How brown bagging a meal can save you money.
Packing a meal for work, often called “brown bagging”, reduces how much money is spent on breakfast, lunch or dinner during the workday. For lower-income and hourly workers the cost of eating out during the workweek adds up quickly. While the exact amount of money you can save by brown bagging varies (as noted below), learn more about how bringing a meal from home to work will save money.
Here is a fact. Any meal you eat while at work (lunch, breakfast, dinner, etc.) that is bought at restaurants, fast food places, or convenience stores are paid for with money left over in your paycheck - after taxes. Meals made at home are paid for through groceries that already support the household. The difference shows up quickly in weekly and monthly spending.
Cost of food at home vs eating a meal outside the home
Meals purchased away from home are consistently more expensive than meals prepared from groceries, which someone can use to brown bag their lunch or dinner. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks consumer spending and shows that food bought away from home costs significantly more than food prepared at home. In recent Consumer Expenditure Survey data, average spending per meal away from home is several dollars higher than meals eating a home, that are made from groceries. The saving, when broken down per serving, are noted here: https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index also tracks price differences between food away from home and food at home. Over time, prices for food away from home rise faster and remain higher. This includes fast food, takeout, cafeteria meals, and convenience items commonly purchased during work hours as noted here: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/supplemental-files/home.htm.
The United States Department of Agriculture publishes food plans that estimate the cost of preparing meals at home using groceries. This cost can be what it costs to brown bag a meal. These plans show that a home-prepared meal often costs only a few dollars per serving when ingredients are used across multiple meals. These figures are based on real grocery prices and portion sizes, not estimates with details here: https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans.
Buying a meal during the workday often leads to extra spending as well. Drinks, sides, and snacks that many food service places "push on people" raise the total price. These items are priced higher when purchased individually outside the home. Packing lunch removes those one off add-ons because the meal is already prepared at home - in your brown bag meal.
Examples of how much people can save by bringing a meal from home
The total savings vary by how many days a person works, how effectively they shop for groceries, and the price of restaurants or fast food in their area among other factors. When you run the calculations on how much money can be saved per year by brown bagging a lunch or dinner for work, the savings are substantial.
When these official figures are compared on how much food costs at home vs. away from the house, the gap becomes clear. Using the data above, a meal purchased during the workday commonly costs several dollars more than a lunch prepared at home. Of course this depends on location, type of meal, and other factors, but the fact is the national average is several dollars more away from home vs home groceries.
Even a conservative difference of five dollars per workday adds up to about twenty-five dollars per week. Over fifty workweeks, that equals roughly one thousand two hundred fifty dollars per year. Larger differences increase that total further.
For hourly workers (which consistently hovers at more than 50% of the workforce), this spending is easy to translate into time. If a worker earns fifteen dollars per hour, spending twelve dollars on lunch uses most of one hour of pay. Spending four or five dollars on a packed lunch uses much less. That difference repeats every workday and does not depend on raises, overtime, or extra shifts.
Taxes that a worker pays, based on their income, increase the impact because lunch is paid for with take-home money. Payroll taxes and federal and/or state income taxes reduce gross pay. The Internal Revenue Service explains how Social Security and Medicare taxes apply to wages (website: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751), which reduces what is available to spend afterward.
- Because of the tax impact, spending twelve dollars after tax requires earning more than twelve dollars before tax. For many workers, earning twelve dollars after tax can require fifteen dollars or more in gross pay. Reducing lunch spending by one thousand to two thousand dollars per year reduces the amount of gross pay needed to pay other living expenses.
The savings appear quickly. Cutting lunch or dinner spending by twenty to forty dollars per week leaves that money available for whatever else you may want or need. Over a month, that amount you save by brown bagging can exceed one hundred dollars and over a year, it reaches four figures without changing income.
Other advantages to brown bagging a meal
Not only may brown bagging a meal save you money over both the short and long term, it is much healthier as well. Eating and living healthier will also help families save money on expenses such as health care bills, insurance, medications, and more. Many companies even offer discounts on medical and dental plans if you eat well. So the benefits add up..
Packing a meal for work does not require specialty food. The brown bagging concept relies on ordinary groceries already used by the household. Leftovers from dinner, sandwiches, rice dishes, pasta, eggs, and frozen vegetables allow one grocery purchase to support several lunches or dinners instead of paying full price for each meal separately.
Another thing to consider. In households with more than one working adult, the effect multiplies. If two workers each reduce lunch spending by one thousand dollars per year, the household keeps two thousand dollars. Larger differences increase that amount. This reduction in routine spending lowers the risk of shortfalls that lead to borrowing.
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