Taking own lunch to work challenge

[Junebug123]

Is anyone doing this? How are you getting on? I'm trying to and managed every day so far. It's to try and be healthier and also save some money. I actually prefer my own lunch as got so tired of m and s sandwiches etc. Used to spend £3-4 a day so should make a difference.
I just need motivated to make it night before. Got a brilliant bento style lunch box. Would love some lunch ideas. Currently making big salad with avocado, cheese and crackers. Satsumas, apple, yoghurt, dark chocolate rice cakes. Thinking a back up lunch I can have left at work is a good idea like soup.

I have no imagination. Or no time, Not sure which it is ...

For eight years of school, I took 2 bread rolls / one round of sandwiches, an apple or orange, a packet of crisps, and a tupperware cup of squash.

For thirty years of work, I have taken one round of sandwiches, a banana, a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar of some sort.

Very occasionally I'll take cold leftover pizza, or even buy my lunch.But pretty much, it's the same packed lunch every single day. It's a bit like wearing a capsule wardrobe, I don't have to think about what to buy / make / take.

Ah yes - I often had to set off really early and/or had to work late so I sometimes had to eat up to 3 meals at work. So I'd usually take overnight oats or chia porridge, with yoghurt & frozen berries added on top.
Often I would take leftovers of whatever we've had for dinner as well. Quite frequently I even planned dinners around their potential to provide leftovers.

Since when has making a pack lunch been a challenge? 🙄

I have a wide necked food thermos which is fab if you are out and about

@justanotherlurker I just have lots of stained Tupperware I try to keep a couple of non stained ones for salads and the stained ones for leftovers that need microwaved. I've got 2 microwave soup mugs and keep one for porridge and one for soup as I was fed up with my breakfast smelling like vegetable soup!

Since when has making a pack lunch been a challenge?

I'm not OP, It's not in theory and I have been doing it on and off for years, but its very easy to slip into the mindset of just grabbing lunch out depending on where you work. Even though you realise you are spending money etc, we are all creatures of habit, morning rituals. and all that.

I can have really nice ingredients for a healthy salad in the fridge, but a nightmare morning with my DS and it's fuck it I will buy something.

I think its a case of create another shit drawer full of Tupperware then

Batch cook soup and bring is a thermos flask with some slices of bread.
I just made a load of soup - works out about 40p per generous portion

Try this
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sweet-potato-butternut-squash-soup-lemon-garlic-toast

I made it without cream and honey (doing veganuary) and it’s bloody delicious

I've just made homemade burritos with pulled pork so will mix the leftover spicy rice and pulled pork together and have as a cold rice salad tomorrow.

Pasta with pesto and sundried tomatoes, olives and chargrilled peppers (all bought in jars).

Hummus and pita bread

Carrot sticks

Pieces of cucumber

Mini malt bread loaves or slices of malt bread

Greek yoghurt with fruit and honey

Cheese with ritz crackers

Mini 'pizzas' made with pita bread or English muffin

Veggie samosas

Leftover pasta bake from the previous evening

Search for 'lunchbox ideas' on Pinterest!

Also baffled at how taking your own lunch is deemed a challenge!

Nevertheless - the best thing you can do is make sure that your evening dinners are cooked from scratch every night - then make double of what you need, so that you always have lunch for the next day! Haven't had a sandwich in years.

Haven't had a sandwich in years.

I will put my house on that being a statement with lots of caveats to make a non existent point.

I have worked all over the world, some of the finest lunch ideas are sandwiches, my pesto chicken and mozzarella is to die for.

I love sandwiches, I have to remember that I shouldn't have them for every meal.
It can be a challenge to be disciplined enough to make lunch every day.
I would agree that keeping a tin of soup and some crackers at work is a good idea for when you can't be arsed.
Having two meals a day at work somedays makes it even more of a challenge for me, not to mention getting enough drinks.
As well as the regulation sandwiches I sometimes take pasta and pesto which I can reheat in the microwave and crumpets or teacakes for my tea. I am also partial to a pot noodle

Yes the title was probably badly worded. I guess 'challenge' is a bit dramatic.

You know what I mean though...
In my morning routine getting two toddlers out the door meant that making my own lunch was the first thing to go as I kept thinking 'I can just buy something'. Therefore I do find it a bit challenging to fit this in as well. For those who swear by doing it the night before I'm a lark not an owl so that doesn't seem to work for me. Once I bit that wall of tiredness I'm good for nothing but bed. I also don't think some stuff like salad tastes as nice. Left overs is a good call I guess. No real extra work involved.

It doesn't have to be as hard as eliminating third world debt to be considered a challenge! Some posters could do with getting off their high horse about it. I don't mind admitting I find it challenging to fit in making a packed lunch consistently, so there 😛

Glad to hear some other mnetters are lunchbox challenged too

Have also just realised that I'm doing a water drinking challenge, a walking challenge, a reading challenge and a getting to bed early challenge. Thinking of things as challenges helps my motivation. It's a real thing. Things are gamefied all the time to motivate people.

Yes Scousequeen I agree! It's definitely a challenge if you're holding down a f/t job, kids and running a house - fitting in one extra task of making a lunch is definitely a challenge.

I try hard to take in leftovers/sarnies. I also have a locker for soup cans. If I forgot my cheapest 'bought' lunch is to get a bread roll from nearest supermarket and a tin of soup.

Lots of my twenty-something colleagues buy sushi and posh coffees nearly every day!

I've been taking my own lunch in for years. I started up aiming to do it 2 or 3 times a week, but it quite quickly seemed easy enough to do it every day, and became a habit where I feel annoyed about having to spend money if I don't do it.

Quickest one that can be done even if you do it in the morning before work is just cook pasta and mix in some pesto, then slice in baby tomatoes. That's my fall-back!

Find a few things (with grains usually) that you can make doubles of. This tomato couscous is really easy, makes loads and you can put different things with it on different days (feta, fried halloumi, baby tomatoes, humous, avocado are all ones I've done in one combo or another): kitchen.nine.com.au/2016/05/18/01/04/spiced-tomato-and-coriander-couscous

Make some soup and keep portions in the freezer - if you really don't have time to cook, just take it out the night before, or even in the morning.

NB, I work ft, have two kids and did manage to do it even when they were babies/toddlers, so it is possible.

I only have a half hour for lunch and nowhere to go get any near so my only option is to bring a lunch, usually a salad or dinner leftovers.

Place marking to read suggestions later

I'm also on this challange. I easily could spend £6 a day I now spend 49p and going to try and cut this out

I've got 6 boxes sitting on the kitchen side at the moment waiting to be finished and put in the fridge.

I make a salad with salad leaves, cucumber, pepper, sweetcord and some protein (ham/chicken/pepperoni/tuna) with a small amount of dressing or mayo or coleslaw.

They go in the fridge and easily last 3 days. DD takes hers with her in the morning and they encourage her to eat healthily rather than grabbing junk at college.
And I take all 3 and put them in one of the large fridges in the staffroom and they are there waiting for me Mon-Wed. I then either make new salads, perhaps changing some of the salad types or with a different protein, or if I'm lazy I take a can of soup.

Always with some fruit and a cereal bar.

Creature of habit, me.

I live alone so 'just cook a bit extra tea' doesn't work for me when I eat baked cod and steamed greens for tea, or soup, or stir fry.

I have salad. Key is a decent tub. Tomorrow I have salad with quinoa (I buy ready cooked, a sachet is £1 and does five lunches) and half a pack of chilli and lime ready cooked chicken breast slices from Aldi.

Sometimes I poach two salmon fillets and divide into three lunch salads.

I make a tub of yoghurt, oats and berries to have for breakfast (leave too early to eat before), I buy a pineapple and a pomegranate every week and divide into four tubs (I try to work from home one day a week) so have fruit after the salad. I take a small tub of Brazil nuts and dried apricots and a tub of cherry toms and olives as snacks.
I take a cafetier type drink cup with green tea leaves in ready to fill with free hot water at work.

Now and then I just take the breakfast, drink and snacks and buy a salad or sushi, for variety. For me it's not the cost so much as the environmental impact of a dozen little single use tubs, packets and cups every week, per person! (It's the cost and dietary content too)

I can't imagine cooking pasta before I leave for work!

I do like doing a tray of roasted veg at the weekend and mixing with cous cous and feta though, side of rocket. That makes a nice change. Might do that next week. (Currently fasting two days a week so on those days I just take a few cherry tomatoes and three crisp breads)