Money Mondays- Lunch Savings

You got up early, brushed your teeth, got dressed and stuffed something into your mouth. You tried your best not to run every light in town as you made your way to work, yoga class, or even to drop off the children to school. Did you forget your lunch?

This same time last year, ABC news publish an article about the expenses Americans rack up with purchasing lunch. Have you considered what you spend a week if you purchased your lunch from a restaurant or the company's cafe? According to the article, Men spent an average of $46.50 a week and women spent an average of $26.50. When you total that up you are looking at $2000 a year! Was that in your yearly budget? Chances are, you didn't plan to spend $2000 a year for individual meals.

How can you combat that? Create lunch at home. Like every family, we starting making sandwiches with a side of fruit, chips and granola bars for lunch. That was boring and resulting in one or both of us buying lunch through out the week. Then my family has tried doubling the amount made for dinner and taking the extras for lunch. This worked for a while until one of us wanted something different the next day. So what was our solution? An in dept Sunday grocery run!

Every Sunday, my husband and I come up with meals throughout the week for both breakfast, lunch and dinner. We make sure all of our meals function for more than one meal. We have saved lots of money because we don't get bored and we don't buy our lunch. Breakfast is easy so below is an example for lunch and dinner:

Dinner one night: Whole Baked chicken, broccoli, boiled red potatoes, french bread
Lunch one day: Chicken melt sandwich on left over french bread with chips, homemade cookies, fruit
Lunch second day: Chicken tacos with carrots, fruit and pita chips
Dinner second night: Meatloaf, carrots, spinach, and mashed red potatoes
Lunch third day: Burgers (from reserved meatloaf) with cookies and pita chips
Dinner third day: Pan seared salmon, feta spinach orzo
Lunch fourth day: Salmon spinach salad with feta cheese and carrot pieces

Do you get the point? There are about 12 items in that week's grocery list and it satisfied 7 meals! We are not perfect though! We do purchase lunch about twice a month, and it's usually on Fridays. I understand making lunch throughout the week is time consuming but the principal that 'time is money' doesn't equate any more. Purchasing to save time is more money! In the evenings, get all hands involved and lunch will take less than 20 minutes to put together.

This has been your Money Monday Tip!