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!

The whole purpose of money is to exchange it for something you value! If you value travel but can never afford it because you're spending £5k a year on Pret and Starbucks then that's when you'd consider what you can cut back on, etc. Same deal for anything - paying into a pension, having 6 month' emergency savings, saving a deposit to buy a house, etc. It just depends where you want your money to go.

If you can comfortably afford your bills and desired lifestyle, have contingency savings in case things change, and have / are building financial security, then I really don't think it matters from a financial standpoint! I spend half of my "fun money" on video games 😂they bring me joy, so why not?

That being said, if you ever wanted to change it, then I've noticed that since I bought a nice coffee machine, I couldn't care less about Starbucks (and I used to loooove it, and drink it daily)! Largely because of the calories/sugar content, to be honest! Made at home with pods, a mocha/latte is like 80 calories, 9g of sugar. At Starbucks, it's 400 calories, 35g of sugar! Jesus H. I really like sugar, so I'd rather eat those extra 25g in a jam donut later 😂

For lunches, I once got a flashy stackable bento box thing, and it was so fun! I'd Google "Bento box inspo" and recreate all these cute, colourful 15-item adventure lunches haha. But these days I work from home so don't bother with it.

I feel like if you do want to try cutting down, then start with a coffee machine. Put what you would have spent on coffee into a Monzo pot or whatever, and watch it build :)

Do people really believe most supermarket fresh bread is actually fresh and lovingly baked that day? the majority are frozen . no more Better than premade sandwiches.

Evidently some people do! But Prêt's marketing relies on people imagining that everything is freshly prepared that day in a homely little kitchen in the back of the store, with fresh ingredients bought from the farmer's market down the street.

No more Better than premade sandwiches

Fresh sandwiches, even made with supermarket bread (some stores actually do have a bakery) are definitely more better(er) than sandwiches made on a factory assembly line.

Some very practical advice here

Won't clap but do very much appreciate you! Am very partial to a mug shot actually and did go through a phase with them a few years ago so thanks for the reminder. X

This has been a great thread! I have thoroughly enjoyed it
And well done OP for taking all the "London DAHLING" comments on the chin and with a smile

I HATE meal planning and having my boring grey food laid out for me a week in advance.

Well then plan some tasty and interesting meals then, and not boring grey ones...? It eases a massive mental burden on a daily basis too. Instead of "oh crap, what shall we have for tea tonight?" at 5pm, you just get up and start cooking whatever

(comment sent before I'd finished it)

...whatever you had planned for that day, which you know you already have the ingredients for.

I take coffee with me when I go out in a nice insulated cup. I think Starbucks offer a discount on refills if you provide your own aswell.

I taKe a packed lunch if I'm travelling and I always take something I like if I'm in the office. Salads in the summer and something to heat up in the winter because I don't have to go out into the cold or rain.

I batch cook things I like and have a day usually about once a month where I look for recipes I like then I freeze them in plastic containers that can be reused.

Currently I have a mix of the below which I am using for either lunches or my tea.

Thai green curry with rice
Beef massaman with rice
Chilli
Spaghetti bolognaise with pasta
Cottage pie
Chicken tikka masala with rice
Goulash
Salmon and noodles
Scouse
Lasagne
Chicken and chorizo in red wine.

I use a Gousto or hello fresh delivery when I can get a good discount code and then use the recipes for portioning up for lunches/tea and I always pick something that I haven't made before to mix it up a bit. You get the recipe cards also which you can keep if you decide you want to make them again.

It sounds silly but when I freeze up my portions I always put fresh herbs on top as it just makes it look that much nicer.

We don't eat the batch cooking every day but it's there when I cba cooking. It works for me working full time and trying to get everything else done like the washing drying etc.

Yeah I think everyone understands that London has a larger sum total of food options than your average town or city. Obviously. Most people don't trek for an hour to get their lunch though, they get it from somewhere nearby. So it's completely irrelevant that there might be the best indonesian restaurant in the world in highgate if OP works in canary wharf.

You also completely missed the point that the reason people found the 'more variety in London' comment funny was because the places she then referenced actually getting her food from were pret/leon/tescos/sainsburies- e.g. outlets available pretty much everywhere. If she'd said 'I wonder if it's because London has so much variety...e.g. the last few days I've eaten from an eithiopian pop up bakery, a fresh sushi truck at a food market, and perogies from the polish stall at the indoor market, all are within 2 mins of my office' it would have made more sense and wouldn't have attracted so much mockery!

Me too! I loved Eat more than Pret. Their curried cauliflower sandwich was a food of the gods.

Totally agree .

I hate taking lunch in . Need the spontaneity

I agree with this, if you are frugal else where then keeping this as your thing that feels more like self care than a treat is fine. We all need something that picks up as a constant, so if you don't have financial issues or responsibility why not take care of yourself in this way!

Yes! Whilst I'm ok to bring in my lunch on office days (I am fussy about sandwich fillings, prefer plain and boring and hate pre packed salads although am partial to a toastie) I bloody love my take away coffees and pastries! Like you OP, I associate it with my office life and love walking through the city centre, latte in hand, to start the day.

It became more of a habit during lockdown (once cafes opened for take away) as we have a Costa drive thru near us and it felt like such a treat to go there, especially when there was so little in the way of treats available to us all.

Unfortunately it has become not just a treat anymore and it is an expensive habit. I do have DC, and although we are fortunate enough to have 'spending money' left over every month, we are doing our best to tighten our belts and rein in unnecessary spending.

What I do now is set myself a budget of 100 a month,mine to spend on the fripperies like coffee and Kindle books (DH spends his on gadgets!) It does help...but I'm burning through it this month thanks to the yummy autumnal offerings so I need to be careful.

But I do love my little treats! Honestly OP, if you can afford it and it's your choice of treat then why not crack on?

The reference to London was in the context of variety, not the Pret/Paul/Leon chains if you read the OP.

As it goes there’s only 1 Paul outside London - Oxford. And around 50 Leons in London, but in Brighton or Bath say there’s only one for the whole city, so they’re not so accessible.

It’s just a transparent knee-jerk defensiveness/forced ‘humour’ regarding London - is it really necessary?

@latetothefisting ^

What <did> happen to the lovely soups in Pret? Haven't seen them since pre-lockdown. I used to love the red Thai curry one. As another poster said, only ever souper tomato or chicken and broccoli these days.
I only work in the office two days a week now so I refuse to feel guilty about buying lunch and often breakfast on those days. Love a pret salmon and egg breakfast baguette. And DH has a pret subscription but is only in town a day or two a week as well so I'm afraid like a previous PP we share the subscription! Naughty I know

We'd be great friends!

Autumn is over too fast, have your little treats :)

I do like the sound of the £100 pot x

Some office wanker told me that if I had my lunch each day for the 38 years I had so far worked I could have bought a Mercedes. Really? Where can you buy a Mercedes for a fiver a day, when could I have bought it? And would I still have it? Fucker.

Yes it sounds a bit naff but think of all the savings.

£5 x 5 x 47 x 38 = £44650

Say you reduced the cost by two thirds by bringing food from home, that still gives you £30k with which you could buy a car, even a Mercedes.

I have about £30k in premium bonds and investments and a large part of that is money I didn't spend on lunch over the last 15 or so years compared with DP (in our house the rule is that if you take your lunch from home, it comes out of house money, if you buy it, it comes out of your own personal spending money because it's so much more expensive).

Of course, you weren't spending a fiver a day 38 years ago, but the principle still applies that regular small purchases can add up to a lot of money, and many people spend a lot more than a fiver a day on lunch, coffee and snacks while at work.

I do have lunch out sometimes, but not every day, more like once a week.

Imagine having no small pleasures in life so that in 38 years time you can buy a nicer car 😂

Except by then you won’t be able to enjoy it either as you will have become so miserly you would no doubt think the MPG wasn’t economical enough.

Some office wanker told me that if I had my lunch each day for the 38 years I had so far worked I could have bought a Mercedes

I don’t think anyone with this mindset will end up buying a luxury car tbh 😐.