I love food. And I love breaks.

That’s why I love lunch breaks.

I also usually get some sort of noodle dish — something I try to stay away from — because I love em and they are life.

But something I’ve been in denial for months is how much I am spending on these lunches. I buy lunch almost daily, and yesterday, as I sat down, waiting for my Thai lunch special to be made, I realized that I have have been literally eating my money away.

Let’s do the math. My lunch (+ breakfast/snacks) costs around $12/day. So:

$12 x 5 = $60 per week

$60 x 4 = $240 per month

$240 x 12 = $2880 for the whole year. 

Almost $3000. And that’s not even counting the weekly dinner takeouts. So basically I am doing this with my money.

And not only that, I eat about 1000 calories in the middle of the day, totally cancelling out my somewhat healthy breakfast and dinner.

So.

I need to packing my lunch and be an adult about it. Gotta undo all the financial harms I’ve been doing by literally eating my money away. I need to grow up (turning 30 in 2 days yay) and take control of this madness.

My very modest goal is to pack lunch 3 times a week (I’d say 5 but I know how lazy I am).

So here’s my packed lunch #1.

It’s literally just some leftover from last night’s Chinese takeout dinner, but hey, baby steps, right? To be honest, I already feel pretty sad about having packing lunches and missing out on the wonderful mid-day food adventure, but I love money more than I love food, and hopefully that will keep me motivated.

This is gonna be me in 10 years:

But in the meantime…I gotta hustle and save where I can:

Do you eat out or pack lunches? Do you feel okay about how much you spend on food? What areas in your life can you start saving by making small changes?