per day, then scaled by school days and the number of children. The difference, repeated over roughly forty school weeks, is the annual saving from packing lunch.
Why does Packed vs School Lunch matter?
Kids' lunches are bought five days a week, so small per-day differences compound into hundreds of dollars a year and a habit of comparing unit costs early.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 4 inputs: Packed lunch per day, School lunch per day, Days per week, Number of children. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.