Quick and Easy Lunches for Work that won’t Break the Bank

It’s the middle of the day and you are starving, so it must be lunch time. If you are like 90% of Americans, you are likely to trying to figure out where to go to buy your lunch. A survey by Fooda recently, says that most people eat out for lunch at least 1 day a week.

In general, if you were to take your lunch to work every day or even 3 times a week, you could save so much money. We sometimes forget that even $5 here and $10 there, can really add up. Packing your own lunch is not only a huge savings in money, but it can also help you eat healthier and also eliminate food waste!

What does the average American spend on lunch?

According to a recent survey by Visa, the average American spends about $53 a week eating out for lunch at work. That totals up to about $2750 a year spent just on lunch! I don’t know about you, but an extra almost $3000 in my budget could definitely help out a lot.

If you took your lunch to work just 3 times a week and ate out only 2 days a week, that would still save you an average of $1650 a year. The trick to really making a change in spending habits is to start small and build up on it.

Starting to take your lunch to work 1-3 times a week, can be just the push that you need to really cut down on your spending. According to Statistica, the average lunch meal costs $11.14 in 2015, so I am sure that number is actually higher now with inflation and rising food costs.

Even if you only spend $5 a day on lunch, that savings can really add up over a month. This money could be used for wants like vacations and sinking funds, or it could be used to pay off debt faster.

How to Save Money on Lunch

To really find out how much money you can save on lunch, you have to go back and find out exactly how much you have been spending. A lot of people are surprised at exactly how much they spend while at work on not only lunch, but also snacks and drinks from the vending machine.

Small changes to your daily habits are key to making big changes in your budget. Take a look at the last 3 months of your bank and credit card statements, and then total up all the money you spend on lunch and snacks at work.

If we can get into the habit of packing a lunch and throwing in some cheap snacks, we can really start seeing some improvement in our spending habits. Examples of cheap snacks to have at work would be fruit that is in season, vegetables and dressing or dip, nuts and dried fruits, or just plain crackers.

If you catch yourself hitting the vending machine for a drink every afternoon, consider bringing your own sodas or bottled water. My husband keeps a case of water in his truck so whenever he is thirsty, he has a drink ready to go instead of spending money at the vending machine or convenience store.

Even if you just cut the amount of money, you have previously spent in half, that can be a huge improvement. Others may decide to go even further and try to cut it out completely, but I suggest you start small and build up. Just like doing a No Spend Day Challenge, it is best to start out with slowly reducing your spending or you may not be able to maintain the change long term.

10 Thrifty Lunch Ideas to Save Money

Packing your lunch and saving money will come down to habits. Going out to fast food/restaurants and buying lunch at work has become a habit, so in order to cut down or cut it out, we need to set up new habits. I would suggest determining if you want to pack your lunch the night before, meal prep all your lunch for the week on Sunday or pack your lunch in the morning.

Once you know when you will be preparing your lunch, now you can start thinking outside the lunch box. Part of the fun of eating out, is that it is super tasty! So, let’s not bring the boring to work lunches, let’s eat some tasty and healthy options. Here are my top 10 ideas for taking lunch to work:

1. Leftovers– The most obvious and cheapest way to take a lunch to work, is to simply take leftovers from the night before. If you don’t typically have leftovers, you can add more to your dinner meals at nights with beans and vegetables to make them stretch further. For instance, we like to add a can of diced tomatoes to dishes like spaghetti or chili to make them heartier and make the portions go further. You can also easily add black beans or kidney beans to Mexican style dishes to make them more robust and flavorful!
2. Baked Potato– Buying a bag of potatoes is very cheap and they occasionally go on super sale for a 5lb or 8lb bag. If you precook the potatoes in the microwave the night before and let them cool, it is very easy to slice them in half, put a couple pads of butter, add salt & pepper, and add some toppings. We love to add leftover chili with cheese, extra broccoli from dinner, leftover bacon or imitation bacon buts, or just add some sour cream in a separate small container. When you are at work, all you have to do is microwave until hot, and you have a very hearty and filling lunch for very cheap.
3. Pasta– Whether it is leftover pasta dinner or if you make up a special pasta just for lunch, taking pasta to work is very filling and a great way to use up leftovers and cheap ingredients. My friend Meagan loves to precook pasta, add some jarred alfredo sauce, some canned chicken or leftover grilled chicken, and a couple dashes of buffalo chicken wing sauce for some Buffalo Chicken Pasta. There are so many ways to make cheap pasta dishes tasty and easy to take to lunch!
4. Rice Bowls– I have recently become obsessed with rice bowls! You can start with any rice you have on hand like plain white rice, yellow rice, brown rice, etc. Then add some veggies and any leftover meat like chicken, pork, steak, or ground beef. We add a small squeeze bottle of yum-yum sauce (like at a Japanese steak house) or a few packets of soy sauce. This could be the most brilliant way to rework leftovers and have an awesome tasting lunch.
5. Salad– If you buy a head of lettuce and cut it yourself, you can have enough salad for a whole week! Don’t buy the precut stuff because you will end up with less and it doesn’t last as long. We wash the lettuce and then put it in a galloon size ziploc style bag and squeeze most of the air out. Salads can be made the night before or first thing in the morning, and we put the dressing in a little squeeze container we found at the Dollar Tree. You can add any vegetables that you like (tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, etc.), throw in some cheese, maybe some croutons, and any leftover meat like ham, chicken, or ground beef. This is a great option to use some hard-boiled eggs and lunch meat too. Super filling and healthy for a cheap lunch especially in the summertime when we can use vegetables from our garden!
6. Wraps & Pita Bread – sick of the same old sandwich on the same old bread? Try out some new options like tortilla wraps and pita pockets. I like to buy these when they are on super sale, and it’s a great way to make less messy sandwiches if you are taking egg salad, tuna salad, ham salad, etc.
7. Soups & Stews– During the fall and wintertime, it is so easy to make a nice soup or stew with ingredients you already have on hand. I like to make pantry & freezer soup with odds and ends that I want to use up. Really you can’t go wrong with soups full of veggies, beans, or meat. Add in some leftover rice, plain pasta, or chopped up potato to make it more filling. We usually make super easy drop biscuits or cornbread to go with the soup, but you can also take any bread that you like too!
8. Chili-Chili is another great option during the fall and wintertime. You can make a traditional style chili or make one that is chicken/turkey based or vegan style. You can also make chili with ground pork, sausage, and deer meat. Chili really makes it easy to use whatever you have on hand! Throw in some corn chips or tortilla chips, cheese, and sour cream and this is a super filling option.
9. Ramen Noodles– we all have been so broke that we resorted to eating ramen noodles, but now we just make it fancier! I love to take 1/2 a cup frozen soup vegetables, leftover meat, and a hardboiled egg and add it to my ramen noodles to really jazz them up. You can also add a splash of sesame oil or other additions like mushrooms or green onions.
10. Casseroles– Casseroles are really overlooked, but these meals are meant to take a little and feed a lot. Some of my favorite casserole style meals are Chili Mac (leftover chili combined with macaroni & cheese, and tomatoes), Chicken and Dumplings (vegetable mix, gravy, chicken, and biscuit mix) and Egg Based Quiches (mix in any leftover meats, cheese, and vegetables then bake in the oven with or without a crust.

If you don’t have access to a microwave at work, check out this article “Lunch Ideas for Men who work Outside.” It has 21 ideas for packing lunches that don’t require heating up the meal in a microwave.

Save Money and Calories by Packing your Lunch

So your super stoked and ready to start packing your lunches to save some money, and that is great! Did you know that packing your lunch for work, can also help your waistline?

The average lunch meal at a restaurant is going to have 1000 calories, while a packed lunch tends to average about 500-700 calories. This could mean that you will eat probably 1500 calories less per week, just by packing a lunch every day.

When I worked in a corporate setting, I noticed that very rarely did anyone ever take home any leftover lunch from a restaurant. They didn’t want to deal with the box and most said they usually ended up forgetting it at work instead of taking it home any way. That means we are actually paying more for the portion of food that we did eat because we didn’t eat our whole meal.

Food waste is a huge problem and Feeding America estimates that Americans throw out 108 billion pounds of food every year. The more shocking part is that 39% of that total food waste is just from throwing away food at home, stores, and restaurants. By using up leftovers from home and not throwing out uneaten food, we can actually make a huge impact on food waste.

When you really look at it, packing your lunch can not only save you money, but it can help you eat healthier and help the environment with less food waste!