Wwhow, look at these savings!

Do you buy your lunch everyday? If so brown bagging it can save you a bundle. You work hard for your money and need to make every dollar stretch, and taking your lunch can add up to big savings.

If you spend $5 a weekday eating out, in a week you’ve spent $25, in a month $125, and in a year a whopping $1500! Your wallet would be a little thicker if you took inexpensive home prepared lunches to work. If you are a fast food junkie, and you started taking your lunch just one day a week, in a year you would still save $260. Again, this is estimating you spend $5 on lunch, if you usually spent more on eating lunch out, you will save more by bringing your lunch.

Plan ahead for your lunches. When you go to the grocery store have a list of lunch items you will need for the week. If you are thrifty you will be able to take a complete lunch for around $1. Even if you end up spending $10 on lunch items for the week, that’s only $2 a day, a $3 savings per day over fast food.

Some inexpensive lunch options are:

• -Sandwiches
• -Soups
• -Salads
• -Fruit
• -Veggies
• -Wraps
• -Leftovers
• -Microwave options costing around $1
• -Instant ramen noodles in a cup

Do you hate sandwiches? Maybe you just dislike plain sandwiches, try sprucing your lunch up with fancy bakery bread from the grocery store. Bakery bread, or even buns, can be around the same price as a regular loaf of bread.  Also try a new sauce instead of plain old mayo or mustard.

There are other options besides sandwiches. The day I took a potato to work was the day I had grown men following me around drooling over my sacked lunch. I had pre-baked the potato, heated it up at work with butter and cheese, and added sour cream. Other frugal non-sandwich options are soup, salads, wraps, leftovers from the night before, ramen noodles, and those budget TV dinners you see on sale for around $1.

Are you the kind of person who loves their side dishes? Cheese, fruit, salad, veggies, applesauce, yogurt, raisins, and chips are easy and inexpensive if bought the right way. Never buy the individual serving sizes, always buy the bigger size and repack in sandwich baggies or little re-usable containers. It’s also cheaper and healthier to make your own salad rather than buy prepared ones.

Bringing your lunch from home not only saves you big bucks, but can also save you time. You don’t have to leave the office, commute, stand in line at a food restaurant, or come all the way back. Just pull out your lunch, heat if needed, and enjoy! Putting your lunch together at home can take a few minutes, but if you pack it the night before or pack several days worth at once at the beginning of the week you won’t be rushed in the morning. Soon you’ll discover that taking your lunch not only saves you money, but it tastes good too!