Take the Brown Bag Challenge

By Donna Freedman

In 2007, I proposed that Smart Spending message board readers carry lunch to work for a month, then add up the savings. Hundreds played along, sharing loads of advice.

Turns out it was a great fire drill.

Eighteen months later, with the economy circling the drain, the time seems ripe for a second Brown Bag Challenge. Veterans report savings of anywhere from $20 to $100 a week, so we're talking real money here. And this may be the only free lunch you get as times get tougher: Not only will you save money, you'll almost certainly eat healthier, tastier food.

You'll need more than just bread and cold cuts. You'll need some motivation, some advice from the lunchtime greats and a strategy for making sure your savings stay saved.

A multitude of motivations

As Brown Bag Challenge II opens, message-board posters report that leftovers are more common than ever. "Newsmaker" says so many colleagues are brown-bagging that they can't all fit in the lunchroom at the same time.

Motivations vary. Tennessee student Jana Simmerly wants to clear debts that resulted from her husband's job loss. South Carolina reader Ann S. has a daughter who's leaving for college in two years.

"Beezuss" and her husband draw minimum wages to help keep their Chicago business afloat during lean winter months. "Newhomeowner ND" is also a new mom and spends so much of her lunch hour pumping breast milk that there's no time to go out.

And "98birdwoman" frankly admitted that she's "too cheap to pay $7 to $10 a day to buy food when I can carry my lunch for 30% of that cost."

Our lunch bunch keeps costs down by using less meat (or eliminating it) and by shopping at discount grocers, bread outlets, ethnic markets, warehouse clubs and dollar stores. Even though food costs continue to rise, brown-bagging is still cheaper than five days a week of noontime takeout or even the Dollar Menu.

• Join the discussion: Are you packing lunch to save money? Got tips and tricks?

It's more healthful, too. "I don't want (my family) to eat a lot of greasy junk," says Chicago resident Marcia Carli, an at-home mom who packs lunches for four.

What they're eating

Indian food, handmade Pennsylvania Dutch-style noodles with beef, homemade enchiladas, curry and rice, hummus on pita with lettuce and tomato, chicken-couscous salad with olives, cranberries and chickpeas.

We've come a long way from PBJ.

"You couldn't pay my son to eat in the cafeteria," says Sun Enge, a former chef who lives in Austin, Texas. That's because she fills his lunchbox with food such as enchiladas, hand-cut chicken nuggets, fresh vegetables and homemade granola bars and fruit leathers.

Beezuss, who works six days a week, keeps it simple: On weekends she roasts a chicken and makes five quarts of chili or an East Indian-type stew; these things plus rice, vegetables and fruit form the basis of the week's meals. She isn't following a trend but rather looking to the bottom line.

"We have no money," Beezuss says. "We're a small business."

How much they save

Packing her kids' lunches saves "Burghmom" $60 a month. Part-time worker "Misplacedyankee09" doesn't carry a meal, but leftovers save her fiancé $20 to $25 a week. Keeping away from fast food has not only saved "Mbsjam" at least $20 a week but helped the reader lose "15 pounds I was unable to lose before."

Carli's $60-a-week savings helps fund outings to Chicago's many cultural attractions. "Spending less during the school year lets me take (the kids) to a lot of places in the summer," she said.

Reader "Ncubed" and her husband once spent $400 a month on lunches out. Now those funds are earmarked for a new goal.

"I have wonderful visions," she says, "of student loans melting away."

It's not savings if you don't save it

So you figure packing your lunch for a week saved you $25. Great! But where's the cash? Frittered away in bits and pieces, probably. You need a way to capture this cash and to set a goal for the money.

The simple way: Put $5 (or whatever) aside every day that you don't eat out. At the end of the month, deposit it. This works only if you can resist the temptation of midweek withdrawals from the coffee-can ATM. If not, go for . . .

The foolproof way: Arrange for an automatic transfer of that "extra" $25 a week from your checking account to a savings account. I'd suggest using an online bank because that makes it harder to get at the money.

Now that you've set aside these funds, what do you want them to do for you? If you don't have an emergency fund, let this be the seed money. If you've got consumer debt, "snowflake" it with your lunchtime savings. Create a retirement account. Start saving for a down payment on a home of your own.

Heck, you can even make it a shorter-term goal, such as a week at the Jersey shore. The point is that it's not enough simply to not spend money at lunchtime. Without a plan, those funds will wind up being spent somewhere else, probably in ways you don't even notice. Marking your progress, whether it's through debt repayment or cash in the bank, gives you a reason to stay away from the Dollar Menu.

Continued: The 10 commandments of lunch

The 10 commandments of lunch

Readers swear by these simple tips:

• Packing it in. If there's no workplace fridge, or if lunches tend to disappear from it, invest in an insulated sack or small cooler. (I found my insulated lunch bag in a "free" box at a yard sale.) A freezable cold pack or a frozen water bottle helps keep your lunch chilled.

• Heat and eat. Repurposed leftovers plus office microwave equals hot lunch (and less food wasted). No heat source? Burghmom invested in a stainless-steel thermal jar, which she preheats with boiling water and then fills with hot food. "This cost me $12, but it paid for itself the first month," she wrote.

• Engineering leftovers. Reader "astrl" ladles food into containers before mealtime. Putting a little less on the dinner table "helps keep my family members from pigging out," she said. "Most overeat because it is there."

• Batch cooking. Some cook and freeze big batches of food over the weekend. Others just add a little more to what they'd already be cooking, such as a couple of extra chicken breasts or an entire package of pasta. Instant leftovers -- just add hunger.

• Just a little prep work. Savvy brown-baggers cut up a week's worth of carrots or celery. They craft their own "100-calorie packs" by portioning cookies, chips or trail mix into plastic bags. "Kangerooks" makes pudding and pours it into little containers; "Determined in KY" apportions bulk-buy yogurt in the same way.

• Grab and go. Consider packing your lunch the night before and putting it in the fridge. Keep napkins, containers and utensils in the same cupboard. Have a bowl of fruit washed and ready.

• A bit of the bubbly. Soda drinkers stash 2-liter bottles or multipacks at work -- bought on sale, of course. (I just paid $7.99 for four 12-packs -- yea, Super Bowl loss leaders!)

• For the nonsoda camp. "B is 4 Broke" brings in a gallon of homemade iced tea. A thrifty woman posting as "dsz5463z" mixes her own sports drinks with Kool-Aid plus sodium.

• No sugar tonight. Readers love those sugar-free drink mixes. Resist the pricey single-serving packets, though; I've paid as little as 33 cents for 2-quart mixes. Refill a water bottle every night and freeze it. Oh, and there's always that old standby: plain water. What a concept.

• Always have backup. Some readers cache peanut butter, jelly, crackers, canned soups and other foodstuffs. "Sam814" recently stocked her desk with oatmeal, protein shakes and protein bars obtained free after drugstore rebates. "My storage tower is now a mini-mart," she quipped. Tennessee student Simmerly puts prepackaged kits of ham salad and crackers and applesauce cups in her husband's car, in case he forgets his lunch. It's pricey, she conceded, but "still cheaper than going out."

Save money today

Lunch is on her: A Smart Spending message board reader came up with a simple way to get her adolescent daughter to become more frugal. The same approach worked for my own daughter. Click here to find out more.

Blame it on the Hamburglar: Posting on the same message board thread as mentioned above, "frugality first" shared her way of making Happy Meals even happier -- for Mom, anyway. Read the tip.

Never buy window cleaner again: I'd heard from various sources that vinegar and water and newspaper are great for cleaning windows. Recently I found out it also works for mirrors -- but for an important caveat, click here.

Published Feb. 4, 2009