Bring Your Own Lunch! It only takes a few minutes to throw a lunch together and you can make it hearty and healthy so it fills you up for the rest of your day. If you’re short on time in the morning, try making it in the evening. Hubby will sometimes make his lunch for the next day as we’re cleaning up from dinner. He packs the leftovers, then puts it in the fridge. Done.

You may also want to consider buying a “lunch system”. I’ve seen them sold as a whole system, but you can put your own together based on what you like to eat and what kind of food containers you may already have in your cabinet. (You know, the booby-trapped one where all your plastic ware falls out when you open the door.) A lunch system consists of a thermal lunchbox or tote, a small bottle for a drink, a plastic sandwich container, and one or two other plastic containers for snacks and fruit. I even send my kids to school with a lunch system and just wash it – including the plastic spoons. I bought an all-in-one salad system that has a covered bowl complete with a snap-in dressing container and a snap-on fork. Pretty nifty for $2.50.

While you may spend a little money up front by buying some of these things (unless, of course, you have these things already!), you’ll be saving money in the long run because you won’t constantly be buying paper or plastic bags that you throw away every day. You can just wash and reuse your system. And with no daily waste, you’ll be helping the environment, too! You’ll also save money by not paying for take-out one, two, or (EEK!) five days a week. Even if you buy the cheapest things on the menu, you’ll be paying at least a few bucks, and over the course of a year, you’re spending $250, $500, $750 or more! Go to a sit-down place, and you could spend twice that much! Yikes!

So, before you order from another menu, grab a calculator. Estimate how many times per week you eat out and how much you spend on lunch. Then multiply that number by, say, 48 to 50 (depending on how many weeks of vacation you get) and see what your take-out number is. Once you’re over the shock, ask yourself, “What else could I be doing with that (fill in the number here)?”