On your average day at work what is your lunch?

Do you buy it from the office canteen, do you buy it from the local shops or do you make your own lunch and take it in to work with you?

I've just been doing some Pages stuff and worked out that I can save about £700 a year by taking my own lunch into work. Also, if I don't buy a drink (for £1) each day then I can save almost £1000 in total!

I always try to pack my own lunch, although sometimes it's just not possible due to travel arrangements or something. I hate spending more than £1 on lunch because it's a recurring expense and adds up very significantly. "It's only a pound or so" adds up to about three hundred over a year. There's also the health side; pre-made food tends to be relatively high in fat and low in fresh vegetables. Then there's the taste - I know what I like, and that's what I make!

I did a similar thread last year: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4029

I'm pretty sure I did a poll too, but maybe that was the old place. I remember "coffee and cigarettes" was one of the options which had several votes.

I'm slightly obsessed with food

I've just made my brunch for tomorrow:

I'll start off about 9am with a sandwich filled with grated carrot, Chinese leaves, red onion and a little cheese. That's washed down with green tea. I'll have the other sandwich for elevenses.

For lunch I have a prawn salad with carrot, cucumber, Chinese leaves and tomato.

I'll mostly be drinking Asda fizzy table water. In this weather I get through about a gallon of cold water a day, but I do still have a few cups of tea.

That's very typical for me. I don't often have prawns, but there's always an "interesting" component of some kind. Chick peas are a regular, as are various nuts, olives, egg, cooked meats, cheeses etc.. I try to limit the fat to less than 10g in total, but that still permits enough fatty foods to be tasty.

I think that lunch probably cost around 50p plus about 20p for all the water. The most expensive part was the tomato, because I'm fussy about them. I don't usually supply my own water, but we've run out of the nice stuff at the office.

One thing I noticed from my workings was that the most expensive part of a packed lunch is the meat by a hell of a long way!

It does make a very nice sandwich though - cheese, good quality ham and salami a very nice sandwich.

I spend about £3.50 on lunch, and that'll cover drinks and meal - usually sausage, chicken nuggets, salad. Then a coffee and a cookie, bottle of water.
Depends what's on the menu really, today was 2 small pasties and salad.
Sometimes it's lasagne. Crazy, I know.

Depends what's on offer in the galley.
I eat like a pig and it's all free, free, free!!!

It's not totally crazy if that's your main meal of the day and you don't cook for yourself in the evening.

What food do you eat during a working week when you're at home?

I usually go to the local baker's/café and get a roll, either turkey and onion or a "Sharfer Wellman", which is a bread roll baked with cheese over the top, filled with turkey breast, Krautsalat, cucumber, tomato and remoulade.

Back at Sun I would take my own lunch in with me. I would have a sandwich and a yoghurt, sometimes a banana or a chocolate bar (If I had taken a banana or chocolate bar to work, it was usually gone by 11am, lunch was at 12:45).

As to fillings, I don't get fed up with having the same food everyday so it was esay to always buy the same thing...
Between June and September '08 I had tuna mayonnaise, from September to December I had cheese, and from January to June '09 I had cucumber with hummus.

At the M.O.D. last summer I had the luxury of being at home, so Dad would vary my sandwich fillings, but I still only had a sandwich, yoghurt and banana.

I've mainly been having a cup-a-soup with a bread roll, a cereal bar and an apple. Sometimes if I've been shopping a day late I pop to Greggs or the Tesco express for a sandwich but generally I take my own lunch.

For drinks we have a tea club. £2.50 a month for as much tea as I can be bothered to drink.

Lunch is for wimps </Wall Street>

I tend to make some concoction of pasta / rice / potato. Much as bread is very nice, it isn't terribly filling and is generally more expensive than other carbohydrates.

When I was at school my parents would make the whole weeks worth of sandwiches on Sunday night and freeze them - then we took them out of the freezer and took them to school with us.

It tended to work better in summer.

If I'm at home, then I'll have my main meal with the family - so that'll be a roast sometimes. If that's dinner, then it'll just be some rice cakes and peanut butter for lunch.

Interesting you ask this as I've just had a week off and managed to lose some weight. I think it's because I haven't been having sandwiches at lunch time. Up to now, I buy my sandwich ingredients on a Monday and leave them in the fridge to make a sandwich at lunchtime throughout the week. It's cheaper than buying them and they don't go soggy like they do if you make them at home and bring them in. I usually go for ham, lettuce, mayo and tomato, with a slice of leerdammer.

However, I'm wanting to go over to salads now, but they're quite expensive to buy individually, so I'm going to have to work out how to make them in bulk to bring in and eat over the week. I'm thinking of couscous and rice salads accompanied by a bit of lettuce and meat. However, I'm not sure if replacing bread with starchy rice or couscous will not defeat the object…

I get my lunch from M&S as there is nowhere else that I like around here. There are a couple of Pret-a-Mangers but I don't like their food and prices.

I get a sandwich, crisps, banana and a choccy bar. Comes to about £2.15