Is this Billings Sack-Lunch a Path to Personal Wealth?
Recently my son and I went to a fast-food restaurant for hamburgers. For just a bacon cheeseburger, without grilled onions or portobello mushrooms, without fries or a drink, was $8.
The sandwich was okay, but not worth eight bucks. My son got a sandwich, fries and a dessert for over $14.
The next morning I thought about the folks who buy lunches like these every workday. Just do the math. $8 a day X 5 days a week X 50 weeks (with 2 weeks vacation) = $2,000 a year. Plug in the amount you pay for lunch daily and see how much you spend in a year. Just for lunch.
Quite frankly, buying lunches is buying convenience. It is harder to build wealth if you are buying convenience.
Did your Mom ever fix sack lunches for school? How much would a sack lunch cost?
I did this experiment with an Albertsons grocery store. Let’s make a lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich, yogurt, hard-boiled egg, fruit and a couple small pieces of candy. Here’s how it came out:
- Loaf of white bread: $2.99, 20 slices not counting the heels
- Sliced Ham: $5.99, about 40 slices
- Cheese Slices: $2.99, 10 slices
- Dozen Eggs: $2.89
- Yogurt: $.59 to .79
- Bananas: $.65 a pound, 6 bananas at 2.5 pounds = $1.63
- Chocolate Mini-Bars: $4.99 for 9.7 oz. bag, approx. 20 pieces
- Total: $22.27
Whoa, that’s not cheaper!
Slow down, that’s inflation talking. Let’s break these prices down per pieces into the lunch:
- 2 slices Bread: $.30
- 4 slices Ham: $.60
- Slice of Cheese: $.30
- 1 Egg: $.24
- 1 container Yogurt: $.79, let's splurge a bit.
- A Banana: $.27
- Couple Chocolate Mini-bars: $.50
- Throw in a plastic container for the sandwich and a spoon for the yogurt.
- New Total: $3.00
Is this more affordable than a fast-food meal? Also, is it more nutritious? I used a pricier grocery store in the area. What if you shopped at Wal-mart or Thrifty’s grocer?
Now let’s compare the math: $3.00 X 5 days a week X 50 weeks a year = $750
$2,000 - $750 = $1,250 of savings in a year.
Now I’m not saying skip restaurants altogether; just don’t make a habit out of it. It should be a treat, not a way of life.
Now this does require some work preparing the lunches. So I ask you, is the savings worth the effort?
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