I get 1 hour off for lunch. It takes me 10 minutes to drive home and 10 minutes to drive back. That leaves me between 35 and 40 minutes to fix something for lunch, let cats in & out, and run any errands I may need to before heading back. I'm left with either eating leftovers, heating up a frozen sandwich, or stopping at a fast food joint.
Leftovers are fine until about the second or third day. After that I need something different.
The frozen sandwiches are prepackaged which means lots of sodium, preservatives, not much flavor, tons of calories...besides the fact that the bread gets weird from heating them up in the microwave. They're not cheap either.
Fast food is expensive and not necessarily "fast." I have been stuck in line so long that I had to take my lunch back to work and eat it and was still late...and that's ordering inside the store. The food, while rather tasty, is always stuffed with calories, high in sodium, and quite often filled with stuff that isn't good for you.
Last week I ate breakfast and lunch at fast food places...every day. At an average of $14 per day, I spent around $70 for five days. Lunch alone costed between $40 and $50 for the week. Ridiculous! By Friday I was so done with fast food. So...I devised a plan.
One of my favorite things to eat is Salads, but I rarely eat them. It's a "time" issue. I tried just buying cheap salads at the fast food joint, but always seem to get lured in by the tasty looking pictures of those damn burgers and chicken sandwiches (yes, I am weak.) However, making a salad at home takes time too, I came up with an alternative to test out next week.
I bought everything I needed to make my own salads to eat for lunch and dinner next week.
My shopping trip:
Aldi's
Two containers of strawberries for $1.79 each. (They were cheaper than what Harris Teeter had.)
One jar of cashews for $9.99. ( put these in snack bags to take as a snack at work)
One box of Gallon Storage bags - 17 count - for $1.59. They were just cheaper here than anywhere else.
Harris Teeter
One container Salad Greens for $3.99. In retrospect, I should have bought two as I can only get three meals out of one container.
One bag Craisins at $2.79.
Two dozen eggs which were buy one get one free or 2 for $1.89.
Two bags Shredded Cheese - 2 for $5.00
Walmart
Two packs flavored individual Tuna - $1.49 each
I managed to get three salads out of the mix which made and put in gallon storage bags. To that I added about an ounce of Craisins and 1 1/2 ounces of shredded cheese. I'm guessing I can get around 25 - 30 servings out of that one bag of Craisins and 15 - 20 out of the cheese. Next I cut up my strawberries and got 8 snack bags out of the two containers I bought (after taking the tops and any bruised parts off.) That comes out to about .44 per salad. I'll boil the eggs and use 1/2 and egg per salad which is 4.5 cents per salad.
So far the cost of my salad is about $1.70. Add .75 for 1/2 a pack of tuna and .20 for dressing and my entire lunch will cost $2.65. Pretty awesome. My cost for lunch for the whole week will be about $14.00 which is what I spent in one day last week.
I'm replacing my fast food breakfasts with either oatmeal or grits each morning.
Not only will I be saving money, but...I'll have a healthy meal ready for me to just pour in a bowl and leisurely enjoy as I step away from the "crazy" for just a little while each day.
