Packed Lunch for work

foxgloves

You'll save loads.....we wroked out we were spending up to £2000 a year because we always popped out to M&S to buy stuff. I agree with all the suggestions above. For a change from sandwiches, I often cook a bit extra rice, pasta or couscous and mix it with whatever I fancy with a bit of dressing & salad for the next day. It doesn't take long & you can feel nicely smug when everyone's coming back from the shops with bags of food they've bought. Husband has access to microwave at work, so I often just shove a portion in a plastic freezer container & freeze it. Then he can have a 'free' hot lunch.

glider3560

foxgloves wrote: »

you can feel nicely smug when everyone's coming back from the shops with bags of food they've bought

Its a good feeling isn't it! Thinking about how much money you've saved when other people are spending £2+ for what you've made for <50p!

I've been brought up with the idea of always taking a packed lunch. Right from when I was at school, the idea seems to have stuck in my mind since then. Now I'm at university and doing part-time work, I'm still taking my own packed lunch and saving plenty of money. Also make my own lunch for train journeys, which saves an absolute fortune.

babie_gurl

Hi im new to this so sorry if theres already a post !
in my debt diary i am spending far tooo much on food for work so any ideas of exciting lunch boxs i can take to work
i get board if sarnies and i do love to cook so any ideas most welcome !!!
thanks b

Lindy_-_Loo

Hiya, there are some other threads on the forums about lunch box ideas but not sure where.

if you enjoy cooking would you maybe take pasta with tuna and sweetcorn of a dressing that you have made?

do you ever have leftovers that you could use or soup?

not very interesting I know! Before i had the boys i got bored of sandwiches daily too

xx

caitybabes

Do you have a microwave at work? If you do, make double portions of dinner and take some for lunch the next day.

If not, this still works well for some dinners (pizza, pasta). If you don't have a microwave at work you could buy a food flask which opens up a range of soups, casserole leftovers etc.

Cold lunches: wraps always seem much more exciting than sandwiches for some reason and you can fill them with loads of salad and normal sandwich fillings. Could take crudites and dip/hummous with some pitta bread?

Packed lunches will end up being far more exciting than shop bought stuff, honest.

Pasta salads (pesto and yoghurt with cucumber and rocket and salmon is a yummy one) but good old tuna and sweetcorn mayo is reliable.

Cold curried rice is yummy too, with roasted veg or salad plus some chicken maybe.

Can you tell it's nearly lunchtime and I'm super hungry?... getting carried away with my stomach now. HTH

peb

It does help if you have a microwave at work; at the moment I am happy with sandwiches but when I get fed up with them I can take:-

1. homemade spinach and potato curry; with a pitta bread in the toaster
2. homemade soup; usually leek and potato as it is so easy!
3. homemade risotto - usually mushroom when I have chicken stock
4. Houmous and pitta bread.

Always some fruit and often crisps or/and chocolate - if I buy a multipack it stops me going out and buying at full retail price.

Also I tend to keep a tin of soup in my desk drawer for emergencies.

hth

Pink.

Hi babie gurl,

There's an earlier thread with lots of ideas for alternatives to sandwiches which should help so I've added your thread to it to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

vicki+1

anyone got any ideas about money saving pack lunches. Not overly keen on sandwiches, or reheated food, although i can use a microwave at work, Costing me a fortune keep popping to the coop

ralloctiger

packed lunches are the bain of my life. Girls aren't keen on sandwiches. I buy t's value half baked baguettes (2 for 35 or 39p cant remember exactly lidl ones are cheap too) and cook in the morning cool by the window and fill with left over meat/cheese/salad /eggs I buy wraps and pittas and do the same. rice salad is loved ,soup in a flask I just take leftovers very strange mix sometimes.
For a sweet fix I bake and freeze in correct portion size so I can just take out what I need and a bit of fruit.

piglet6

Hi Vicki

If you don't like sandwiches, what kind of things are you buying each day? Pasta/rice/couscous/bulgar wheat salads are easy to make, and you can add almost anything you fancy to them. Alternatively, if it is just sliced bread that you don't like, you could try wraps/pittas/bagels.

If this doesn't appeal, you could try crudites and dips, or maybe a ploughman's-type meal with cheese and pickle (maybe served with sliced apple if you don't fancy the bread element).

P x