In an effort to find ways to save money I have been following this tip:
Bring Lunch To Work
This tip has worked for me in the past but I just realized that I can make it work even better. In the past I would randomly decide on what I would eat for the day….in the morning when I got up.
I have to work early in the morning (ah the joys of teaching!) so I usually decided on a sandwich and some fruit. My typical lunch usually went like this
sandwich
fruit
bottled juice
The sandwiches would vary slightly based on my mood but would usually be cheese (since like Wallace I just LOVE cheese), tuna or peanut butter. One time I ate so much tuna that I called it my tuna diet because that was all I ate for a few weeks. Frugal….but BORING!
Every so often I would mix it up a little bit and get creative (only on Mondays) and make a ham sandwich, decked out with lettuce, tomatoes, onions…the works!
Then the lazy streak would set in and I would not want to do all of that again. So I would go back to the boring cheese…..rinse and repeat.
Some Mondays I would have food that was cooked on the Sunday before but most times I would not bring ‘real’ food to work because I am lazy. This was not really working out for me because I realized that my weight was fluctuating wildly, with an upward trend.
I would end up being hungry one day and since I had nothing prepared I would grab the easy fix (cheese) to fill me up. I took a look at myself and realized that I was eating cheese 6 days a week in some form.
cheese sandwiches (breakfast or lunch)
macaroni and cheese (home made… not the box stuff)
crackers and cheese (breakfast or dinner)
mashed potatoes (home made and slathered in cheese)
This is very unhealthy for me since the cheese was usually paired with butter. Think high cholesterol and lots of fat. Ewwwwww!
I decided that part of my life strategy for 2009 includes eating better and this would also help my budget. I decided that I needed to develop a meal plan for the week and I could better track what I ate and avoid eating badly.
By planning my meals in advance I would know what I needed and if I needed to cook or slice stuff in advance. This would (hopefully) lead to a better diet for me.
I whipped out the trusty old Google docs spreadsheet and got to work. I decided I could create a meal plan for one week and then repeat that plan the next week with a few tweaks.
I started this on January 10th and decided to tweak it and have four options so that I could rotate for four weeks if needed. For now I am just starting with one plan and then if I get bored I will switch to another one.
If I had soy joy bars as my first snack on Monday one week, then I would have bananas as my first snack the second week. I will be starting this meal plan next month as a Valentine’s day gift to myself and to my better health and better budget.
Let’s see how this meal plan works out for me. Do you plan your meals in advance?
I make the husband’s lunch every night (I’m such a good homemaker!). He’s easy – he loves Fluffernutters. I have a couple “strategies” – one being to make his lunch while I’m making dinner. Secondly, I try to keep all his “snacks” at 25 cents or less. He’s one of those skinny guys who will never get fat and loves junk food. So it’s a little easier. He insists on Dole Fruit cups though everyday and a yogurt. These are usually hard to get under 25 cents. He likes fruit snacks (80 cals, 0 fat).
I’ll also buy potato chips or popcorn in the big bags and put them in Ziploc bags for him to just grab. If you are craving healthier stuff, you can always do carrot or celery sticks like this too.
I think his average breakfast/lunch is $2-$3. If he ate just lunch out, he’d spend over $10.
Becky’s last blog post..Shaw’s!
What are Fluffernutters?
Really? You don’t know what a fluffernutter is? Have you heard of Fluff? It’s next to the PB. It’s white and pretty much just marshmellow (high in cals, but no fat). It’s heaven!
i dont know what your options are for preparation/storage of food at work, but if u have a freezer and a toaster oven, you got it made in the shade. here are some ideas that i have had, most of which with great success for eating lunch at work.
first of all i have mastered the turkey sandwich – boar’s head salsalito turkey, one slice of cheese, tomato, red onion, mustard and mayo (add banana peppers if you wanna get wild). combine that with a small bag of wheat thins, and finito. i buy a half pound of turkey every week, and whatever is left after the week goes in my saturday morning omelette (basically the same as the sandwich minus the mustard mayo and bread)
also, you can keep bags of frozen chicken strips in the freezer (if you have one). toast em up for 15 mins, throw em on some bread with a sauce of your liking, and done.
also, probably the most important thing i do is bring a granola-breakfast-bar-type-deal for a quick bite in between breakfast and lunch, and a piece of fruit to keep my energy up between lunch and the end of the day. a lot of dietitians recommend eating up to six times a day, which seems ridiculous, but they count a piece of fruit or a granola bar as one of those times. it also keeps the metabolism running like a machine.
neway, id love to see ur spreadsheet if u could share it with me via google docs!
in other news – check out http://www.justthrive.com for budgeting made easy, or for your iphone fanatics there is a free app with a fully integrated website called mint.com. i think ur users could get a lot of use out of either of them, but using both is just redundant.
in other other news – how do u work your cvs magic?!?! much respek!
oneangrytoast’s last blog post..quick iPhone app update: night stand
Hi Angry Toast,
I love that graphic…….but why is the toast angry? 🙂
I shared my boring menu plan with you so check your google docs for the invite.
I bring an insulated lunch box to work and keep my stuff in there because I have been getting an iffy feeling about the refrigerator at work. I noticed something last week with the microwave so I have decided not to use that either…so it will just be stuff I can eat cold at work from now on.
As for CVS, I check the forum and iHeartCVS for the preview of the upcoming sales flier. I have a little spreadsheet where I list all the stuff that gives ECBs, all the free stuff and all the other stuff that I might be interested in.
During the week I match the coupons I have with my printed list and then I head off to CVS on Sundays with ECBs, list and coupons in hand. KingdomFirstMom and some other people do some complicated things with matching etc….but I just buy simple stuff. They have saved thousands compared to what I have saved….but then again I don’t buy CVS food….or diapers etc.
have faith in tupperware. no matter how nasty the fridge is, you will have a little utopia of cleanliness inside the little plastic container. i got mine at ikea, of course. its a set of way too many pieces, but they all seem to find a function somehow, and its super cheap, like $5 if i recall.
haha to be honest, the idea came to me on a mescaline trip about 6 years ago and was forgotten for a long time. then while in search of a pseudonym a couple years back, it just came back into my consciousness. i went with it cuz it was completely organic, not influenced or inspired by anything other than my own imagination (and some hallucinogens). seeing as im not the artsy imaginative type, i had to take advantage of what small creativity i did have. angrytoast was already taken, believe it or not, so i just threw the “one” on there as in, “that is one angry toast”. since then i just ran with the idea, collecting all sorts of toast memorabilia and shenanigans.
for further toast infused greatness check these links…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneangrytoast/
theres also this artist, dan goodsell, who created Mr. Toast:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60585948@N00/
and, finally, this most amazing blog post
http://collateraldamage.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/toast-is-now-the-hottest-thing-in-product-design/
-stay toasty
almost forgot!
best secret ingredient to tuna salad: red wine vinegar. i like to load it on there, but use at ur discretion.
also: box mac n cheese for the win. i was practically raised on kraft cheese n macaroni haha
Have you tried using cookie cutters to make shapes out of your sandwiches. lol.
Sounds like my daughter’s school lunches: sandwich, juice, bag of chips, rollup, and fruit.
Sandwich varieties: pb&j, just j, or ham. 🙂
Money Funk’s last blog post..Tax Deduction Laughters!
I think I might have too much fun using cookie cutters…..and also what would my students think if they saw me eating little sandwiches? :-0