You all know to pack juice boxes and Cheerios to take a little jaunt with the carseat set, but here are some more frugal survival tips that you need to know – and most everything can be had from the dollar store! My minivan has a little drawer underneath the front passenger seat – but many of these items would fit easily in a glove compartment, or a tote bag slung over the headrest.

Car Snacks for Kids

Shop where you know it’s cheap.  Face it, you know you’re going to be snacking in the car.  Check out DollarTree instead of gathering supplies at Stop ‘N’ Shop and you’ll save a fortune.  I’ve found lots of surprisingly healthy, low cost snacks at dollar and 99 cents stores – like 6 packs of roasted peanuts, raisin boxes, individual packages of cookies with no food dyes or other weird chemicals, and bags of banana chips, dried pineapple, and trail mixes.

Make your own snacks. Pack some oranges, cut up some carrots, slice a block of mozzarella to make your own cheese sticks, pop up some popcorn and put it in a Ziploc.  This way you’ll be in control of what you eat, not at the mercy of gas station chip racks.  Need more ideas?  Check out Kitchen Steward’s Healthy Snacks to Go e-book .  Pack more snacks than you think you’ll need.

Take some drinks. Purchase water bottles or travel cups for each kid (different colors is handy) and then keep a large bottle of water or juice to refill as necessary.  Much, much cheaper than individual juice boxes, and there will be less trash thrown on the floor, too.

Buy real food, not fast food. If you are stopping for a meal, avoid the drive thru line and hit a grocery store.  You can buy a quart of milk (for those refillable cups), a rotisserie chicken, or deli meat, cheese, and whole grain crackers to make your own Lunchables without all the sodium and chemicals.  Pick up some bananas or easy to eat fruit and you’ll eat much better for fewer dollars.  Not to mention it will give you a chance to stretch your legs, hit the bathroom, and let the kids work off some energy.

Use cone-shaped coffee filters.  These are my secret weapon for feeding the masses. L ightweight, they pack flat, and are useful for oh-so-many things -they’re basically a disposable paper pocket! They make great little holders for cereal, crackers, or popcorn, and are easily passable from seat to seat. If you do hit the drive-thru, I usually skip the kid meals ($3 a piece x 8 kids… might as well go out to a real restaurant with real nutrition!)  Instead, I’ll buy them a hamburger from the dollar menu and a couple of large fries. Use the filters to split them up so each kid has some.  It’s also handy for trying to feed the littlies any kind of food, sandwiches, nuggets, fries, pretzel sticks.  Please use common sense – don’t feed very small children or kids in rear facing car seats things like raisins, nuts, or popcorn. In a pinch, you can also use them as blotting papers for running makeup, to wipe your oil dipstick, or to clean a foggy windshield. The filters won’t lint up like napkins. (I keep some in the house, too. They make great funnel liners for straining, making ‘yogurt cheese’, or even tying up spices for cooking. It’s like a giant tea bag.)

Beyond travel games- open ended boredom busters

A box of bandaids. Get the cheap kind – not the $5 box that sticks to little boy’s knees at a depth of 6000 meters, we’re shopping at the dollar store, remember? In addition to dressing the occasional wound, these are hours of cheap toddler fun. Run into a traffic jam? Give a handful of bandaids to the 2 year old. She’ll have loads of fun unwrapping each one, peeling the paper, and doctoring herself, her bear, the car window. They’re fairly benign, removable, and just unusual enough that the kids will want to play. You can also use these as a scotch tape substitute for hems, notes, etc. They’ll stop a run (under your dress!) until you can get ahold of some nail polish or a new pair of hose. I’ve even used these to secure the baby’s shoes when she insists on taking them off and flinging them across the car every time I finally get them back on!

A box of chalk. When you are waiting for the 4 year old to finish pottying, which takes forever anyway but even longer when you are standing at a rest stop with nothing to do, let the kids draw on the sidewalk or asphalt. This is also great for long trips. If you know you are going to have to stop and eat at a restaurant, and the kids have been in the car for 6 hours, do yourself a favor, stop at a rest stop or even the back parking lot of the restaurant, and play hopscotch for 15 minutes. Stretch those little bodies and get the wiggles out before the waitress starts calling your pride and joys “Satan Spawn”!  A small box of chalk is great for coloring with, too.  Chalk won’t melt in the sun and cleans right up with a damp cloth.

A 2″ paint brush and water from the drinking fountain is lots of quick fun, too. Paint the sidewalk.

A deck of cards wouldn’t hurt either.  The cards can be sorted by color, shape, number for the 2 year olds, and can be used by any other age, any number of players. Try card houses if you’re bored of games. A blow up beach ball, or a package of balloons from the party aisle.  More parking lot/rest stop fun.

Prudently Prepared

A roll of toilet paper. Stuff it in a sandwich bag.  If it won’t fit in your glove box, get a half-empty roll and squash it flat.  Worth its weight in gold, especially if you have a finicky, cranky kid and run-down side of the road bathroom. Great for snotty noses, too.

Purel, for after you’ve let the kids climb around the gas station sidewalk. Removes permanent and dry erase marker, pen stains on clothes, and can sanitize tweezers for splinters, too.

A first aid kit Duh.  Make sure you include children’s benadryl and pain reliever.

Diapers and wipes.Keep a stash for those times when you forget the diaper bag or accidentally leave it in the gas station bathroom 9 exits back. Put soft sided refill pack in a gallon Ziploc, or even a stack of baby wipes in a resealable sandwich bag.  Add 2 or 3 diapers.  Diapers actually make a pretty excellent barf bag (well, catching mitt, if you know what I mean) for car sick kids.  Even if you don’t have kids, get some baby wipes and keep them in the car anyway. So many uses, so cheap if you plan ahead!

A spray bottle (empty, but this is why you pack water). This is best, fastest way to get gross stuff out of the buckle when the toddler pukes on his car seat. Put a wad of paper towels underneath, turn it to “stream”, and blast the stinky nastiness out of the crevices. Fast, easy, portable. Also good if you are stranded on a hot summer day – if the engine doesn’t work, the A/C won’t either. Mist yourself and the kids, then fan with your hand or the classic paper accordion fold.

A large bottle of water Use this to fill the spray bottle, wash hands, have a quick drink, or get you out of an overheated-radiator-pinch.

Old towels, T-shirts, or paper towels For messes of the carsick and potty training kind.  It never hurts to have a few plastic grocery bags folded up and tucked away, too.

A pair of scissors. It’s amazing how often I use these in the car for opening tough plastic packages, snipping loose threads, and so on.  Keep them in a box or the glove compartment for safety- sharp objects and moving vehicles aren’t a good mix.

A hairbrush. I bought just for the car. Great for a quick once over just before you arrive, to help neaten up that bedraggled traveler look.

A Sharpie. Great for labeling things.

I also have a plastic school box that holds other “nice to haves” – fingernail clippers (because a 3 yo’s hangnail just can’t wait), tweezers (splinters, fishing tiny parts out of tiny holes – handy if your kid stuffs a safety pin in his car seat buckle), a sewing kit.  The sewing kit is actually there so I can find it – I’ve never had to use it in the car, but several times I needed to sew a button or something and couldn’t find a needle to save my life – even though I have a sewing basket.  I slip this underneath the front passenger seat.

What’s your best tip for taking long trips with kids?

Blogging with integrity: this post contains an affiliate link for the Healthy Snacks E-book.