The Great Lunch Experiment

This last weekend, I made a sad realization. I am broke.

Well, OK, I didn't just figure that out. What I did just realize is that I have to do something about that. NOW.

It's not that I'm being overwhelmed by bills. I am able to pay them on time and with a minimum of fuss. It's that the little I have left over is difficult to make stretch. I started really looking at where my money was going and I didn't like the answer.

I sat down with my friend Doc Midnite, with whom I have lunch almost every week day. We work in downtown Chicago, just a block from each other. We are surrounded by all sorts of cuisines, from the nasty fast food variety to the truly sublime. And it is killing us. Ruling out the truly horrible (McDonald's), it is very difficult to buy lunch for less than $10. Even going the fast food route, the prices are such that you are going to spend about $7. That's a minimum of $140 per month, but more likely closer to $200. That doesn't even include my Starbucks habit or food I consume at home.

I did the math and I realized I can no longer afford to go out to lunch. So I came up with a plan. Yesterday, I bought $113 in groceries from Peapod. If you're not familiar, Peapod is a grocery delivering service. Before anyone gets on my case about saving money, I'm a single girl without car. Not only will those groceries probably last me at least three weeks (edit: three weeks of three meals per day, mind you, not just lunch), but also, going to the grocery store is such a pain that it makes sense to use a service. I'll be more likely to stick with the plan this way. I got some fresh stuff, including deli meats and some favorite veggies, but also a ton of frozen meals. I've come to really enjoy Lean Cuisine. Before I started losing weight, I could have eaten two of these things and still have been hungry, but my appetite is now at a much more reasonable level. A little more math determined that a lunch of a turkey sandwich with tomatoes, a side of baby carrots and hummus and blueberries for dessert would cost about $5. Not only is that a better diet, I could not buy that much food around here for the same amount. If I don't feel like making all of that, I could also just bring one of the Lean Cuisine dinners, which normally cost around $2.70 to $3.50, or a can of soup, which runs about $2.50. Any way you look at it, I'm coming out ahead and all these meals have already been paid for.

OK, so what about that Starbucks addiction? Here's what I'm trying. I only buy one coffee per day in the morning anyway, so I got one of their gift cards and put $20 on it. This will last me not quite 2 weeks.

So I started this today. Because I was in a hurry, I just grabbed pop tarts for breakfast and a frozen dinner for lunch. I even went to Starbucks for my morning Americano. Pretty painless so far.

Luckily, I can still meet Doc on my lunch hour, just not at Chipotle, Au Bon Pain or any of the other hundreds of restaurants in the four block radius of work. And maybe I'll get closer to my goal weight, too.