Ja-NEW-ary 2013 - Take your lunch to work thread

Trim_my_budget

Just looking back at all these fantastic posts make me think there is going to be a lot of sandwich shops with their profits taking a plunge!! Glad I'm not the only one with a serious coffee habit - kind of comforting to know you are not alone!:o

Trim_my_budget

Florida2013 wrote: »

Morning all,

Breakfast made (and eaten!) and lunch packed so I'm all set for another day of not buying lunch at work. I've saved almost £30 this week


I'm come to realise that I'm unlikely to contribute anything to this thread other than tell you I've made yet another ham sandwich! Cooking and recipes are not really my forte - hope this is ok.

impressive amount saved in week!:T

juno

I have found a lot of tins of soup in my cupboard, so today's lunch is half a tin of mushroom soup (am annoyed - it said "contents 400g" so I weighed 200g into a pot, then poured the rest into another pot for another day, but that only came to 178g :eek:)

Am also having chocolate from a selection box I got cheap - 78p, and I got 3 normal sized bars (crunchie, flake, caramel) and some smaller items (buttons, fudge, one of those small dairy milk bars).

Have also added apple and box of raisins. I love raisins, but box raisins are bad - they coat them in some weird stuff. Still, I bought them, so I will eat them.

I realise I'm not doing the lunch thing as moneysavingly as possible, but for me it's more about getting out of the buying mindset. I find if I take lunch I can avoid shopping the whole day, but if I have to buy lunch I end up buying random things I don't need on top. I can easily spend £10 just on lunch and silly things

So I think I shall be put down for £40 savings.

Shortie wrote: »

I woke up late this morning and found the remaining pasta bake had been eaten (that'll teach me not to presume, lol)

Once I bought one of those posh Rumblers oat yoghurt things - where you get a pot of yoghurt and a pot of oat clusters and you tip one into the other. Was really looking forward to having it for breakfast. The next morning I couldn't find it in the fridge, then saw the empty pot in the bin - my dad had eaten it for me

Carcluster

Certainly for January this is a biggie for me (not only Christmas this December, but bought a [used!] car and all of the "extra that involves; insurance, road tax, parking permit!).

I plan to buy a loaf of bread on a Monday and 5 tins of soup (from a supermarket, not a lunchy/snack shop) and stick with that till payday.

Keeping the stuff in my work drawer too to side-step my regular "not enough time to make something" in the morning!

MrsPorridge

I keep some sachets of Oatso Simple in my desk at work - we are lucky enough to have milk bought for us - and this is great as a quick lunch or mid-morning snack.

Shortie

juno wrote: »

I realise I'm not doing the lunch thing as moneysavingly as possible, but for me it's more about getting out of the buying mindset.

Once I bought one of those posh Rumblers oat yoghurt things - where you get a pot of yoghurt and a pot of oat clusters and you tip one into the other. Was really looking forward to having it for breakfast. The next morning I couldn't find it in the fridge, then saw the empty pot in the bin - my dad had eaten it for me

I think this is a very good point. Okay, so when I posted up my 'money I could waste this month' amount I was shocked to see it written down, but even if it was just £1 a day, making it closer to £20, you've very right, it's about the mind set.

For me this means two things: Saving money, and routine. I hope to (1) save money by (a) not spending through the nose for food, and I'm hoping my existing grocery budget can stretch to cover my lunches (b) getting out of the habit of spending being the norm, and when I look at my bank account each month lunches are the highest percentage of my spends, so are 'my norm' IYSWIM? (2) the routine will hopefully help focus me (I have been fairly out of focus on many things for the last year) and when the routine becomes more natural I'll pay more attention to what I'm eating and eat much healthier and lose some weight - that way I won't feel punished by the double whammy of 'diet' food at the same time as not having the mini high of going out and buying my lunch. I will only have the 'diet' food issue to contend with


Oh no! That was gutting about the Rumbler!

Shortie

I have a feeling I will be raiding the biccies before home time - not through hunger but [STRIKE]boredom [/STRIKE]being more focussed on the end of the day than I should be.

Lunch has been eaten, and my snack, whoops. Clearly this is where I need healthier snacks


Hey, does anyone remember around 10-12 years ago there were things called (I think) snack pots? I rememebr them as I worked in Mr T at the time while I was at Uni... they were dried mashed potato with dehydrated bits added to them. Not healthy I realise but quite tasty, especially if you needed food to travel with that just needed hot water. Does anyone else ever make anything similar that doesn't need pre cooking, using smash? I'm a tad flummouxed - garvy I can see that working, adding scraps of meat from a roast (kept in a seperate bag and added after the mash has rehydrated) but onion would need to be pre-softened, and... well.. I'm having a total blank suddenly on how they could work in a hugely lazy work lunch way?

quantic

I decided to start taking my lunches to work about 2 years ago when I quit smoking, double down on the savings so to speak. Have saved an absolute fortune but does nobody else get sick of packed lunches! Finding it very boring now!

laura16_2

I have managed to not spend anything on lunchs for work this week, it's a bit different for me because I get money from work to pay for it I'm just trying not to go over

mineallmine

AFK_Matrix wrote: »

Ha lol well the ultimate sin is to go to the canteen and have their cooked breakfast which is soooo yummy but bad on the wallet and especially the waist line lol :eek:

So I can have a sausage roll, a cake, a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps etc. NOT all at once before anyone says anything lol. But if I get this lunch thing under control then I may well try getting some toast from the canteen instead as its like 37p for some toast!

Ditto!

How about making a cooked breakfast a once a week routine. So you still get to enjoy it but say on just a Friday instead?

How much does a cooked breakfast cost and how much that work out roughly each month and over the year? *I am of course applying the MSE demotivator here