Why you should stop ordering lunch

Bread and butter by andreas160578

Back from my business trip and ready to go! For today just a short post, but a useful one. (I hope!) Did you ever think about how much money you can save by preparing your own lunch?

To me it's pretty natural to make my own lunch instead of ordering, so it surprises me that an overwhelming majority of my colleagues order lunch. If you are also ordering your food and looking for (easy) ways to save money, this is a good place to start.

Of course, it all depends on what you would prepare and what you order, but I will describe my own situation. I'll slightly simplify the numbers, but the result is so clear, that it doesn't matter that the numbers are not very precise.

Let's say we work 20 days a month (5 days/week, 4 weeks/month), and we need lunch every day.

Situation 1: ordering lunch
If I order a (pretty sober) sandwich, I'd have to pay 2,50€ per day. So 20 * 2.5 = 50€/month.

Situation 2: preparing lunch
Personally, I prepare my lunch. For this I buy 1 bread, 1 pack of cheese, 1 pack of meat slices and 1 spread per week. All of those things cost approximately 2€, so 2€ * 4 = 8€. 8€ * 4 weeks = 32€/month.

Savings
If I would leave the numbers like this, this would mean I already save 18€/month, but it gets even better.
At the end of the workweek, there is usually enough food left for me and my partner to also eat in the weekend, so let's say I only eat 2/3 of those 32€ at work. 32€ * 2/3 = 21,33€. I'll even round it up to 22€/month. Which means I save 28€/month by preparing my own lunch. Another way to look at it: ordering lunch costs more than double the amount of preparing it yourself!

Bigger picture
Ok, 28€ might not even seem like that much to you. (Although, with that money I can buy another month of lunches at work.) Well, let's say we're working about 10 months/year (subtracting 2 months of holidays, sick days, business trips...). By this logic, you would save 280€/year. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like a nice amount of money to get for just taking the effort of bringing bread, cheese, meat and spread to work. (I even just prepare my lunch at lunchtime, that way I don't even have to take time in the morning to do it!)

Side-notes:
I'm not saying you should never order lunch anymore. If you like to have that special sandwich once in a while: go for it! :) Do whatever you want, I just want to point out that small actions can help you save a nice amount of money in the end.

What's next?
It might help that you make this kind of calculations for yourself, and that you try to figure out on what (small) items you frequently spend money. A take-out coffee? Soda or candy from vending machines? Think about how you can replace or remove these kinds of spending. Can you buy the candy/drinks from a shop instead? Do you have free coffee at work, or could you make coffee at home?

I hope you enjoyed this insight. Are you going to put this in practice? Or do you already have small, smart ways to save money? Let us know in the comments!