Make Extra for Lunch Leftovers

The following Everyday Savings Tip comes from, Haley:

I have always considered myself to be frugal, possibly even cheap. I never thought about how much money I wasted on eating lunch at a fast food restaurant to simply “get out of the office” for an hour each day.

I recently got a new job where I am allowed to leave 30 minutes early if I eat at my desk (talk about motivation!!). I decided to start bringing my lunch to work each day. I started out with things like PB&J or premade meals (Lean Cuisine or Lunchable-type options). Soon I realized that I could do better than that!!

My husband and I cook dinner almost every night. I spend my precious time each week gathering deals and coupons so I can price-match everything at the store getting healthy foods for my family to eat. So our decision was to make extra food each evening and then take the leftovers to work the next day!

This is so simple. Instead of cooking two full chicken breasts, you cook three, and put one away for lunch the next day. Instead of making 1 cup of rice you make 1 1/2 cups of rice and put away one serving for lunch the next day.

We used to spend (on average) about $6 EACH on lunch every day ($12 per day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year). That is $3120 per year!! Now I can eat healthy foods, quickly and easily and I get to leave earlier too! If I absolutely need to get out of the office (and let's face it we all have those days!) then I can warm up my food at the office and take it to the park and just relax a bit while I eat. It's a win-win!

I don't know why I didn't do this earlier except I thought it was going to be a lot of work to make a lunch every day for me and the hubs. It's sooooo easy!

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