brown bagging lunch

i eat 5-6 small meals a day. if i ate all of those meals out, it might get very expensive, so i spend about an hour or two on sundays preparing one or two big dishes that i can dole out and bring for lunch for the entire week. this saves me time and energy in the morning and i can get enough variety during the week by adding in a sandwich here or a protein drink or bar there. a lot of finance pages that i read tell you to keep a journal of things that you spend money on, and by making coffee at home (for instance) you can miraculously save tens of thousands of dollars (i exaggerate). i am not going to start telling you that a save a ton of money with my cooking extravaganza -- actually, eating healthy can oftentimes be on par with spending on a quick bite out for lunch. what it does do for me, though, is give me something that i can pretty comfortably ball park, budget-wise. i know that i'll every week, i'll spend about the same amount on food and it's a number that i can live with. of course, i eat out sometimes for lunch -- you have to for sanity, for business, for fun -- but i know that for the most part that's going to be every now and again and i can live with that.