(Sorry for the blank blog posting yesterday. We were experiencing technical difficulties. Thanks for standing by. Here’s that post in full.)

Save $500 a year. Who can resist that? Well, that’s about how much you can keep in your pocket if you were to pack your kids’ lunches each day and not have them buy at school.

That’s why as you get set to buy your back-to-school supplies, be sure to stock up on good prices you find on reusable containers and refillable water bottles. Even if you can’t find super bargains, buying these items you can use again and again will save you money in the long run.

Think about it this way: if you spend $17 on a SIGG stainless steel water bottle, you would recoup your investment in about three weeks of school days when your kids doesn’t have to pay a buck each for a bottle of water with lunch.

As far as reusable containers go, I love my Sandwich Keeper from Tupperware (we have four in rotation for holding sandwiches), and Rubbermaid Takealong containers for packing snacks. (These are also the perfect size for storing DIY pudding and Jell-O.) In fact, I found this really clever advice on the Rubbermaid website for saving money on lunches:

Old habit: Putting prepackaged snack foods in children’s lunchboxes.
New habit: Make your own snack packs by dividing dry cereal, trail mix, cubed cheese, or sliced fruit among reusable single-serving containers. Not only do home-packed snacks reduce waste, they’re healthier than most convenience snacks, too.

In fact, around these parts, we never buy pre-packaged trail mix. We make our own using store-brand nuts, chocolate chips and either dried cranberries or raisins. I like how we can control the ratio of nuts to raisins to chocolate chips, and I really love how inexpensive this snack is to make.

While we’re on the topic of snacks and lunch, here are some interesting statistics from a recent Market Day survey about moms’ opinions about packing lunch for their kids:

• 46% of surveyed moms believe it should take less than five minutes to pack a school lunch. (I say teach your kids to pack their own lunches and you’ve just freed up five minutes of time for you!)
• Of the time-crunched moms, 42% plan school lunches the night before.
• 44% think that pre-packaged single-serve food choices reduces lunch packing time.
• What takes the most time when packing lunch? 75% say deciding what to pack does, followed by 63% who are thinking about healthier choices.
• The top three most popular food items packed in school lunches are: chips (59%), whole fruit, such as apples and pears (56%), and fruit cups (52%).