If I added up all of the hours I’ve spent packing lunches for my husband and children to take to work and school, I would… probably become very depressed. Heh. The more immediate result of all of those years of packing is that we own an impressive assortment of ice packs to go in our insulated sacks, plus several food containers which can, themselves, be frozen.
While I am not a fan of packing lunches, I am even less of a fan of food poisoning.
So I started seeing commercials for those PackIt freezable lunch bags and I thought that was a pretty ingenious solution, making a bag with built-in freezer goo that you can put right into the freezer. But they’re $20 apiece, so needless to say, I haven’t bought one.
But! Today at Graveyardmall one of their daily deals is a 4-pack of “innercool integrated cooling system lunch sacks,” which, hey, looks an awful lot like a knock-off of the PackIt. For $12.99 (and $1.99 shipping) I can get four of those; still less than a single PackIt.
And that way I’ll have spares in the freezer for when someone forgets to take their lunchbag out of their backpack in the afternoon. Not that I’m naming any names.
I just bought three name brand Pack-It’s from Zulily for $10 each http://www.zulily.com/e/packit-082912.html? Not as much as a bargain as yours, but the patterns are pretty!
What I need to find is a deal on those reusable sandwich bags. The ones at Target feel yucky. I’m sure there’s something better out there on the internet. Plus, $11 for 5 does not seem like a bargain. Maybe I could make my own.
Sheryl, I have a collection of reusable sandwich bags from different sources—some from the grocery store, some from Etsy, some from online “eco” stores—and $11 for 5 actually sounds like a pretty good deal to me (unless you hate them). I generally pay between $4-6 apiece.
please tell Otto to stop leaving his lunch bag in his briefcase. 🙂
Not crazy about the reusable sandwich bags. I find the sandwich boxes much easier to use and clean, plus they protect the contents from crushing. Back when my daughters were babies and mornings were a tad hectic, I used to make a week’s worth of PBJ sandwiches for my son and freeze them in the sandwich boxes. Then I just had to pull one out of the freezer in the morning. Other than the one “air sandwich” that somehow snuck in (did I mention that things were a little crazy when the girls were babies?), it worked out very well. My husband and older daughter are still using them.
I have never used the Graveyard Mall ones so I can’t comment on them. But personally I’m not a fan of the Pack-Its. I bought one last year for work, and within a month the Velcro was separating from the bag. Because there’s just one strip of Velcro holding the bag closed, a beverage, apple and container of yogurt was enough weight that the Velcro strips were straining, and after a week or so the stitching holding the Velcro down was starting to pull out. I suppose if you put it in a tote bag and didn’t carry it by the handle that wouldn’t be an issue. But I could easily see an elementary-age kid swinging it down the hallway to the cafeteria and their lunch going flying when the Velcro let go.
It also sweated like crazy inside, to the point where a paper napkin was too damp to use by lunchtime. I worked in an air-conditioned office and my beverages were only cool by lunchtime, not “cold.” I also didn’t like the short little handle, but that’s a personal preference. My two cents.
There are some weird kitchen/fridge changes going on at work, so I need something to take my lunch in daily. I have a hard plastic cooler (picnic one), but it’s large and bulky, so I’ve been eying these lately. I couldn’t justify the price, though, but this price to try them (and if I don’t like them, to donate them somewhere) is definitely worth it.
Thanks for the tip!