My daughter is a picky eater.  She will only eat about 5 different school lunches and the rest of the time she takes her own.  She also is not a morning person, so making her lunch before school can be rather stressful.

To make the lunch making process easier, I had been buying individual containers of things such as apple sauce, pudding, snack crackers, etc. that are convenient to just throw into her box with little thought and preparation.  When I think of all the garbage these tiny packages create, not to mention the money we spend on them, it makes me upset.

So, I decided to do it a little differently.  I went to the dollar store and found a bunch of single portion sized containers.  The idea being that we make our own individual containers of pudding, apple sauce, fruit, crackers, etc.  by buying the standard sizes and portioning them out ourselves.  Now, instead of paying $1 for 4 containers of chocolate pudding, I buy a package for .44 and make twice that myself and so on.  My daughter brings her containers back from school and we wash them for future use.

She is actually happier with her lunch because she has a larger variety of things to choose from and is an active participant in its creation.