To hate packing food to take to work

[waitingforautumn]

I live just outside and work in central London. Cost of living rising means I'm starting to feel guilty about the money spent on coffee, breakfast and lunch at work. I do somewhat 'budget' for this (i.e. am single, no kids, don't care for designer stuff etc, walk where I can rather than train or bus). However I do realise how much I could save if I were really disciplined about going to the supermarkets and stocking up for a week of homemade lunches and prepped breakfasts, which do sound appealing in theory..

Only issue is, I REALLY tend to miss buying things out - esp lunch. Just being able to pick something new each day, made with ingredients I wouldn't usually buy. I just feel like I eat more healthily/get more variety when I allow myself this. There's the option of sandwiches and baguettes (Pret/Paul/Leon type thing) plus lots of hot options where I work. I also love a good old Tesco meal deal so often have that for lunch too (love the mix and matching element).

Can cheapen breakfast by stopping at a supermarket bakery on way (£1 for a pastry rather than say £2.50). And it's still lovely (am a sucker for pastries and now associate office days with getting one). In the past I've made overnight oats and did keep that up for a while but got out of the habit after the pandemic return to work, and also loathe the washing up part at the office sink.😆

Is it me or is there something nice about strolling to work with a coffee you didn't have to make yourself, a fresh pastry and picking up a lunch you didn't have to plan way in adv or prep?!

I do wonder if this is quite a London thing with all the variety around. Have to be up around 6.30 to get around without the trains/tubes being busy so it feels to early to eat something before leaving home - and I'm always hungry when I sit down having had to walk past upteen bakeries to get in! I feel stopping for coffee/food helps make the working day nicer, I can pick something I fancy there and then. Few colleagues bring anything to eat from home and get all their meals/drinks out for the day so this really feels like the norm. We must all be spending anywhere from £5-£15 a day on all this. 🤔

Nobody single from my generation can afford to get on the housing ladder here anyway, even with decent savings. Some of my friends easily spend £35 a pop getting nails done every 3 weeks, which is outrageous to me. So I'm inclined to say whatever treats get you through life?!

AIBU? Am I lazy? Do I need to find another source of joy in my life? Writing this on the train on the way to work obvs and I have absolutely nothing on me for the day ahead!

A pret coffee subscription helped me as I was spending upwards of £50 on Starbucks every week.

😁

This exactly why I don't buy chocolates (and many other enticing delights) for Christmas until about 2 days beforehand!

I wouldn’t sweat it. That’s how I lived in my child-free days. I’ve toned it down since having children but why not? You’re waking up to leave the house at 6:30am. Gosh, treat yourself all you want, I say!

I hear ya OP. I’m weighing up exactly the same thing.

I work from home but study 2 weekends a month.

Its very hard on those weekends not to be tempted by Pret, Itsu, Wasabi, Paul, Leon, M&S foodhalls as they’re on the doorstep of the college.

So my compromise is to choose my fav stuff from those places and recreate similar things at home for less ££. Just takes a bit of organisation to have the right stuff in fridge/freezer.

Sushi I can’t easily make. But I can do wasabi rice with prawns and crab. (Crab sticks or tinned crab is the cheapest, but Sainsburys fresh crab pot will do 2 helpings).

I also find if I have a filling breakfast at home, I don’t need so much lunch.

So this weekend my menu is:
Quinoa with apricots, pistachios, fresh coriander and dressing.
Prawn mayo
Egg mayo with cress
Gluten free brownies

*A pret ham and cheese sandwich consists of bread, butter, wiltshire ham and cheddar cheese. Nothing else."

List of ingredients:

Malted Wholegrain Bread, Water, Malted Wheat, Wheat Bran, Yeast, Wheat Gluten, Barley Malt Flour, Salt, emulsifiers (Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Mono-and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Rapeseed Oil, flour treatment agent (Ascorbic Acid)), Wiltshire-Cured Ham (27%) (Pork, Salt, Sugar, antioxidant (Sodium Ascorbate), preservatives (Sodium Nitrite, Potassium Nitrate)), Mature Cheddar Cheese, Butter, Single Cream, Seasoning (Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Rapeseed Oil), Starter Culture.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Maybe just do it on alternate days?

This is listing every ingredient in the bread, in the ham, in the butter etc down to the salt and pepper.
If you itemised the ingredients in a homemade sandwich to the same extent it would be the same, unless you are making home made bread for your work packed lunch. Which only further makes the ‘time saved’ point.

Yes, that's bread, butter, cheese and ham. If you buy your bread cheese and ham from a supermarket then you'd have exactly the same ingredients in your own sandwich. You could cut down on ingredients by making your own bread or buying it from local artisan bakery, and buying the ham from a farmer, but that would come at a significant cost in time and money.

Who eats cheese and ham sandwiches from Pret anyway?

I have their crayfish and avocado salad, smoked salmon salad or falafel salad with vegetable chips and ginger drink.

They also do great soups - sunshine dhal and chicken laksa.

😂

This is listing every ingredient in the bread, in the ham, in the butter etc down to the salt and pepper.

Actually, I took out some of the ingredients in to bread etc. The preservatives etc. are extra.

Miso aubergine salad personally. Or Salmon and mango salad bowl. It would cost a lot to make that at home and it still wouldn't be as nice, or as fresh.

What do you normally do for dinner? If I bring in lunch it's usually leftovers from the previous evening, so more exciting than a cheese sandwich or whatever. I still go out for coffee at lunch time as I like to get out of the building for the hour and it's too cold just to walk around outsude at the moment, but it's still loads cheaper than if I was buying food as well.

You absolutely can make sushi yourself! All you need is the little bamboo mat to help you roll up the rolls. About four or five quid from an East Asian supermarket. Get some nori sheets, Japanese rice and a jar of pickled ginger while you're there (they are probably in supermarkets too).

You will be kicking yourself once you work out how little it costs to make the same stuff you've been forking out 5 or 6 quid for!

It’s in the bread. They haven’t added preservatives to the sandwich.

Most people are not hand kneading dough for sandwich bread.

If you buy bread from a supermarket it will have preservatives.

There are no additional preservatives or “grim” ingredients in a pret sandwich vs one you make at home.

People need to up their salad game. Pret (or any ready-made salads) ones are not a patch on the ones I make at home, plus they seem to be 500 calories yet curiously unsatisfying for a few leaves and a tiny bit of protein. Waste of calories and money.

I've been a spendthrift on food, and I've been super-frugal on food. IME, it is hard to save money unless you have a target or goal in mind.
Being super-frugal for 2-3 years enabled me to save a deposit for a small flat in one of the cheapest parts of the south-east. So pasta with sardines was the great liberator for me.

It wouldn’t cost as much to make it home though. Miso aubergine is too much of a faff. But the salmon salad could be made at home for less. But it depends how much time you have to faff about and how much you really need to save money.

Can I put in a word for Farmer J's here. Harissa chicken, mixed grains, hispi cabbage and aubergine and roast sweet potatoes. Now that really is an extravagant desk lunch but god it's good.
farmerj.com/fieldtrays/

Once a week max, made up for by leftover surprise on other days.

Most people are not hand kneading dough for sandwich bread

No, but I can choose my bread carefully and have a yummy cheese topped roll, some dark rye sourdough, or a slice of three cheese bloomer, and have a nice open sandwich with loads of topping - vastly more interesting and nutritional yet still fewer calories than a sandwich made in factory or the back of a shop.

Shop bought pre-made sandwiches are universally horrible and boring. The only ones that are any good are the ones which are freshly made there and then.

Oh I know you can I just cba. 😂

I bought all that stuff and I still go to Hare and Tortoise.

@goldbar perhaps I cared less about my children.

10 minutes on a Sunday making cream cheese, cream cheese and ham, tuna and mayo, chicken and mayo sarnies. Each portion bagged up and bunged in the freezer. 10 little bags taken out, whack into each a frube or Yoghurt drink, bunch grapes or a satsuma, small kipling finger. Place the bags in a big box in fridge. Put slices of cucumber in a storage box.

Every morning: bung cucumber slices into sarnie, take lunch box out of dishwasher, add sarnie to lunch box, empty plastic bag into lunchbox. 2 minutes a day tops.

They used to. Now it's Souper Tomato and Chicken and Broccoli every single day in my local Pret.

I'm with you OP - my dream is to live a life like an office commuter in NYC
Coffee and little bakery in the morning- meet a friend and eat a sandwich or big salad on the library steps for lunch

Unfortunately I'm middle aged in a boring market town- I get to work before anything is really open and I only have half an hour for lunch so couldn't get out and back in again in that time

I HATE packing lunches so I often just have a bit of toast with Peanut butter on but in my head- I am NYC baby :)