On Lunches

OK. So I had a good, long run of always making my lunches and brown-bagging my way through the first several months at my job. Then something happened–something for which I blame the complete change in my habit: Takeout-Taxi.

One day, we thought we’d try it, based on the coupons we kept getting. And we liked it.

My department has developed this horrible, wonderful habit of ordering food. Sometimes we have it delivered. Sometimes we take turns picking it up. Sometimes we spend our whole half-hour lunch break driving there and back together. Potluck Thursdays have been awesome, but the ring leader is leaving (so sad! this salary freeze stinks). So we’re back where we started, wanting to order out.

Every day is like another decision: should I order out, or should I eat what I packed? The nearby restaurants are endless, and it’s fun. The thing is that I often feel guilty because it’s not something I’m planning for ahead of time. OK, here’s what I know:

1) Making my lunch saves me money, takes time and tastes good (usually).
2) Ordering out costs money, saves time and tastes good (basically always).

I don’t know.

In trying to decide what I should do about this, I looked through my Mint records. And this is a great example of why it pays to track my spending: I’ve only spent $473 on eating out since January, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t so bad. I don’t count treating someone else to food/meal/coffee as eating out, but as a gift. So having only spent $78ish* dollars a month on average (when $85 is my budget), I think this is OK.

(*Wow, I can’t do math. Why was I thinking we were in the sixth month of the year? I actually have spent about $94/month, which is still fairly close to my budget, but I need to be careful about going over. May’s not even over yet!)