I got back from a weekend trip last night, so while I regroup, I thought I’d go with this older post about how packing a lunch for work can save you a bunch of money.  (I’ll have a brand new post tomorrow.)  I see people every day who I work with who spend $7 to $10 on lunch each day.  It’s amazing how much money you can keep by making small cutbacks in your daily routine. 

If you packed a lunch for work instead of buying lunch, you could save approximately $1,000 per year.  I pack a lunch and take it to work every day.  I would rather save that money and use it for something more productive….like a business or investing. 

I stated in an earlier post that the most significant roadblock to starting a business or maintaining a business in its early stages is the lack of money.  Very few people have the money required to start a business.  Whatever the case, starting a business can cost anywhere between several hundred dollars and several thousand dollars (and sometimes tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars).  This is a problem for many people because they do not have thousands of dollars, or even several hundreds of dollars, lying around. 

However, you CAN save a significant sum of money by cutting back in certain areas and saving over time.  If you identify several areas in your life where you can save money (such as money spent on clothes, electronics, cars, or eating out), and if you pledge to save the money spent in those areas, you will rapidly accumulate the seed money necessary to start a business. 

Packing and bringing lunch to work is a great way to save money.  Let’s take a look to see how much money you can save in one year by packing a lunch.

Let’s say that going out to lunch during a typical work day costs about $5 to $7.  Let’s average that out to $6 per day.  Per week, that amounts to:

$6/day x 5 (work days) = $30.

Thus, it costs $30 per week to buy lunch. 

Per month?  $30/week x 4 weeks = $120.

It costs $120 per month to buy lunch.  (That’s a cable bill for some people and a little less than a car payment for others.) 

How about per year?  $120/month x 12 months = $1,440.

It costs approximately $1,440 per year to buy lunch.  Whether that seems like a lot or a little, it nevertheless is a significantly useful sum of money. 

Now let’s figure out how much it costs to pack a lunch. 

To analyze this, I will use the traditional turkey sandwich as the lunch staple.  Let’s also throw in a fruit (apple? banana?) and a soda to round out the meal. 

Let’s calculate how many days of packed lunches we need.  There are 5 work days per week.  For numbers’ sake, let’s go with 4 weeks per month and 12 months per year (without taking holidays and days off into account). 

Thus, there are 20 work days per month (5 work days x 4 weeks), and 240 work days per year (20 work days x 12 months).  Thus, we need 240 days of packed lunches. 

As I mentioned above, we were going to have a turkey sandwich, an apple/banana, and a soda for our packed lunch.  For the turkey sandwich, we need bread, turkey, mustard (I can’t stand mayonaisse), and cheese.  Thus, the items we need are:

(1) bread, (2) turkey, (3) mustard, (4) cheese, (5) apples/bananas, and (6) soda.

Per day, we need 2 slices of bread, 3 slices of turkey, 1 serving of mustard, 1 slice of cheese, 1 apple/banana, and 1 soda. 

Per year, we need 480 slices of bread, 720 slices of turkey, 240 servings of mustard, 240 slices of cheese, 240 apples/bananas, and 240 sodas.

Bread: A pack of sliced bread costs, on average, about $1.50 and contains 20 slices.  For the year, you will need about 24 packs of bread.  The cost is 24 packs x $1.50 = $36.

Turkey: A pound of reasonably priced deli turkey costs about $5.00 and contains approximately 25 slices.  For the year, you will need about 29 pounds of sliced turkey.  The cost is 29 pounds x $5.00 = $145.

Mustard: A container of mustard costs about $2.00 and contains approximately 90 servings.  For the year, you will need about 2.5 containers of mustard.  The cost is 2.5 containers x $2.00 = $4.50.

Cheese: A pound of reasonably priced Swiss cheese costs about $6.00 and contains approximately 16 slices.  For the year, you will need about 15 pounds of sliced cheese.  The cost is 15 pounds x $6.00 = $90. 

Apples/Bananas: An apple costs $0.59, and a banana costs $0.29.  Assuming you bring an equal number of apples and bananas throughout the year, averaging the price of both equals a cost of $0.44.  For the year, you will need 240 apples/bananas.  The cost is 240 x $0.44 = $105.60.

Soda: A 12-pack of Coke costs about $3.00.  For the year, you will need 20 packs of Coke.  The cost is 20 packs x $3.00 = $60.

Alright, let’s recap.  Our total cost for packing lunch is as follows:

$36 (bread) + $145 (turkey) + $4.50 (mustard) + $90 (cheese) + $105.60 (apples/bananas) + $60 (soda) = $441.10.

Thus, it costs $441.10 per year to pack a lunch and bring it to work.  Recall that it costs approximately $1,440 per year to buy lunch.  Do the math, and you will see that you are saving a significant amount of money:

$1,440 – $441.10 = $998.90.

By packing your own lunch and bringing it to work, you will save $998.90 per year, or about $1000 annually!

With $998.90 in hand, you can drastically improve your business.  For instance, you can pay a web designer $500 to design a professional website.  You could spend about $100 on business cards and targeted mailings to promote your business.  You could spend part of the money on a professional to help you with search engine optimization.  In essence, it is money that you saved and can use in any number of ways to start, maintain, improve, or grow your business.   

Imagine if you picked 4 or 5 other areas in which you could save around $1,000 per year.  If you did that, you could save around $4,000 or $5,000 per year!  Rather than spend that money on assets that do not produce income, you would be investing it in a business that could produce high returns for you in the future.

It might seem like a drag to make your own lunch every day, but, in the end, it will pay off handsomely.  And your heavy pockets will help you feel better about it.   

Well, it’s almost lunch time for me.  I’m going to go eat my turkey sandwich. 

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