Practical Snacking For Kids

If you can imagine with a family of eight, and six kids ages 13 years down to 6 months, the snacks part of our grocery bill is a major portion. Oh, and that boys eat more than girls thing, not true as far as I can tell.

Our grocery budget is $200/wk for my big grocery buys. To make it simplier on myself I do not include tax or tip in that amount, just what goes into the cart. We also spend another $50 or so per week on random "I forgot this" things from the store.

I just paused this blog to add two such "I forgot" items to my cart. Motherhood is never ending.

Of that $200, alot is snacks. On average, about $75 is school lunch related things to include refrigerated snacks like yogurt and cheese sticks. I buy a ton of those every single week. I also buy a couple of dry snacks at the regular store like off brand teddy grams that they don't stock at Sam's Club.

The bulk of our snacks are bought at Sam's Club. Typically another $200 per month above my standard grocery budget.

When I switched over to using Sam's Club, I did it because I had proven to myself that many of the snacks we buy were so much cheaper there. However, there was a problem.

Monkey see, monkey eat.

If I put all of the snacks out, they'd vanish in an instant, and that included putting them in the pantry.

So I devised a plan. We already had a cabinet from Ikea that I had purchased to use as an overflow pantry. It had been sitting in the garage for about two years, ready to be built. So I built it, and I stocked it with plastic drawers.

Now I go to Sam's club and I buy a variety of single serve snacks. Chips, Peanut butter crackers, pretzels, cheese-its, alphabet cookies, fruit snacks, or whatever the kids want for the month. With the exception of the chips, these snacks tend to cost between $0.10 - $0.50 each. I like to average around $0.25 but that has gotten harder to do recently.

Then I break them up into boxes and bins. I start with five bins, but I often find that one or two things have a much larger quantity and I make a sixth bin just for those. We then integrate those snacks into the next snack run which adds veriety. In the end I have five weeks of snacks for the kids, and they're expected to not touch the cabinet at all. If they do, they're just eating their snacks for next time.

I've thought about locking that cabinet, but so far so good, and I haven't had to.

Tuesday is snack restock day, and the kid's know it. If I'm late, they're ready to remind me. "Mom, it's restock Tuesday".

So, expensive, yes. Manageable, also yes, and I get to save money on snacks without having to store them in my garage with the bugs.

No, I'm not being paid by any of the stores above. It's truly just what we use.

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Between the drop-offs, dishes, and deadlines, it’s easy to forget what it feels like to be seen. I created Kristian Hutchings Portraits so you can step away from the chaos, feel truly beautiful, and have portraits that reflect exactly who you are in this season of life. Do this for you now and your kids will thank you for these portraits later!

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Kristian is a mom of six, Program Manager by day, active Professional Photographer by trade, and a big believer in finding beauty in the everyday chaos.

Life in our house is loud, messy and full of literally everything. Love, noise, laundry, laughter, and definitely could use a bit more grace. I'm happily married to my best friend, grounded in my Catholic faith, and fueled by five to six hours of sleep per night and adrenaline.

I try to find joy in the everyday — even when it's wild, because without the little bit of joy, this life would be unbearable. This space is for the moms in the middle of it all: the ones juggling family, faith, work, and wonder. The ones that need someone else's messy life to make their own seem better or somewhat normal. You're not alone, and you're doing better than you think.

Welcome to Six Sweet Smiles — where we celebrate the mess, the miracles, and everything in between.