28 March 2007
The Grand Unified Theory of Lunch
Besides Starbucks Coffee, aka the “latte factor” ™ (holy crap, it’s trademarked, at least thats what the link sez), the big thing personal finance mavens love to harp on about as a cost-cutting technique is taking your lunch to work. I mean, even the article about the poor family barely getting by on $150,000 mentions, “But she’s already slashed so many little luxuries - the gourmet coffee, the restaurant lunches, the weekly dates with husband Brian - that she’s fresh out of ideas.”
In any case, the basic line of thinking goes like this: “You can save alot of money by bringing your lunch to work. In fact, if you work full-time, and your lunch costs x$, then you can save [a huge amount of money over 10 years] by instead brown-bagging it!”
This makes perfect sense to my brain. The math is right, the logic is sound, sounds good, right? Sadly, my belly tends to disagree. It likes restaurant food, and is less of a fan of typical brown-bag lunch fare: sandwhiches, soup, etc. In fact, for a long time I was one of those people who went out to eat for lunch every weekday.
In light of that, I have spent a great deal of time trying to find a middle ground in the quest for a tasty, healthy, AND financially responsible lunch with a maximum price of $3. Over the next few weeks, I hope to share a few of my successful findings from this quest. Today, we learn about the first such of these:
Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry with Whole Grain Brown Rice
Total cost per meal:
$2.35
Prep time:
10 minutes
Requirements:
a Trader Joe’s grocery nearby
a stove burner, portable or otherwise
Ingredients:
Trader Joe’s Beef Teriyaki Stir Fry
Instant Whole Grain Brown Rice, brand doesn’t matter
Our first foray into the world of culinary frugality requires some things that I know will not be available to everyone. Most importantly, you have to have a Trader Joe’s store within driving distance. Hopefully that’s the case for you.
Secondly, you need a stove burner. If you prefer to make this for dinner in your home or work you from home, this won’t be a problem. Otherwise, you could invest in one. A quick search turned up this one, same brand as the one we have at my workplace, single burner, 24.95.
Anyway, if you eat half the bag of stir fry and one cup of rice, you’ll be at $2.35 per meal. Its delicious, only takes about 10 minutes to make (you just dump the stir fry in a pan on the burner, let it heat up, add some sauce, and microwave the rice w/ water), and is relatively inexpensive. I highly recommend it, and welcome any ideas on what works for you, for lunch.
2 Comments currently posted.
d10 says:
CashMoneyJesus » Healthy, Easy, Cheap - Eric’s Quest for Great Lunches under 3$ says:
[…] I attempted to do before, I’m here today to share another successful lunch I eat regularly that is: 1. tasty, 2. […]
Not bad, not bad.
Since restarting consumption of maker-friendly cuisine, this is what I’ve been having and it’s really been awesome so far.
- chopped up grilled chicken breast (all grilled at the beginning of the week)
- organic mixed greens
- blackberries
Man it’s good. Probably more than 2.35 per meal, but definitely worth it.