I've got a bit slack recently buying lunches out.
My achilles heal is the <£4 Tesco meal deal, ever since they've upped their game and allowed for a relatively healthy option.
So for just under £4 you can get a decent sandwich or wrap (I typically choose the later, some kind of chicken or bean thing), always a supergreen smoothie, and then a protein bar to top it off, which for the money and the convenience is pretty good.
My last job didn't help either, which involved a lot of travelling and so a fair few cafe visits, and PROPER lunches, for which you'll pay at least £10, sometimes almost double that, depending on where you go and what you have, obviously!
And since my current job started and being in the office a couple times a week I've been going to the local deli where all you get is a sandwich for £4. It really struck me last week when I'd basically been working 6 hours straight and then got a late lunch from the cafe just across the road, perfectly nice ham and cheese sandwich, but I added on a caramel shortbread (fuckin' love those!) and it came to £7!
That REALLY made me think, and do the MATH...
The math....
So £4 a pop, say 4 times a week, I can do that NO PROBLEM..... and then add on a little because I'm always gonna upscale if I'm in lunch out mode, that's £80 a month, that's A CHUNK OF MONEY RIGHT THERE.
Making my own, the alternative...
Now let's assume I allow myself ONE £5 lunch a week, so that's £20, I should be able to make a VERY NICE lunch for £2 a go, probably less than that, but let's say £2, and £2 by 4 by 4 = £32.
So £20 (minus the one meal deal a week and round down as I've been generous) plus £20 = £40, that's a £40 saving a month if I can just get into the habit of making my own damn lunch MOST, and not even all of the time!
That's around 2% of my monthly expenditure saved, NICE!
Making a start on this, quite literally....
I'm going in easy....making a greek salad...
Ingredients for around 4 lunches....
Around £6 for the fresh ingredients, so £1.50 a meal thus far. I also added a pitta with some humous, and a salad dressing, so around £0.50 extra, so my £2 a lunch target is bang on here!
Half used for 2 days and half stored for tomorrow's lunch
I don't add the dressing until eating, no soggy salad for me, thank you!
And a dressing.....
I bought these bottles a while back, I'd be happy to make salad dressing up to week in advance, I'm sure it would keep for longer, I need to check this out...
Final thoughts...
It is a bit of hassle making one's own lunch, but TBH what I've got here is more like an £8- £10 lunch if you were gonna eat it out, so I'm upscaling significantly from a mere sandwich.
And when one only has to be in the office twice a week, all I have to do is get in the habit of doing a shop the day before, making a double lunch and then I've got my workaday lunch and a £2-£6 saving, depending on how you want to calculate the difference!
It really doesn't take that much longer to double up.
I am going to myself a nice bento style lunch box too, so I can add in some chopped nibbles like nuts and carrots and fruit to make it extra yummy and nutritious.
So happy days!