Stop buying sandwiches

Apricot

Im terrible for buying breakfast and lunch in work so would definitely be up for a challenge to stop this. I often make lunch for the following day and "accidently on purpose" leave it at home and end up spending a fiver on a bacon and egg roll and a can of coke!

I dread to think the amount I spend each week on lunch & takeaways so am really going to try and cut these back in 2010 as my goal is to pay off my debts and have a fab holiday!

Any ideas for "nice" (read I love junk food) lunches would be gratefully received.

**Upsy_Daisy**

[QUOTE=Horace;282133 Don't take cash to work with you either and that way you are not tempted into buying rubbish.

What a fantastic idea - I will certainly try that next week :beer:

longhauladdict

Thanks pavlovs_dog, what a great idea...off to supermarket soon so will invest in LOTS of juice!!! xx

miss_cosmo

afternoon everyone. please can i join in on this to?

i never realised how much i was spending for breakfast/lunch at work until in december our canteen let us have a tab so that we could pay with our end of december wage (if that makes sense...). and have just beem presented with a £70 bill for it...grrr! cant believe how much it is, i was actuallty chatting with the girls from work on friday and was saying that i though it would be around the £30 mark, haha!

also just had to say i totally sympathise with ColleenPamela and izzydogsam with the diet coke. i am actually properly addicted! trying to cut back now but maybe it would be best to give it up cold turkey?
i was reading online and it said that diet coke has less caffine in it than green tea.. its apparently not the caffine that makes it so addictive, its that the small amount of caffine is absorbed so quickily in to the body so you crave that instant hit feeling. maybe we could have a diet coke challenge, hehe!

cosmo x

Nottoobadyet

I also find that those Covent Garden soup boxes tend to be on offer at Sainsburys quite often - usually 3 for £2 I think. They are quite yummy and relatively healthy (less salt and yuckyness than canned soup) and are great with a roll for a winter lunch. Perfect for the days I forget to bring things from home...

Nottoobadyet

Shall we set up a proper challenge then? Should it under £1 for work food/drink?

foxgloves

When my partner & I got together (long before the LBM re money, I should add!), one thing we did work out was that we were spending around £2,000 (for the 2 of us) a year buying stuff for lunches because we couldn't be bothered taking our own. It's amazing how it adds up....popping in M& S for a pack of sandwiches then because you're hungry and it's all nicely laid out, selecting an expenisve drink, crisps, yoghurt (I once paid 70p for ONE APPLE and now that I am such a Mrs Thrifty, I'm surprised I can even type that without having a siezure!!)....then you might pick a treat to have on your afternoon break, before passing a newsagent on the way back and going in to buy 2 magazines...... From that moment on, we were really strict about taking our own lunch. Sandwiches, rolls, slices of leftover pizza or leftoevers from meal the night before, home-made soup, rice or pasta salad boxes, couscous, filled pittas or wraps, partner has access to microwave so happy to take leftovers to reheat so as to have something hot in winter. We simply couldn't believe how much money we were wasting. Now we have a system that each night one of us makes the lunches for the next day while the other one washes the pots. It's well worth doing.

pavlovs_dog

i went to tescos this morning and bought bits for the week.

after a massive grumble about how big our bill was for such a little shop i've resigned myself to succeeding at this! i'm not going to waste the money that i've spent on this food

my menu currently looks like this:

Monday: inset day with catered lunch
Tuesday: heinz lunch pot thing with a roll.
Wednesday: egg mayo roll
thursday: curry and rice
friday: jacket potato or a roll.

we have a freezer full of bread rolls to use up so no cost there and the heinz pot, curry and rice were already in the cupboard from half hearted efforts at doing lunch last year.

i also bought lots of fruit and yogurt as snacks to graze on throughout the day. Bought cereal bars and malt loaf too as i wont have time to bake anything this week. i have various packs of seed and nut mix that need using up. i resisted buying chocolate bars or anything like that as we still have loadsof christmas goodies to use up.

bring it on!

bramble1

Nottoobadyet wrote: »

Shall we set up a proper challenge then? Should it under £1 for work food/drink?

Yep i think a challenge would be a good idea

bramble1

Right i've planned my lunches as follow

Monday - Chicken Noodles
Tuesday - Left over spag bol
Wednesday - Tuna Jacket potato
Thursday - Tuna Sarnie on homemade bread
Friday - Soup and homemade bread
Saturday - vegetable soup.

I'm taking the noodles and soup into work so that if i have some flexibility. But thats it!

for snacking, Cuppa soups, white tea, fruit tea.