I have been shocked (and I really mean shocked) at the amount of cold, hard cash that remains in my wallet lately while I brown-bag-it to work. I mean, I know eating out is expensive and I had done the math on how much I would save. But it really doesn’t hit home until you realize how RARELY you have to go to hit the bank/ATM for cash.
No really, I didn’t get it. I have been eating out lunches at work since I was 14 years old. I haven’t brown bagged since Junior High. So, in my delight over this, imagine the excitement I had when I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Mad Money Machine (which you should definitely check out if you’re interested in great investing strategies for the everyday guy), and heard about the lunch calculator at feedthepig.com. That website will let you input a variety of factors (cost of lunch out, cost of sack lunch, number of years, etc.) and calculate what eating lunch out everyday costs you.
I took it on, put in my estimated details, and found that over the next 20 years I can expect eating lunch everyday will cost me approximately $126,480. Haha, HOLY CRAP! And yes, this could apply to drinking Starbucks, Lottery tickets, or whatever stupid vice you have. Mine is eating lunch out and through at least 9.5 more weeks, I aint doin it!
January 19th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Dan, I would rather die than give up Lorenzo’s. Power to the eaters…yea brothers of the gut.