6 Added Benefits Besides Saving Money of Bringing Your Lunch to Work

Bringing your lunch to work can save you quite bit of money. If you save $5 to $6 a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks a year, you can save $1250+ per year. But have you considered the non-monetary or indirect monetary benefits of brown bagging it?

Save time

Instead of spending an hour fighting crowds, you can easily eat your lunch in 20-30 minutes (or less), and have 30 minutes plus to do other things, such as:

Read- Catch up on your reading, whether books or on the ‘net.
Work more- Work on that project if you have a tight deadline, and if your employer allows it, you might even get paid for it.
Make phone calls- Work or personal calls
Run errands- Pick up your dry cleaning or run to the grocery for non-perishables, and you won’t have to cut into family time later.
Take care of other personal business- Like paying bills, scheduling appointments, etc.

Save gas

While you may be within walking distance of places to eat, a lot of people hop in the car every day to go to lunch, probably sitting in traffic.

Reduce the chance of wasting leftovers

How many times have you run across something in the fridge that would have been great to take to work for lunch, but has now been there a little too long. Even if you are careful, this can happen on occasion. Bringing leftovers reduces the chances of this happening.

Improved health

Unless you pack a lunch bag the size of a knapsack, you probably will eat healthier and consume less calories than if you go out to eat.

Avoid afternoon drowsiness

An added bonus of not consuming so many calories is that you will likely be more alert than if you stuffed yourself at the all-you-can eat Chinese buffet again.

The environment

Even though big macs no longer come in the styrofoam container, your homemade packed lunch will likely produce less waste, you can re-use your brown bag or grocery bag, or use tupperware over and over again.