A simpler day AND a trip to Mexico? The benefits of bringing your lunch to work.
4 comments so far
The simple act of “Brown-bagging” your lunch (bringing lunch to work instead of eating out) can yield some fairly significant benefits.
Simplify your mornings
My wife and I usually try to pack leftovers from dinner the night before so they’re ready to go the next morning – it’s one less thing I have to do before leaving for work and a simple morning is a good morning. Just put them in an old plastic grocery sack (way to reuse!) and you’re set.
Eat healthier
Food at restaurants tend to be focused more on taste than health benefits. So depending on how healthy you eat at home, it can be much better for you than eating out.
A more efficient work day
You don’t have to worry about finding the time to go out and get lunch if you’re super busy. Just eat at your desk. Of course, I’m a believer that you should try and take a break during work even if it’s just to step outside for a minute or two, give your eyes some natural light and take a breath of fresh air. So if you do work through lunch, be sure to try to get a break a little later.
Less gas, less searching for parking
If you tend to drive to local restaurants, you won’t be spending money on gas and you won’t have to worry about parking either at the restaurant or finding a spot when you get back to work.
Financial perks
Of course, there’s also the financial side of things. Let’s say you’re in the habit of eating out every day. While it’s not unreasonable to spend a good deal more than this, I’ll use $7 as an example – enough to get you a full meal at Subway.
$7 x 5 work days x 4 weeks in a month = $140. I can think of a LOT of things I could do with an extra $140 a month! For you home owners out there (I’m still an apartment dweller) that money could go toward the principle on your mortgage, seriously reducing the amount of time it takes to pay off your home. And even if you only brought your lunch every other day the savings would probably cover most of your cell phone bill.
Or, if you want to hang onto your money for a while, it comes out to $1,680 a year. I just went to Travelocity’s website and the main deal on their homepage is a six-night stay in Mexico, including airfare, starting at $822. Think of it as a free, week-long vacation in Mexico for two each year because you bring your lunch to work! And if you’re married and your spouse works, you could go every six months. ;)
What do you think? Is it worth it to bring your lunch to work? Do you think the savings could be realized? Let me know in the comments.
LivSimpl
Bag image courtesy of here.
Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Finances, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I’m not crazy about the eat-at-your-desk idea, as you said, but it’s certainly worth it financially to bring lunch from home. I work in a building with a cafeteria and it reminds me somewhat of eating at the airport. It’s expensive, it’s hardly ever as good as it looks like it will be, but it’s really convenient. One of my new habits I’m trying to develop this year is to avoid the “salt lick” at the cafe and bring food in every day. So far, I’m only 1 for 4. But I’m working on it.
I rarely eat out for lunch, at least when I have to pay for it. Part of it is that I’m super-cheap, but also because I like to make the most of my lunch break. If I’m really busy at work, I’d rather eat at my desk and go home an hour earlier than I otherwise would have. But if not, I prefer to take a break from my tasks, go to the cafeteria and do something productive – write in my journal, read a book, or work on my website.
In the past year, I’ve only had to go out to eat a couple times because I didn’t bring one with me. One tip is to have a stash of easy lunches, such as noodles (the kind where you just add hot water – the ones at the Chinese grocery stores are better than the generic ramen kind), canned soups (Progresso & Campbell’s Chunky make some really good ones, and Albertson’s often has them on sale for $1 each), etc.
In terms of what I do with the money I save, I couldn’t pinpoint any one thing, since I never had such a habit to get rid of. I suppose it just goes into my regular budget to cover all of my other expenses. But I know that I am saving a lot of money.
Margi and Kevin – Thank you both for your comments. Great insights! And what is all this talk of having a cafeteria where you work?? You must work for a much larger company than I. :)
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