I was debating with a friend, recently, about the financial benefits of bringing my lunch to work from home instead of eating at a local restaurant each day.  Of course, I’m trying to live frugally in most areas of my budget, and am applying my savings toward paying off a significant debt load.  My switch to bringing lunches from home is a significant part of that plan.

My friend believed that the savings is not that significant, and I’m denying myself of life’s pleasures and conveniences without getting much benefit.

I was never for a single second convinced that my frugality was being wasted, but I decided to put pen to paper with some calculations so that I could know very closely how much my benefit was.

Restaurant Lunch Cost

First off, I don’t live in an expensive region.  Dining out doesn’t cost as much here as it does in many other areas, especially the more metropolitan areas.  There are a number of restaurants within walking distance or a short drive from my work that range in price from $4 to $12 for a meal that I would order.  I’ve included the tip in the meal prices for the restaurants where tipping is appropriate.  Also, I’m not a heavy eater and tend to order lite lunches.

The following is a sample of the types of places we have nearby that I used to eat at, and what it would cost for me to eat there.  I’ve listed them in order of the frequency I ate there.

1. Local Burger Drive-In – $6 – They have a special that includes a small burger, fries, and a small milkshake.
2. Taco Bell – $4 – I eat from their value menu and drink water instead of soda.
3. Locally owned pizza restaurant – $10 – On Tuesday, they have a spaghetti and salad special.
4. Mexican Restaurant – $12 – They have a number of lunch specials that I select from.
5. Teriyaki – $9 – I have their teriyaki chicken plate that comes with rice and a salad.
6. Full service American diner – $12 – They are my favorite, but one of the more expensive places, so I never did eat there often.
7. McDonald’s – $4 – I would eat from their value menu.
8. Subway – $9 – Many years ago, they were probably number one on my list.  I ate there about once per week, but our local franchises decided that they would no longer honer the national advertising specials, so I quit eating there.

As you see from this list, I was spending anywhere between $4 and $12 when going out for lunch.  That’s an average of about $8 per day or $40 per week and about $2,000 per year.

Even if I were to eat off the dollar menu at Taco Bell or McDonald’s every day and only spend an average of $4 each day for lunch, that would still cost me $20 per week.  Talk about denying myself of life’s pleasures!  I can’t imaging myself living off that diet.

Cost of Bringing Lunch From Home

Here’s what I spend for lunch, when I bring my lunch to work. We have about an $80 per week food budget for 52 weeks per year.  That comes to about $4,160 per year for our family food budget. I’ll say that we spend 1/3 of the budget for lunches, and half of that is MY lunch.  Since I work five days of the week I spend about $9.50 per week on lunches during my work days.  That brings me to about $500 per year for taking my lunch to work with me.

In all, that comes to a savings of about $1,500 per year.

Let’s say that I take the roughly $30 per week savings and send it to Stash over the course of the next 10 years to invest in ETF’s.  Let’s say that I only average 5% in earnings (after fees and inflation – I think that’s conservative to reasonable estimate).  That would be worth $20,600 that I would be denying myself of if I don’t practice this lunch plan.

It’s worth it to me.

Depending on your location and restaurant options, it could save you even more.  Think about it.