海角大神

I was fascinated by聽at Lifehacker聽about whether brown-bagging your lunch is really much of a money saver. There were enough good points made on both sides that it really made me question whether or not brown-bagging really is a money saver.

After thinking through the question and running the numbers on quite a few different scenarios, I鈥檝e concluded that,聽yes, brown bagging can save you money consistently聽if聽you do it right.

Let鈥檚 walk through the discussion step-by-step.

First of all,聽brown bag lunches aren鈥檛 free.聽No matter what, when you consume food, it has a cost. The entire argument for brown-bagging your lunch isn鈥檛 that it鈥檚 free, but that the cost is lower than buying your lunch at a restuarant.

So, to establish whether a brown bag lunch is cheaper,聽you have to compare the cost of that meal to the cost of eating other lunch options.

If you鈥檙e brown-bagging it and bringing something from home to eat, it usually falls into one of three categories.

You鈥檙e bringing leftovers.聽You鈥檝e bagged up a portion of your meal from last night and bringing that to work. In this case, the cost of your meal is the total cost of last night鈥檚 dinner divided by the number of meals you got out of it. So, if last night鈥檚 dinner covered dinner for your four family members plus your lunch today, then you divide the total cost by five to get the cost of your leftover lunch.

You鈥檙e bringing a prepared meal.聽You picked up a bagged salad or a frozen meal and now you鈥檙e bringing it to work. The cost of this is obvious.

You鈥檙e bringing a meal you made from scratch.聽You made some sandwiches or a simple dish at home that you鈥檙e now bringing to work. Again, the cost of this is easy to calculate.

The cost here varies a lot. If you鈥檙e bringing some leftover bean soup and cornbread from home, you鈥檙e likely spending far less than $1 for your meal. If you鈥檙e bringing in half of your meal from a restaurant the night before, the cost might easily be $8-10.

The cost of your brown bag lunch is very much determined by the food choices you make.

Of course, at the same time,聽the cost of eating out for lunch is very much determined by the food choices you make.聽If your lunch consists of a single cheeseburger off of the 鈥渄ollar menu鈥� at a local fast food restaurant along with a cup of water, you might be spending as little as $1 for lunch. On the other hand, if you鈥檙e going out to lunch at a higher-end restaurant, you can easily be dropping $20 at your lunch meal.

Given these things,聽you can easily create cases where it鈥檚 far cheaper to eat out than it is to brown bag it.聽If you鈥檙e comparing a well-prepared homemade meal to a value menu cheeseburger and a cup of water, the value menu cheeseburger is going to be cheaper.

What you鈥檙e really looking for is the average, and the only way to figure that out is to look at聽your聽actual habits.

What do you actually spend when you eat out for lunch? What is the cost of that meal when you brown bag it?

Over and over again, I鈥檝e compared my own eating habits and it鈥檚 not even close. Brown bagging isdrastically聽cheaper than eating out.

As I鈥檝e mentioned before, I eat out a couple times a week with professional associates and friends. The rest of the time, I eat leftovers or simple meals at home. On rare occasions, I鈥檒l grab a convenient meal when I鈥檓 away from home.

Upon reading those comments, I sat down to calculate my averages for the past week. I had to make some assumptions as to the overall cost of some of my homemade dishes, but I found receipts for every meal I ate out for lunch.

The average cost of brown bagging it (eating lunch without going out) was $2.45, as near as I could calculate. The average cost of eating out was $8.80.

Why did it wind up that way? To put it simply,聽virtually everything I eat at home is far less expensive than the cost of similar quality food at restaurants.

奥丑测?听Restaurants have overhead, of course.聽They have staff to pay and profit to earn and that鈥檚 added onto your bill.

Naturally, I could have eaten out for less, but I wouldn鈥檛 have been satisfied with my meals. I could have spent more on the brown bags as well, but again, I spent as much as would produce a satisfying lunch.

It鈥檚 all about the individual choices you make and brown bagging your lunch simply opens the door to a聽lot聽of options that are less expensive than eating out.

That鈥檚 why brown bagging will always be a great choice for frugal-minded people: there are more cheap options with brown bagging that meet your other lunch needs (flavor, health, etc.).

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