The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Mustachianism Around the Web => Topic started by: Channel-Z on May 31, 2017, 11:28:44 AM
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As someone who brings his own lunch 100% of the time, I'm always fascinated by people who continue to spend $10-$20 every day on lunch.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/going-out-for-lunch-is-a-dying-tradition-1496155377
"The U.S. restaurant industry is in a funk. Blame it on lunch.
Americans made 433 million fewer trips to restaurants at lunchtime last year, resulting in roughly $3.2 billion in lost business for restaurants, according to market-research firm NPD Group Inc. It was the lowest level of lunch traffic in at least four decades.
While that loss in traffic is a 2% decline from 2015, it is a significant one-year drop for an industry that has traditionally relied on lunch and has had little or no growth for a decade."
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It's not dying at my work place.
Today there are three people in the office. I'm the only one who brought lunch. The other two got fast food. Looks like they probably spent $8-10 each.
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As a government contractor we all have to charge our time to specific projects and get in the right number of hours each week (sort of like lawyers but much more strict). That means that an hour or more out for lunch is an extra hour or more you have to stay in the office working at the end of the day. Totally not worth it. I'll go off campus for something tasty maybe every other week to celebrate Friday or meet up with a friend I wouldn't otherwise see, but it is definitely not an everyday thing. Thankfully most of my coworkers also bring their own lunches so there isn't pressure to spend.
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I honestly cannot imagine going out to lunch and how much time it would take. I work at one of those newfangled companies that has a free cafeteria, but if I didn't, you can bet your ass I would be packing sandwiches every day. I certainly do not have time to walk ten minutes to a restaurant, wait five minutes to be seated, ten more minutes to be served, eat for twenty minutes, and walk back for ten minutes. And that's pretty much a best case scenario on how long it would take.
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I don't go out per se, but the hospital cafeteria across the street has great lunch meals for $4.95. I can walk over, get lunch to go and be back in my office in 15 mins. Today it was talapi and a mountain of veggies. I probably do this twice a week. Apples and PB the rest of the time.
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I used to go out to lunch a lot with my co-workers, way back when I worked in an office.
It was a good time for bonding and talking informally, away from our boss. If we had extra time, we'd wander around the city just chatting and making observations.
I'm still good friends with the folks I had lunch with way back then, though we haven't worked together in eight years. So while it did cost a lot if you add it all up, I don't regret joining in.
Nowadays, having discovered MMM, I would probably suggest we all bring lunches and take them outside to eat in a park.
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It's not dying at my work place.
Today there are three people in the office. I'm the only one who brought lunch. The other two got fast food. Looks like they probably spent $8-10 each.
I've had McDonald's twice last month, for some reason I craved it. This made my annual "eating out" budget explode compared to last year.
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I'm fortunate enough to work from home now, so going out for lunch is a rare occurrence. At previous companies, I tried to balance how much I did - enough to bond with coworkers, but not enough to make my wallet hate me, which usually ended up in eating out every 1-2 weeks for lunch (usually on a Friday). Near the end of my last job, the last month or 2 was completely miserable, and I switched to eating out several times a week (almost every day near the end), just to escape. So, maybe fewer people going out for lunch is a signal of more job satisfaction overall, based on my extremely tiny sample size of one person? Hmmm.
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I only go out to lunch for a specific reason, like networking or to see a friend I wouldn't see otherwise. I don't go out for lunch "just to eat" since as others have mentioned it is expensive and time consuming, and also because I usually don't know exactly what they are putting in my food (cheap shit no doubt).
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We get a 30 minute lunch and it can take 20 minutes just to get someone to unlock a gate to let us out. Everyone brings a lunch, but it's always been that way, so we haven't contributed to any decline.
An hour lunch would be such a luxury!
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It seems like people in my office still go get take out for lunch but actually going out to lunch and having a nice time is extremely rare. We pretty much all work during lunch so it's just a matter of picking the lunch up and eating at your desk. so even the people who I think would prefer to go out to lunch bring something to eat at least once a week because there's just often no time.
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We get a 30 minute lunch and it can take 20 minutes just to get someone to unlock a gate to let us out. Everyone brings a lunch, but it's always been that way, so we haven't contributed to any decline.
An hour lunch would be such a luxury!
In theory we get an hour lunch. In practice I have to carry my laptop with me to heat up my lunch in the microwave while on a video call.
But in theory I could take a 3 hour lunch if I wanted a midday break and didn't have meetings (hahaha). Lunch isn't a paid break, and I have to work a minimum 8 hours per day regardless of when during the day I'm doing those hours. 10 hours a day is more common and I value my evenings, so no midday break.