Take the Brown Bag Challenge

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

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