As I’ve mentioned before, I was almost-broke not that long ago.
When I was first in nursing school, going through my divorce, paying unending attorney fees, I really, really did not have extra money to spend.
At that point, things like lunch-packing were survival methods. If I hadn’t been careful with my money, I could have easily gone into debt.
at a waiting room for a mediation appointment back in 2023
(Even with careful frugality, I had to open up some 0% interest credit cards toward the end of my divorce to pay the last attorney fees.)
Now, things are better; I’m happily attorney-free, and instead of paying to go to college, I’m getting paid to be a nurse, which is a nice double win.
But I still haven’t broken my no-cafeteria streak. Why?
1. My packed lunches are (generally) healthier
I pack things like cottage cheese and fruit, green salads with chicken, kale salad, chickpea salad, protein pasta, soups made with homemade broth, and so on.
It would be tough to get cafeteria food that matches the nutrition level of these lunches.
And it would also be tricky to get something that wouldn’t give me a blood sugar crash (which is a nightmare to me at work. I don’t wanna be sleepy while I’m trying to take care of patients!)
2. Packed lunches = less trash
Cafeteria meals necessarily involve disposable packaging, but I can bring a zero-trash lunch from home.
I bring real silverware and a metal water bottle, I pack my food in either glass or metal containers, and it all goes in my insulated Snoopy lunchbox. 🙂
Water bottle, coffee, lunchbox, backpack of nurse supplies
Doing this requires some mental compartmentalizing because holy moly, I throw away a lotta stuff every hospital shift (keeping things clean/sterile is a trash-tastic process).
But you know…I’d throw that stuff away regardless. I might as well decrease my contribution to the problem by having a trash-free lunch.
3. A packed lunch offers a lot of variety
If you want a super healthy cafeteria lunch, you are basically limited to the salad bar, and that would get boring for me.
By packing my lunch, I can incorporate a wide variety of foods, and that matters to me.
I know some people can happily eat the same thing every day, but for me, food is best when it’s interesting and varied.
4. Lunches help me reduce food waste
You can certainly use up odds and ends at any meal, but for some reason, lunch feels the easiest to me.
In my lunches, I eat a lot of leftovers and also many produce odds and ends in salads, or just on their own. I know for sure this helps me cut down on food waste!
5. If I save my money, I have more to give to others
One of the motivations underlying lunch-packing and other frugal habits is this: if I spend less of my money, I am more able to give to others.
If I increased my spending to match my new paycheck, I would be no better off than before, and I wouldn’t have extra to give away.
But by maintaining frugal habits (including, but not limited to, packing my lunch), I can keep a margin, and that improves my ability to give to others. I can contribute to charities at work (sometimes we do community projects, or sometimes a coworker has a loss and we do a group gift), I can pay for other people’s food, I can be generous with my children, and more.
(I did some secret and anonymous behind-the-scenes helping of classmates this last semester by going through people who knew where the needs were. So much fun, despite the anonymity on both ends.)
I’m never gonna be able to do Oprah-level giving, obviously. But being able to share with others on a normal-person level is still very meaningful, and a super motivation to keep packing my lunches.
I spend less so that I can share more. 🙂
How about you? If you’re a lunch-packer, what keeps you motivated?
P.S. I know packed lunches are not a 100% savings over cafeteria food, because I have to buy ingredients to pack in my lunches! But I’m sure that the equivalent food would be much pricier at the cafeteria. This is making me curious exactly how much some of my lunches cost, though. Maybe I should do a price breakdown of some of them…
P.P.S. I shared links to my stainless steel lunch containers in this post.
Anita Isaac
Thursday 23rd of October 2025
when i was working 11 years ago i alternated from bringing lunch to buying lunch in the frank gehry designed cafeteria. my kid's nanny would bring them lunchtime before they were old enough to go to school. it was so much fun. usually if i brought lunch from home i would kill it before lunch hour was official. the food was really good but not subsidized like it was when i worked at disney world before my junior year of college.
Cheryl
Thursday 23rd of October 2025
I have been a "brown bagger" since elementary school. As a child it was just something my parents did, (I thought the school lunch looked and smelled "yucky" anyway), and as an adult I don't have a cafeteria - so brown bagging or eating out were my options. I am not interested in spending money on food that doesn't appeal to me, or can be a pricey lunch (local fast food, Wawa, or Panera are my options), so brown bag it is! I can pack what I want and its much healthier -- eliminates food waste in my house, and just save me money. Like you, I want to save where I can so I can give or spend where I WANT.
Joyce
Wednesday 22nd of October 2025
the reasons I pack lunch every day are the same as yours. I will also add that it takes time to walk to the cafeteria and the decision making is difficult. I have gone down with coworkers and there really aren't a lot of healthy choices. Also I am tempted to buy all that non-healthy food (mostly cookies, donuts, potato chips. yummy).
ms.b214
Tuesday 21st of October 2025
Rather than do a whole lot of number crunching, I can suggest going to Budgetbytes.com. I was going through a long protracted separation/split while in law school and dead broke. I also could not even boil water, since my mother didn't cook and my father thought me learning to cook would lend a to a life a servitude (they tended to take feminism to some weird lengths.)
'One day I looked a the grocery store downstairs and figured I could somehow feed myself. Googled, found Budget Bytes and all of her recipes had prices for the meal!
I would not have made it through those dark years financially without that site.
But point being, she has prices for everything from a dash of pepper to different kinds of flour. No need to reinvent the wheel!
Marie
Tuesday 21st of October 2025
Oh, packing lunch is automatic to me, as you say, left overs and odd bits and pieces that need to be finished off. This past year I have had three boiled eggs as starting point for my lunch and then added on whatever needs to be eaten and that's lunch. For me it's soo easy, it really has become a routine. (Example below is based on Swedish conditions, being where I live). Consumer advisory associations here will point to a $3900 saving per year. This is a five days a week lunch at $15 a lunch. Eating out is expensive, so saving on lunch food seems worth it, for us over here.