I was shuffling my way to work in the freezing cold and suddenly realized I had forgotten to pack my lunch. Annoyed with myself, I stopped by a convenient and friendly little corner café to buy a sandwich.
As I watched the proprietor slowly assemble the required ingredients, toast the bread, spoon out the pre-made sandwich filling with an ice-cream scoop, apologize that I wouldn’t be getting any lettuce since the romaine had been recalled, squeeze out the mayo, and carefully cut the completed creation in half horizontally, I wondered “is this actually saving me any time at all,” and furthermore, “couldn’t I build my own sandwich for much less money, and cut it diagonally, as any civilized sandwich maker should?”
I decided to do the math and see how much my practice of making a homemade sandwich was actually saving me. I share it with you so you can make an educated lunch choice this week.
I have overheard math students on the subway to York U saying that it’s important to ‘show your work’ to get full marks – so here’s the calculation:
A loaf of bread contains about 20 slices of bread, so my math represents the portions required to make 10 egg salad sandwiches at home:
1 loaf of bread – $3.50 (this is Toronto, mind you)
1 carton of eggs – $3.50
6 tablespoons mayo – .$50
Quantity of diced onions – $.50
Total for 10 sandwiches = $8.00
If this math is about right, one egg salad sandwich produced at home costs about 80 cents. Compared to the café’s $6 concoction, I save $5.20 each time I russell up my own lunch at home.
So if I make my own lunch 5 days a week, and refrain from the temptation of buying the convenient café sandwich, I save $26 a week, $104 a month, probably pretty close to $1000 dollars a year, give or take.
I ran the numbers on a tuna fish sandwich and the savings are a bit more modest. But still.
This may be small potatoes, but imagine all the glorious things that can be done with a spare thousand dollars. Eh?
And in the end it tastes better!
Such excellent common sense! And I wonder how many folks ponder the math as they stand in line (or idle their engines) for their barista coffee……the potential savings must be staggering.
Thank for the inspiration! Save, Save, Save!
Spot on, Steph! The same goes for coffee: here in London (England) I can buy a packet of good quality ground coffee giving me probably 20 cups for a little more than the price of one cup at a coffee shop. Of course, there’s the social side; but I see people who look as if they don’t have two cents to rub together knocking back great buckets of the shop-bought stuff. I can’t afford it – how can they? And … yes … my coffee tastes better than anything from a shop!
And at that rate, only a thousand years to become a millionaire (though I suspect I might get a bit tired of egg salad by then).