Bag Lunch!

[MgoSam]

After today it will have been 7 straight work days without going out for lunch. I'm hopeful that I can make this a permanent habit. The benefits are awesome.

I haven't yet calculated how much I will save, but I do enjoy having more energy in the afternoon. This is likely as my usual fast food lunch was usually Taco Bell. To start with, I eliminated eating at Taco Bell and all fast food. This might be difficult when I am on the road next month but I want this to go on as long as I can.

It is amazing how not hard this has been, it just requires a little planning.

[No Name Guy]

Way to go.

Last Thursday (the 14th) I slipped up and ran out of the house (was hurrying to bring gear to go running after work) and forgot to bring a lunch with me.  First time I had to go to the cafeteria in 5 months (last time previous was June 17th). 

Year to date, I'm up over 90% bringing lunch from home.  My goal for the year was 50%, which doesn't sound high, but considering last year I would go to the cafeteria 14 out of 15 days, I thought it was reasonable intermediate goal on the way to a higher plane.  Looks like I didn't set the bar high enough.  :-) 

I estimate $5 / day savings versus cafeteria food. 

I'd suggest a tracking spreadsheet to help keep you motivated.  It's pretty simple to keep a running total of "home" lunches as a percentage of all - watching the number go up, up and up is motivating, and it stings a little bit to see it drop.

[Splashncash]

Congratulations!  And soon, the little bit if planning will become habit and you won't even notice it anymore.

[olivia]

Way to go!  Another one of the benefits I've seen of not eating out so much is that I've dropped weight pretty easily.  Even my super in shape husband lost about 5 lbs just from not eating out for a month.  It's all about making brown bagging a habit.  Keep up the good work!

[MgoSam]

Way to go.


I'd suggest a tracking spreadsheet to help keep you motivated.  It's pretty simple to keep a running total of "home" lunches as a percentage of all - watching the number go up, up and up is motivating, and it stings a little bit to see it drop.

Would you be willing to show me how to setup such a spreadsheet? I've never been a spreadsheet person but I am starting to realize how beneficial they can be.

[No Name Guy]

In row 1, put in the following headers, then fill in going down.  So in the dates, fill in the first few dates, in order, then highlight those, "grab" the lower right corner and drag down to fill.  Excel auto fills.  Same with the days of the week, do the first 3 or 4 manually, highlight them, then grab the bottom right of the highlighted area and drag to fill.  Start your dates in row 2.  Start the formula in Column F in row 3.
Column A:  Date
Column B:  Day of week
Column C:  Work day
Column D:  Home brought lunches
Column E:  Cafeteria / out to lunch lunches
Column F:  =sum(Column D) / Sum (Column D and E).  In row 12, assuming you've started your date range at row 2, the formula will read exactly:  = sum(D$2:D12)/sum(D$2:E12).  Note that the "$" in the formula, which you have to add in manually, will insure the noted value doesn't change when you copy this formula down into lower rows (that is, when you copy this to row 13, the 2 will stay 2, instead of changing to 3, which is what would happen without the dollar sign).

For days you bring lunch, put a number 1 in the home column.  For days you buy / go out to lunch, put a number 1 in the cafeteria / out to lunch column. 

The first sum in the formula in column F will total up the number of home lunches.  The 2nd sum will total up all the lunches - both home and cafeteria.  Dividing home lunches by total is the percent from home.  Use a graph for a visual representation - I'd suggest a scatter plot.  Use the dates as the X value and percentage as the Y value.

[MgoSam]

Thank you, will look into setting this up tonight. I want to become more proficient at making and maintain spreadsheets, very convenient way of being organized.

[Cujo]

Nice work. I'm just astounded by how often my coworkers eat lunch out. I doubt I've eaten lunch out 20 times in the six years I've been at this job. (Before that I worked from home full-time.)

[MgoSam]

Today due to my failure to plan, I ate out for lunch. Provided I need to talk to my office manager alone, I did make good use of the time (we had lunch together).

[xingcat]

Congratulations! I've been taking my lunch with me every day for the past two weeks, and it makes everything so much easier. I don't have to depend on the whims of the cafeteria to decide on what I want to eat, it saves me about $50/week, and the stuff I make is generally much healthier than what I would buy.

Also, I tend not to remember to eat leftovers if I'm thinking about them for dinner, but leftovers for lunch are way easier, because I just pop the container of whatever is left over in my lunch bag, and I'm done! Saving food!