During Frugal Bento Month, I have a simple challenge for you. That is to keep track of how much you save by making and bringing your own lunch instead of buying lunch.

Note that if you're already making bentos almost daily and you have a good grip on your spending, you may not see the benefits. But if you're just thinking about making bentos or just starting out, or if you have no idea how much you might be saving, it's somewhere to start. Or perhaps you can use it to convince your spouse/boy/girlfriend or family about the benefits of bentos.

April is National Financial Awareness Month* in the U.S. And, let's face it, a lot of us are anxious to some degree about the state of the economy, no matter where we live. So in keeping with this, we're going to have a Frugal Bento theme for April here on Just Bento, and a Frugal Food theme on Just Hungry.

My thoughts on the fifth and final week of the Get Started Bento Challenge.

Welcome to the 5th and final week of the Getting Started Bento Challenge!

Where did the time go? For me, the Challenge weeks have just flown by!

Since this is the last week, the focus is on: Putting it all together, and moving forward.

My Week 4 was quite interesting and relevatory for me. More below...

(Photo courtesy of juanknowsspanish)

In keeping with this week's Challenge topic, here is a great idea for a bento-that-is-not-a-bento from the flickr pool.

Welcome to Week 4 of the 5 week Getting Started Bento Challenge! This week's focus is: Making bentos for others.