Stop buying lunch!

One of the main ways I have saved money recently is through not buying my lunch when I'm at work. Most days until relatively recently I would go to Marks & Spencer to buy lunch because it was easy to do. I would give myself all sorts of excuses for why doing it was okay, too.

The food was nice. It was close by. It was easier than making it myself at home in the morning before leaving the flat. It meant I could get up a bit later. I'd had a busy morning. I deserved to treat myself. It was probably healthier than what I might bring in from home. It's nice to get out of the office and get some fresh air. I get bored of the things I make myself.

Some of these things are true. It did save time, it probably was nicer, and I had had a busy morning.

It was expensive, though.

If you get an egg sandwich, a packet of crisps, a drink and one of the cheaper desserts, you can spend £5 or £6 a day on lunch in M&S without even really trying, and over £10 if you actually try to have something extravagant. If you work five days a week and get a bit of lunch there every day, you can be spending up to £30 per week, which adds up to over £120 per month or around £1,200 per year once you factor in days off.

Just for lunch.

Sometimes I would go to Boots, which was a little further away and get a meal deal - which is cheaper at around £3.29 per day - and I would build up points on my loyalty card. In the back of my mind this felt like I was saving a bit of money, and I suppose I was in relative terms, but this would still set me back around £16 per week, which adds up over time if you're doing it most days.

Also, you don't get that much in a meal deal: a 'main', which can be a sandwich or a plastic dish of pasta, a snack, which can be a packet of crisps or a dessert, and a drink. If you were to get something else to go with it - as I was often tempted to do - so that you're not suddenly feeling peckish again at 3pm, suddenly you're spending over £4.00 per day. You could argue that's not an absolute fortune as a one off piece of expenditure, but when habits are formed and you're doing this on a daily basis, it mounts up and you notice the difference at the end of the month.

Supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's have similar meal deal offers to places like Boots, but they are not much cheaper when it comes down to it. But it's the supermarkets you have to go to if you want to have a decent meal for your lunch that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. Only, don't go on your lunch hour. When you're doing your food shopping, ignore the food to go aisle and buy things that you know you'll be able to have for lunch through the week.

At the time of writing, in Tesco you can buy a loaf of bread for ten sandwiches for about £1, a bag of six apples for about £1.60, and multipacks of crisps (six packets), yogurts (six pots) and chocolate biscuits (ten biscuits) for £1 each. If you work a five-day working week this means that for just under £10, the amount you might spend if you were going to get something particularly nice for lunch from M&S, you can keep yourself in lunches at work for about two weeks.

I've sworn off buying lunches at work for about six months now, and I've really noticed the difference. It does mean getting up a few minutes early to make a sandwich and put a couple of snacks in my bag, but this feels like a price worth paying.