Brown Bagged: Packing Lunch And Cooking Dinner Might Make You Rich

Stopping for a $5 foot long sandwich at Subway a few times a week seems like a harmless act during the work week. The same could be said for running short on time and stopping at a restaurant after work, as opposed to going home and cooking yourself something for dinner. Time usually leads to spending money on food for lunch and dinner, whether packing your lunch skips your mind or dinner just isn't going to get done with a 12 hour work day. The average lunch costs you around $6-10, while dinner checks in at $15-20. If you hit the Subway mentioned above three times per week and dinner at a restaurant happens at that same rate, you'll spend roughly $80 per week on lunch and dinner. That means $4,000 per year is spent on food that isn't going into your refrigerator or bought at a grocery store. That's important to keep in mind because that $4,000 has to be accounted for within the confines of your budget. That money comes right off your net income each year, and you still have to set aside money for the essentials within the home: milk, bread, eggs, etc. If time hampers your best intentions to keep your food budget in check, you can employ simple rules to make sure not even your rambunctious routine will get in the way. If you're trying to pack your lunch in the morning before work, you're asking for restlessness and failure as far as not spending money unnecessarily throughout the day. The best bet is packing your lunch after you've made dinner and before you've cleaned up the kitchen for the night. You already have all your dinner ingredients out, so why not grab something for a sandwich and add something simple, like an apple, banana and bottled water to finish off an easy to make lunch. As far as dinner goes, two words come to mind: crock pot. This invention was created exclusively for those who don't have time to prep dinner and would instead come home to a home-cooked meal. There are so many delicious, healthy recipes to choose from, and what could be more natural than popping in some meat, veggies and a potato, and having a remarkably irresistible dinner waiting for you no matter what time you get home. Like anything that works flawlessly from an execution standpoint, planning is pertinent and paramount to ensuring you're not spending undue cash on consuming food you can prepare and make for a whole lot less.