UPDATE: Our daughter is approaching her 14th birthday in a couple of weeks. School and the morning routines that come with are completely different now that we are homeschooling, but these containers are still holding up! We still use them at least 3-4 times a week to pack large snacks (and lunch) for study sessions and busy afternoons spent away from home.
We don’t have long supply lists at the beginning of the school year, so lunch boxes and lunch packing paraphernalia is where I get my back-to-school urges satiated these days. I’ll pick up a couple of sauce containers here and there or try a snack-size container in hopes of finding a new dependable gem, but it is the stuff below that has held strong in our lunch-packing drawer for years now. We’ve had some of these containers since the first grade and they work well for kid-sized and adult lunches.
To-Go Ware Food Carriers
Our tiffins are still going strong! They’re really easy to clean, don’t retain any odors (yay for Indian food lunches!) and our first container is going on year three or four. The 11yo is graduating to a 3-tier tiffin this year, but don’t let the “snack” label in the two-tier fool ya’; they hold full lunches. The 11yo packs a small meal for mid-day snack so we decided to consolidate all into one tiffin. Oven-safe to 350º and dishwasher safe.
Sistema Lunch Cube
These are our go-tos for sandwich lunches. No soggy bread! It is not 100% leakproof so I usually pack a drier lunch with these (i.e. no watermelon). Also, the divided half of the container is great if you have kids that don’t like stuff to touch too much. These don’t get used as heavily (maybe once a week) but they have lasted for years; going on year number six! Dishwasher safe.
Built NY Gourmet Getaway
This is what she carries her lunch in every day. The fact that I can throw it into the washing machine without having to worry about shrinkage is its number one selling point. Sometimes it goes in the washer as often as 2-3 times a week. Super roomy. It fits her tiffin, an insulted thermos, and the occasional juice box. Machine washable!
The following aren’t in daily rotation but get used at least once a week:
Thermos
I use these for packing yogurt lunches. Pop it in the freezer the night before to help keep things colder longer. Pre-heat with hot water before adding soup. Leakproof. I hand wash, but they are dishwasher safe.
snackTaxi Sandwich & Snack Bags
After years of trying and failing at the reusable snack bags, these are where I have finally landed. The interior lining doesn’t stain (or get stinky) like others we’ve tried and they retain their shapes after washing (no weird shrinkage of lining!!). The sandwich size is large enough for an actual sandwich, but we use them mostly to send rice cakes, granola, nut-seed mixes, and dry-add ins for salads that we don’t want to get mushy. Machine-washable!
To-Go Ware Snack Sidekick
For delicates that I want to keep intact or when I need to contain the smell of a single item – figs, bleeding beets, pickles, etc. Dishwasher safe.
Good luck getting ready for school this year! We’ll be working on portion control and practice lunches ’til school starts in a couple of weeks.
This post is not sponsored. All items were tested and purchased by me.
aneelee 
I love drinking with straws. I almost won’t drink anything unless there’s a straw.
straws are like magic for water consumption with her. make all the difference in the world!