What do you do to make you child's lunch a GREAT one?! Walmart can help! and here is a giveaway to get you started!

Back to school means many things for many people.  Some are excited and some are exhausted :)  One thing many parents are faced with is creating a lunch that your child will actually eat each day!  For me that means getting creative and making it fun.  Walmart was kind enough to provide me with a $25 gift card to see what i could find to make a good lunch great.

I love Walmart!  Their prices are awesome and with price match you never have to worry about getting a better deal somewhere else on the same item.  My shopping trip was a breeze for two reasons: 1) I left my son at home :) 2) Walmart does a great job of keeping items close to each other.  The food is mainly in one area, the clothes in another and so on.

My son is pretty set on what he wants to eat these days.  He doesn't always want the healthiest items so I try to keep him happy and incorporate healthy options for him to enjoy.  I am fortunate in that he will eat veggies, loves them in fact, but I still try to make it fun.  A typical lunch for him consists of a sandwhich, veggies of some sort, sometimes chips, a drink and a snack that a kid really wants. 

Here are some sandwich examples:

As you can see, I do different things with his sandwiches to mix it up a bit.  Whether creating a deserted island of sorts or making a sandwich roll up, I find that the more variety I provide the more he eats and the more he wants to talk about the meal. 

Here is a sample of items that I might put in along side his sandwich:

For drinks, I tend to stick to Capri Sun Roaring Waters.  For me, they are a better choice.  The bags of veggies may seem big for a 4 year old but he loves them that much that he will eat those.  He sometimes will bypass the granola bars and snack crackers or chips just to eat the veggies.  He won't pass up the pudding for anything lol  All of these items can be found at Walmart and at great prices. Doing things this way really helps me stretch a buck all while giving my child a great meal.

With my giftcard I bought a stalk of celery for $1.44, 3 bananas for 35 cents, the string cheese $2.98, a head of lettuce for 98 cents, a bag of Craisins for $1.88, the granola bars (24) for $4.98, the pudding was $2.98 (12), goldfish crackers for $2.98, capri sun roaring waters (10) $2.98 and a family size pouch of turkey meat $4.98 which brought me to $26.03 before tax.  I had the bread at home which can run you anywhere from $2-$5 depending on what you like.  I also had the carrot sticks which I buy in bulk because they are a preferred snack in our home.

The Walmart I was at has just started to expand into having fresh produce so selection was limited but you may notice in your store in the produce section as well as in the isles the new Great for You logo on items.  This is Walmart's way of assisting you with buying great items that are healthy for you and you family so keep an eye out for this as well.

Mine was a spur of the moment trip so I might have been able to save more with coupons but no matter how you look at it I could feed my son a GREAT lunch for 2 weeks with just what I bought him on this trip!

So now comes the fun part... Walmart was gracious enough to provide me with another $25 gift card to help you get the items you need to make your lunches GREAT.

^{There a few ways in which you can win:  Like the Walmart Facebook page and let me know that you did so. In the comments section, you can provide your best lunch tip for back to school. You can provide, in 50 words or less,  your biggest lunchbox challenge for back to school.}
A winner will be chosen randomly on 8/26/12.

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