Lunch for a week for about $5

[mindaugas]

Chex apple cinnamon cereal was on sale 3 for $5. I brought some milk in one of those "green" metalic containers and put it in the corp fridge along with a bowl and spoon. that's my lunch for a week. I think with the milk (well almond milk which isn't really milk) and cereal together would be about $5, prob less since I'm only drinking a small portion of the milk.

this is one very tiny step ...

[nevinera]

Bringing your lunch is a big economic step, but nutritionally.. Sugary cereals are not a great long-term option.

There are a lot of things you can make in large quantities and reheat - this week we made two gallons of black bean soup (pureed). I've been taking that and cornbread or tortilla chips (my coworker brought in a garbage sack of them leftover from a party) most of this week. I do often take rice as well - I like to put chopped peanuts, soy sauce, and sriracha in it (sometimes I go for black beans and salsa instead).

The key to cheap lunches is to make stuff in quantity and from staples - beans, rice, flour (cornflour too), and oats are all bulk-buyable and fairly cheap. Try to chuck a piece of fruit in the bag too - whatever's in season will be reasonably cheap.

[James]

Congrats on the step!  It's hard to get started, so it's just great you got the first week covered and can start a habit of eating food you brought to work.  I agree with nevinera on the quality thoughts, but sometimes it comes in baby steps.  Make changes at a pace you can maintain and just keep working at it.  Good luck!

[frugalman]

I brown bag my lunch to work, a home made chef salad, some dressing I keep at work, and an apple or orange or banana.

Funny how my list of things to work on always has two big components:

Get my financial life in order
Get my body in order (weight, nutrition, physical fitness, less dining out)

[mindaugas]

thanks, I've actually been bringing in my lunch since I started the new job 4 weeks ago and before that I did at least 3 days a week at the old job. this is the cheapest I have ever eaten though. rice is a staple for me, I have celiac disease. sugar doesn't bug me, that's why i work out. :P

[MsSindy]

I'm def in the one-pot meal of staples category for work (soups, stews, pasta dishes, etc.).  But hubby doesn't like to mess with the fridge and micro at his work so he has always insisted on (and happy with) a normal sandwich with deli meat.  However, decent quality deli meat (if there is such a thing) can be around $7 - $10 / lb!  Thankfully, my store puts out packages of "meat ends" and "cheese ends", which are essentially the last couple of slices off the "ball of meat" (not sure what to call it!).  Anyway, they sell it for $1.78/lb!  It's always random pieces of meat, so he gets a 'hoagie' or sub sandwich every day.  Sometimes I get lucky and they are all thin slices; thick slices get diced and become chef salad!  At 3 oz per sandwich + homemade bread, we have a sandwich for under 50 cents.  Throw in veggies from the garden, and he's all set.  Fairly healthy and cheap.

[reverend]

Since I can live without too much variety in my diet, I tend to make extra food for dinner every night and bring the leftovers as my lunch the day after.
Then there's the occasional windfall - the bat mitzvah of last weekend ended with the family giving me all their leftovers too. Bacon/eggs/potatoes from breakfast, plenty of bottles of wine, orange juice boxes, etc.  That's lunch and dinner for a week!   The desserts are great too. Tres leches, cheese cake, cookies, brownies etc.

Maybe the key is to be a wedding or bar/bat mitzvah crasher towards the end of the event and offer to pick up the leftovers. :)

[kisserofsinners]

Well done! ...I too worry about your carb load.

If you can make the time to throw some stuff in a crockpot, you might want to consider pork and beans soup (or really most meat scraps and veggie soup)

All organic ingredients:
1 lbs beans-2.25 (can be *way* cheaper with non-organic)
1 lbs bacon ends and peices-2.99 (would be cheaper with ham hock, pork butt or similar)
2 carrots-approx 0.10
2 sticks celery-approx 0.20
1 whole yellow onion-0.69

Spices and water-pennies

6.25 and you won't get a carb crash

[Nudelkopf]

Since I can live without too much variety in my diet, I tend to make extra food for dinner every night and bring the leftovers as my lunch the day after.

This is what I do! The only problem is if I'm too lazy to cook the night before, or I go out to dinner. I don't have sandwich-type ingredients in my house. Maybe taking cereal for lunch wouldn't be a bad idea on those days, instead of eating a mountain of bananas and apples, haha.

[herisff]

If you have a high tolerance for food-boredom, you can try what I do - make work breakfasts on Sunday (usually 1 cup quinoa with 2T dried fruit, or greek yogurt and fruit) and work lunches (varies depending on what's on sale at the grocery - broccoli w/ italian sausage, pot roast, etc). I package them all up and they sit in the fridge off to one side. Every work morning I throw a set in my lunch bag (along w/ my cloth napkin and utensils) and take it in to work. Then I just have to make dinner. And sometimes I cook an extra dish on Sunday and have that for dinner, then nibble on fruits at odd times when I'm home. On my days off, I indulge in eggs for breakfast. I've found over time that I do much better when I eat protein for breakfast and lunch, so the quinoa works great for me. I am on call at least one day a week, so this system works especially well on those days.

[mindaugas]

The only problem is if I'm too lazy to cook the night before, or I go out to dinner.

Me too, so I bought some lentils and put a bunch of stuff in a crockpot last night. In all it was 10 minutes of prep time for a week's worth of delicious lentil mush.

[jgarn3r]

 I make 5 or 6 chicken breast and a 3 cups of brown rice and a cup of frozen vegetables (what ever was on sale) on Sundays individually portion them, and then freeze them. This will provide me with lunches plus 1 or 2 dinners for the week. I feel that nutrition is important and worth spending an extra few dollars on. Cooking my meals ensures that i wont be scrambling to throw something together before i have to go to work.

[NestEggChick (formerly PFgal)]

I got in the habit of putting some ingredients in the crockpot every Sunday, and that would be my lunch for the week, along with some rice or pasta, and steaming some frozen veggies.  I doubled the recipe and froze the extras, so if there was an off week when I couldn't do the prep, I could just thaw something from the freezer.  With this, I'd grab some fruit to have as a snack, and that's it.  My coworkers always commented on how good my lunch looked and smelled when I heated it up, even as they themselves went out to lunch, then later complained about not having enough money.  After I started doing this, I also noticed that I no longer felt sleepy in the afternoons - having a good, healthy lunch really kept me going for the rest of the day.

This site has great crockpot recipes (and they're all gluten-free):
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

There's also something wonderful about going out for the day, then coming home to an apartment filled with lovely kitchen smells.

[kkbmustang]

PFGal -

I love that site. There's a recipe for chicken made with sprite and brown sugar that is to die for. Served with rice, it's fabulous. I need to try more of her recipes.

[MsSindy]

Then there's the occasional windfall - the bat mitzvah of last weekend ended with the family giving me all their leftovers too. Bacon/eggs/potatoes from breakfast, plenty of bottles of wine, orange juice boxes, etc.  That's lunch and dinner for a week!   The desserts are great too. Tres leches, cheese cake, cookies, brownies etc.

I love windfall food!!  That happens a lot here in corporate-land.  There are always leftovers from catered lunches - I routinely come home with completely untouched salads, sandwiches, pretzels, cookies (freeze and nibble when needed!).  My DH always brings a lunch, so when they have catered lunches, he just grabs a sandwich (or two!) and throws it in his lunchbag to bring home.  Last week he brought home a humoungus turkey hoagie (sub-sandwich) - I had 4 meals out of that one. 

I use to sneak the corporate-land leftovers home, now I'm bold about my frugality and openly package things up to take home - hate to waste food.  Except now that I've made it acceptable to take the corporate-land leftovers, I have other people who want the leftovers -- dividing and sharing makes it more fun!

[ECrew28]

I make breakfast burritos in bulk, individually wrap them, and then freeze.  I do batches of 20-30 depending on the time available.  They last me for a few weeks, and can double as lunch with some additional fresh veggies.  I also have done hard boiled eggs in advance and take 2 or 3 of them for breakfast.  Lunches are usually prepped for the whole week.  Since I am biking to work now as well, I am trying to streamline everything to fit into my tri bag, so as not to make my commute a pain or dangerous.  Been working ok thus far. 

[elindbe2]

I find a basic salad works pretty well for lunch.  Usually just some lettuce, tomato, cucumber, leftover chicken bits and a vinegrette of olive oil, cider vinegar, salt, pepper and honey.  Not the most filling thing in the world, but it keeps me tided over until I have a more substantial dinner.

[MooreBonds]

I make breakfast burritos in bulk, individually wrap them, and then freeze.  I do batches of 20-30 depending on the time available.  They last me for a few weeks, and can double as lunch with some additional fresh veggies.  I also have done hard boiled eggs in advance and take 2 or 3 of them for breakfast.  Lunches are usually prepped for the whole week.  Since I am biking to work now as well, I am trying to streamline everything to fit into my tri bag, so as not to make my commute a pain or dangerous.  Been working ok thus far.

I love egg/ham/potato sandwiches for breakfast. I used to cook the eggs ahead of time and freeze them...but then quickly discovered that it took just about as long to thaw/reheat the frozen cooked egg (using 2 different power settings to gently heat it) as it did to cook it fresh! And even better was that it avoided the occasional precooked egg turning rubbery after it thawed.

For ham, I'll buy a huge ham half when it's on sale at crazy low prices, then simply carve it up into about 3oz-4oz slices, layer them up with plastic wrap in between them to easily separate them one piece at a time, and then freeze it.