Packed Lunch for work

SnowyOwl_2

Jenk, can I suggest that you have breakfast when you arrive at work? Maybe just a banana or something. In the days when I had an hour to hour and a half long commute I used to put some milk and home made museli in a tupperware box then eat that on arrival. I wasn't quite so ravenous at lunchtime if I had that, and therefore had a smaller lunch, so it worked well - perhaps it would work for you?

Make your pack up the night before...boring I know, but it's just a matter of routine plus a bit of planning when you do your shopping. It becomes second nature after a while. The added bonus of bringing your lunch to work with you is that you don't have to waste time queuing in Marks/Boots/Greggs etc so effectively you have a more relaxing break. I used to head to the library and have a free read for 45 minutes, or else go for a walk.

apple_mint

After finding OS and looking more closely at our budget, we were horrified at the cost of our lunches at work :eek: We easily spent £30 per week between two of us.

Now we take everything in with us and never spend money at work.

OH had to pay for cups of tea - 50p a go, so he now takes in a bottle of water which he refills from the water cooler (free).

We now have a breadmaker so make 5 seed bread and rolls (so always have something for sandwhich bases)

We keep a base stock of materials in the fridge for lunches (cottage cheese - 23p in Netto or Asda and mackeral in tomato sause 45p) for when we don't have any of the following:

Home made lamb and onion pasties (make six - 2 for hot meal and the 4 remaining for packed lunches)
Cook extra in the evening - left overs go into tupperware boxes to heat up at lunch next day (OH loves this) ... so this can be cold cooked sausages (to pop into to rolls), bolognese sauce, casserole, chicken thighs, cold pizza etc.

I sometimes take in some couscous and add ingredents ... tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms etc.

I make up boxes of salad and put on a plate with some mackeral in tomato sauce.

I take in a couple of slices of bread and make toast ... nice with cottage cheese.

Apprentice Tycoons Celery Soup (see recipe thread) is to die for and and I make batches of this, freeze and take into work when I'm running out of fresh stuff (also nice with toast to dunk in ) OH practically pleads for this!

Pop a jacket potato (pre-cooked) into the microwave in work for a couple of minutes and top with cottage cheese - a favorate of mine (people go out and pay £1.85 for this and mine costs a matter of pence).

It soon becomes a habit to do all this and OH and I often have the same amount in our purse/wallet on a Friday as we started out with on Monday.

Oh .. and we also buy lots of fruit to pop in our lunch boxes in the week. I have an apple/banana rather than a chocolate bar at 10.30.

Oh ... and HM muffins go down really well .. yum (and cost a lot less to make a whole batch than buying individual ones). You can make a batch at the weekend and freeze individual ones for the week. Just take out in the morning and they'll have defrosted by lunch time. You can even microwave for a few seconds to have a warm muffin

jcr16

if u normally buy a jacket spud , then why not take one with u to work and cook it in microwave at lunch time. of cook it night before at home and then just re-heat next day. u could add a variety of toppings and i expect u could spend less than £4 for the whole week if u did this.

HTH

charlies_mum

Instead of sandwiches, I cook pasta or rice the night before, and put it in a sealable bowl with salad, cooked meat or tuna and mayo or salad cream. It is really filling and everyone always says how appetising it looks.

Yorkielass

Apple_Mint - all those ideas are making me hungry now - so annoying that where I work we don't have a microwave so you can't take anything in to warm up and it's a 25 minute walk each way so I don't really want to be carrying heavy flasks around either.

I try very hard not to go to the shops/canteens etc (working at a University there's plenty of places to buy food :rolleyes: ) and we've been having porridge for breakfast which helps.

Confession time I bought some new things from Phillidelphia to try this week as they were on offer they've got some crackers, philllidephia and salsa - which is fine as we have a fridge - if I like this then I'll by the constituent parts and will do my own homemade ones every day :money:
Still 1 day of holiday left so don't want to think more about more today though

jenk_3

Excellent ideas everyone. I think Ive just got lazy and brought things because I just 'didnt' have the time lol.

Cereal for breakfast would be a good idea, healthy, quick and I can use the milk from work - bonus!

Making my own jacket spuds - easy and so stupid that i didnt think of doing it myself before and I also love the sound of pasta.

I just need to work out a shoppin glist now and get prepared and into a routine.
Thanks everyone

Emma

cattie

Having always been weight conscious my daily lunch at work was always 2 apples & a yoghurt in the summer & in the winter 2 apples & a cup a soup. Occasionally in the winter I'd have a change & have a jacket potato followed by an apple. We were lucky in that we had a microwave at work.

A guy I worked with would buy those packs of microwave chips & eat those along with a pastie or something similar.

Bogof_Babe

You could keep a small pack of cereal at work, to save lugging it around and remembering it each day. Bonus if you can use work's (free?) milk .

How about investing in a pack of Toastabags (Lakeland, or I got some similar ones from Homebase), and taking in a cheese and tomato sandwich which you can put in the toaster at work, making your own toasted sandwich. You could even heat up some baked beans in the microwave to go with it - a full meal for about 50p!

ti1980

Thanks for that BOGOF Babe, thats a brilliant idea. I definitely need to get some toastabags, I had two that I got when M&S did toastie sarnies for a while. They weren't specifically reuseable but I had no ill effects from doing so. Not sure what happened to them actually, think flatmates 'borrowed' them and probably left them at work or threw them away.

How much do they cost?

I'm also looking for ways to make lunch cheaper at work, I used to spend approx £3 day but now spend about £5-8 a week probably so will look at this thread with interest as I don't have breakfast in the morning but have a toaster at work and also a microwave for reheating.

kiwichick

When working in London I used to make lots of thick veg soup at weekend and freeze in serving sized containers that were microwavable. Take one out of freezer when you get in from work and you can grab it the next morning ready to defrost for lunch.