Eight glass containers sat open on the kitchen counter last Sunday at 3:30, lids stacked beside them, while Ben worked on his pot of Sunday soup at the other end of the stove. Three of those containers were my office lunches for the week. Two were my home-day lunches. Three were Ben's. By 4:30 they were full, stacked in the fridge and labeled with a dry-erase marker, and the whole thing came to about $4 a lunch.
I didn't always do this. In 2024, my first year at this job, I bought lunch near the office about twice a week, usually $12 to $14 with a drink. That's roughly $110 a month. On the other office days I'd bring whatever leftovers were around, or nothing, and end up at the vending machine at 2 p.m.
The Sunday hour
The lunch step of my Sunday reset used to be fifteen minutes of portioning whatever was in the fridge. In January I gave it a real hour, before the rest of the reset, and started making two batches every week instead of hoping for leftovers. Here's how the hour usually goes:
- 3:30: oven on to 425. Vegetables chopped and on a sheet pan.
- 3:40: rice or pasta started. Chicken or meatballs on a second pan.
- 3:50: the second recipe goes on the stove, usually chili, or a pasta salad that needs nothing cooked but the pasta.
- 4:15: everything portioned into containers. Lids on.
- 4:20: dishes and counter, done by 4:30.
My rules: nothing that needs more than a microwave, nothing that smells up the office (no fish, ever, in a shared break room) and nothing that turns sad by Thursday. On chili weeks, Thursday's container gets the chili, because it holds up best.
What's in the rotation
I rotate through five lunches, two a week, so nothing comes around more than about every two and a half weeks. These are January prices from Aldi and Kroger, rounded, for the main dish only:
| Lunch | Batch cost | Servings | Per container |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken thighs, rice and roasted broccoli | $11.60 | 4 | $2.90 |
| Black bean and sweet potato chili with shredded cheese | $7.40 | 4 | $1.85 |
| Turkey meatballs with orzo and green beans | $13.20 | 4 | $3.30 |
| Pasta salad with chickpeas, cucumber and feta | $9.80 | 4 | $2.45 |
| Extra portions of Ben's Sunday dinner | part of dinner | 2 | about $3.00 |
Then the extras, which are what turn a $2 container into a $4 lunch: a clementine or an apple (about 40 cents), a cheese stick (about 35 cents) and a small handful of crackers or a square of dark chocolate (about 25 cents). Call it a dollar. On a chicken week, lunch is $3.90. On a chili week, it's under $3. On meatball weeks it creeps past $4. It averages a little under four dollars, and I round up because I'm not counting the olive oil or the salt.
The containers and the logistics
The containers are glass with snap-on lids, a set I bought at Costco in Huntsville for about $30 back when they were just for leftovers at home. The plastic ones I used before now hold screws on a shelf under the carport, because I got tired of a lid popping open in my bag on I-565. Glass goes straight from the fridge to the microwave, and nothing in my work bag has been stained orange since.
- Labels: a dry-erase marker on the lid, with the day. It sounds fussy, but it ends the "is this the Tuesday one or the Thursday one" conversation.
- The bag: an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack, because the office fridge is full by 9 a.m. on Tuesdays.
- Timing: the line at the office microwave peaks around 12:05. I eat at 11:50 and then do my lunch walk, which in January is shorter and brisker than it is in May.
- Moose: he watches the whole Sunday hour from the kitchen doorway. He once stole a full lunch bag off the counter and has been hopeful ever since. He has never beaten a snap lid.
The monthly math
Three office lunches a week at about $4 is roughly $12 a week, or about $52 a month. Compared with the $110 or so I used to spend buying lunch twice a week, that's around $58 a month back, and it comes out of our $920 grocery budget instead of a card at the sandwich counter. I also quit the vending machine, which is another few dollars a week I'm not going to pretend I tracked perfectly.
The bigger benefit isn't the money, though. It's that on a Tuesday at 6:45 a.m., lunch is already decided. One less thing to think about before a 38-minute drive is worth an hour on Sunday afternoon.
