With gas prices the way they are...

[happysmileylady]

I am having a hard time which is better for me financially...driving home from work to eat lunch or eating out near work and saving the gas...

I live about a 15 minute drive from work. And about twice a week, I bring my lunch. But since we only have a small dorm size fridge and no microwave or break room, I am stuck with cold lunches at work and get bored with them fast. When I go home, I can heat up a can of ravioli, reheat leftovers or whatever. The obvious savings here is that I am only spending like $2 at most on my FOOD, versus anywhere from $5 to $13 on lunch near work (anything from McDonalds to Applebees).

The question is, if I am spending max of $2 a day (ie $10 to $12 a week), then obviously, I am saving anywhere from $15 to $66 a week on the food. But am I spending that savings in the gas to drive home from work and back in the middle of the day. My pregnant brain will not formulate that. How do I figure out how much gas I am using?

[72Tiger]

Figure out how many miles it is to drive to and from work. For example, say it is 20 miles round trip. Then estimate how many miles per gallon your car gets. Say it is 25 miles per gallon. Then for each round trip, you would use 20/25 (or 0.80) gallons of gas. If your car only got 20 mpg, you would be using 20/20 (or 1.0) gallons of gas.

[happysmileylady]

Thank you! I felt dumb for having to ask but my brain refused to formulate it!

Ok, so it's about 7.5 miles to work. So that's 15 miles round trip to get lunch. That's about .75 gallons used for lunch each day. Times 5 or 6 days is 3.75 to 4.5 gallons used a week, just for lunch.

Times $4 a gallon is just shy of $16 to $20 a week spent on gas.

Which I guess means that unless I am eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds each day for lunch, I AM saving money driving home for lunch. Obviously not as much as if I just brown bagged the samiches each day but still saving.

Thanks again! I think having a baby automatically removes brain cells!

[gt0163c]

Originally Posted by happysmileylady

I am stuck with cold lunches at work and get bored with them fast. When I go home, I can heat up a can of ravioli, reheat leftovers or whatever.

Is there any way you can heat up things at work so that you're able to stay at work and bring your lunch more often? You said you don't have a microwave or breakroom, so it probably depends on the type of work you're doing, your work area and the policies about heating elements and such at work.
Would it be possible to bring in either an immersion/coil heater? Basically that's a little metal coil on a cord. You plug it in, put it in liquid and it will quickly boil the liquid. It's made for heating water for coffee or tea, but could easily be used for soup or raviolli.
Or, could you bring in a coffee maker or electric kettle? Those will heat water and you could use the hot water to heat condensed soup, ramen (or similar) noodles or maybe even some of the instant mac and cheese type meals.
When I was in elementary school, my mom used to pack us hotdogs in our lunch by pouring boiling water into a thermos (a good one that had already been proved not to leak if you got everything screwed on correctly) and then putting in the hot dog. By lunch time, the hotdog was warmed through but not so hot that it couldn't be eaten. We'd fish it out with a fork, put it on a bun and garnish with little packets of ketchup and/or mustard leftover from a previous meal out. I've heard that others have done macaroni or rice dishes this way, but haven't tried it myself. Some experimentation is probably called for before you try it out for real.

Another option would be to expand your selection of cold meals. Personally, I like many leftovers, especially meats, cold rather than reheated. Cold chicken, turkey, even steak taste great to me either on a sandwich or eaten alone. Cutting up meat and using it to top a salad might make them more appealing to some. Cold pizza was a staple of mine in high school and I still enjoy it now (I just eat less pizza overall). Most things will stay okay for half a day without refrigeration, so you really don't need fridge. But, if you prefer your not-hot food to be cold, getting an insulated lunch bag and adding a cold pack to it works well. Or, if your work allows it, a small cooler will keep things cool even better.

With a bit of planning and creativity, perhaps you can expand your options to be able to eat more meals at work. Even if you're buying more expensive lunch ingredients, as long as it's costing you less than what you would pay to eat at a restaurant, you're saving money. And there's a good chance you'll be eating more healthy as well.

[lucille]

Depending on your work situation there might be the potential for a microwave to be there. If you have the room/facility but maybe nobody ever bothered to buy one?
You can get a microwave pretty cheap at Target, even cheaper via craigslist or freecycle.

Another option is to look at more cold meals. Everyone at our house takes their lunch to work or school 98% of the time. Most of it is cold items. I try to figure out lunches based on themes. I might do a container with sliced salami and mozzarella. I would put some sort of Italian salad and marinated mushrooms or olives with it. Or I would do something that was more like a Bento box with asian type food items. If I send a sandwich I try to make sure I have chips and claussen pickles to go with.