Your FREE printable lunchbox planner

Lunchboxes. The struggle is real. No matter how many times I swear I’m going to get more organised, I seem to default so easily to the standard sandwich, piece of fruit and packet snack.

We’ve talked about this before, and I know many of you are much better at this than me. If you bake little muffins and slices and homemade biscuits for your kids’ lunchbox, I take my hat off to you. Here’s my confession: I don’t bake.

I cook dinner because, well, otherwise we would starve, and when it comes to main meals, I do like to feed my family fresh and healthy fare that doesn’t come out of a jar or packet. (I swear by HelloFresh for making this process easy and actually – gasp! – fun. We’ve been using it for almost a year and I still love it just as much as ever.)

But I’m all about spending the bare minimum amount of time in the kitchen. Anything that’s optional and extra (such as baking) is a pass for me. As much as I’d love to be the mum who regularly bakes homemade treats, that is just not me.

But, like I said, I do aim to feed my family healthy whole foods, as much as possible. And it’s hard to get enough good nutrition into kids unless you use the daily lunchbox as an opportunity to sneak in some more fruit and veg.

I’ve tried a few things that have definitely helped. This mix ‘n match lunchbox printable has been very popular – it helps you create hundreds of possible combinations using an idea bank of sandwich fillings, non-sandwich alternatives, fruits, veggies and whole food snacks.

I’ve also blogged about my simple lunchbox prep method for getting those fruits and veggies ready at the start of the week.

But I’m still not quite there yet. So I decided the next step is to have a better plan. Rather than making it all up on the fly, why not plan out my kids snacks and lunches for the week, so I can see at a glance what I have to buy and what I have to prep?

I figure this should help me get my act together. I am a planner, after all.

So I created a free printable that will help me (and you) plot out a week’s worth of lunchboxes.

That way it’s easy to see at a glance whether we have enough variety, whether we’re including a good range of fruits and veg, and most importantly, what’s coming up – so we can actually make it happen.

I’m going to slip my lunchbox planner into a dry erase sleeve (I’ve just ordered this one) and keep it on the side of the fridge so I can easily write up a new plan each week and then wipe it over at the end. My mix-n-match printable will be beside it so that I have a bank of easy and creative lunch ideas ready to inspire my planning.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Wanna try it too? Make sure you grab your free printable using the sign-up form above!