PSA: I tracked every dollar I spent on lunch for 3 months and the before and after is not what I expected
Back in January I was buying lunch near my office in Sacramento every single day and it was eating me alive, roughly $11 to $14 a pop, so about $260 a month just on sandwiches and burrito bowls. I finally sat down with my bank app and added it all up for 3 months and the total was $742, which honestly made me feel sick. So I tried the classic move of meal prepping on Sundays, and after 3 weeks my grocery bill went up $40 a week, so I was barely saving anything at first. The real change came when I stopped trying to copy fancy recipes and just started doubling whatever I made for dinner, then packing the extra portion the next morning. Same food, zero extra cooking, and my lunch spending went from $260 a month down to about $55 in groceries I was already buying anyway. The before and after over 3 months was $742 down to around $480 total, which is not huge, but it is $260 back in my pocket for basically no work. Has anyone else done the double dinner thing and actually stuck with it, or did you fall off after a couple weeks like I did the first two tries?