How much do you spend on lunch and coffees etc on work days?

[fourikeachairs]

Forgot my soup yesterday and wound up spending a stupid amount of money on my chicken salad and coffee. Twenty four bloody quid. Prices have risen so steeply in the last while.

What is a normal spend for you in a local lunch place?

I work in a secondary school and forgetting to bring lunch = queuing at the local shops with hundreds of kids. No thanks!
I did have Sainsbury's meal deals on the recent strike days, as I was in but the kids weren't.

I WFH mostly these days but on the days I DO go out (am self-employed so no office), I would consider a £7.00 spend on lunch to be more than enough.

As a PP stated, you cant' blame steep prices for a £24.00 lunch when YOU decided to go into a restaurant, rather than buy a sandwich from Tesco or Greggs.

It's like deciding you need to buy a car to commute to work, going into a car showroom, buying a Ferrari when there were any number of lower range cars that would have done the job, and then complaining about the price of cars these days. Bizarre. 😵‍💫

Lots of competitive underspending going on here. I knew that would be the case before even opening the thread

What?!

A nice sandwich in Greggs is about £3.50.

Don't work any more but if I did, I’d take my own anyway.

In my office

Hot drinks are free eg coffee, tea, hot chocolate

Fruit is free eg banana, apple, plum

This week

I took packed lunch everyday

£1.70 hot pasty
£1 pastry
£2 2x desserts
Plus some free out of date sandwiches

Total spend £4.70

When I used to work in an office, I'd spend £3 on a coffee but only if I'd biked the 5 miles to work and thus saved £7 on parking.

Trying to find something to eat at lunch is too depressing as a coeliac so I'd always take my own.

How so?

Most people have realised that if you buy lunch and coffee every day, you have a significant 3 figure sum leaking away every month that could well be spent on something more worthwhile.

A year of spending like that and it could pay for a holiday, a decade, a car. A tenner a day adds up to a mind blowing amount over time.

Most of my lunches are leftovers, so food that some people throw away, so could quite legitimately be costed at nothing, or very little if I have home made soup.

What a silly comment. Have you missed the cost of living crisis? It's not a competition ffs!

£24! Why didn’t you just go and get a meal deal and eat it in the office?
I know I’m old but I am always totally shocked at how much people spend on eating out/convenience foods . Coffees, lunches, takeaways, meals out etc. Must cost thousands a year.

M&S salad bowl for about a fiver but then I end up buying Percy pigs too. I am trying not to eat lunch out. Cos can easily be £7 a day. Coffee about £3.

I usually take my lunch with me, plus have a couple of random things in the fridge and an emergency pot noodle in my desk, but occasionally get a meal deal - or as likely to get a ready meal as there's a microwave in the office.
regular croissants from Aldi are a regular breakfast weakness though.

I take my lunch, normally buy a drink for £1.20. If I buy lunch, it’s a work style meal deal for less than £4 but the sandwiches are beyond dull so I generally don’t bother.

I’m in work 5 days so buying lunch every day works out expensive.

I would cry if my work lunch cost me £24! Particularly as I never get a lunch break🤣

If I went out for lunch at a cafe it would be £7-8 for a sandwich or a vegi quiche and salad.

I’m currently only in the office once a week and on those days I “treat myself” to a dirty southern fried chicken and sweet chilli baguette at £3.50.

However, when I was in the office more often I used to take my own lunch in.

£3.40 for a Tesco meal deal for me Monday to Friday, I couldn't make a decent sandwich/salad with a snack and drink for that at home

£24?! I almost always sound nothing, but when I'd get caught out, most meals deals are less than £6?

I think that's extortionate and it has risen steeply from where it was

£2.50- £3.00 per day on a sandwich. I used to have a costa coffee everyday, but their prices were getting ridiculous so now I buy Nescafé 2 in 1 sachets , £2.00 for 16 sachets and have one of those instead. Also take a refillable water bottle in to work.

If I forgot my lunch, a Boots or Tesco meal deal. Possibly a jacket spud from a lical cafe.. All less than a fiver Hot drinks are provided at work.

Nothing. I take my own from home.
I'd rather drink tap water than buy a drink out, especially the ditchwater that tries to pass itself off as coffee.

Tea and coffee at work are free, though you can also get lattes and cappochinos and such for 2.50 in the cafe.
Lunch ranges from 7.50 for a set menu (with soup, salad, main) up to about 16 for the more cooked-to-order stuff. Soup, sandwiches, quiche etc are less of course.
I probably spend on average 12 a day when I to the office. Pre-covid I used to bring lunch, but went in every day. These days I go maybe twice a week, and its nice not to bother cooking on those days (just have toast or instant noodles etc if I had lunch at work).

Soup and a roll from local cafe is £4.50

I don't have time to go out and get lunch tbh (or to stop somewhere to buy lunch en route to work) . I take half of the school lunch hour to eat my packed lunch and chat to colleagues and spend the rest of it working.

I try to take my own, but when I do buy something from the work canteen I spend about £4 for a disappointing sandwich and some crisps.

Typical day ?
£0
If I treat myself to a cooked breakfast in a caff whilst traveling around ? £4 - 5

I don't really have time to go to a naice pub. (Nor the money if that's what they are charging for a salad !)

That’s a big treat 😂 especially given you hadn’t planned to eat out.

I work in central London and spend £4-£5 on lunch (meal deal or Pret). All my colleagues spend more like £10 though.

Only buy coffees at weekends, so not at work.