Life on a Budget

I was always the person who spent the mornings at work thinking about what I was going to have for lunch… a turkey sandwich or Chinese food or the soup of the day at the corner deli… and I have to admit I did enjoy it. But as funds got tight and I realized that cutting back and eventually eliminating eating out for lunch saved me a lot of money, I was hooked.

So how much can you really save just by bringing a lunch from home?

From my experience, lunch costs approx $6-$10 a day. Now it’s not like you aren’t going to eat anything for lunch so let’s say, on average, the lunch you bring from home is worth about $2. Therefore, we would be spending about $4-$8 a day, so for this example I’ll use an average of $6 a day.

$6 x 5 days a week = $30 a week x 4 weeks = $120 a month x 12 months = $1440 a year

Even bringing a lunch just two days a week can be significant:

$6 x 2 days a week = $12 a week x 4 weeks = $48 a month x 12 months = $576 a year

How much money can you save?

$288 to $1440+ a year