Carter - Lunch to go: think outside the bag

Lunch to Go:

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2012 Carla Carter

All Rights Reserved .This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Booktango books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Booktango

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.booktango.com

877.445.8822

ISBN: 978-1-4689-0938-8 (ebook)

Taking control over what you eat for lunch seems like such a small thing, but this one small step will impact many areas of your life. Take control of your finances, your time and your health. What more does anyone want out of life? Sure, you can invest in those fancy diet plans. Sure, you can pack cheap lunches or buy on the fly and eat standing up. You wont want any of that once you plug into this time-saving plan.

This is a one-hour-per-week system guaranteed to save you dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars. The health factor is a naturally-occurring side effect!

Control your finances : Youll be amazedand probably shockedat how much youve been spending unnecessarily. Check this out:

$5-10 per day x 5 days a week for 50 weeks comes to $1250 to $2500 in less than a year. You most likely spend more than $10 when you consider the drinks, snacks, Girl Scout cookies, etc that often dont get counted. What will you do with your $2500?

Use the Bankrate.com Calculator to plug in your numbers and see an estimate of your potential savings: Go to bankrate.com and select the calculators tab. Scroll down to the savings calculator and click on lunch savings or insert this address into your browser: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calculators/savings/lunch_savings_calculator.asp

Youll probably spend less than $10 a WEEK on the groceries it takes to make your own healthful meals. Even if you were to buy all pre-packaged foods or your grocers prepared foods, youd still spend less and have more control over what you consume than if you went out every day. In addition, youll save some gas, reducing your carbon footprint. But thats another topic entirely!

Control your time : Say you have a 30 minute lunch break. You spend the first 5 minutes deciding where to go and gathering your things, checking your wallet. Then you go to a lunch place and have to decide what to order, wait for them to make it, then pay. Now sit down at a tableoops have to eat on the run, it takes 5 minutes to get back to work and youve used up the first 20 minutes of your break already. Maybe your order isnt even correct, but theres no time to wait for them to change it.

If you had packed a lunch it would go like this:

Pull your plate out of your lunch tote, put it in the microwave and set the timer.

While that cooks, step into the restroom and wash your hands.

Go back and get your lunch from the microwave, pull out a magazine and enjoy 25 minutes of relaxing time on a meal that you know youll enjoy because YOU prepared it just the way you like it.

Control your health : Enjoy meals freshly prepared at home where you know exactly what the ingredients are. You control your sodium, sugar, trans-fat, and calorie intake. You also control cravings. If you prepare ahead of time when you arent hungry, youll make wiser choices. Then youll simply eat what you have with youno room to be tempted by the candy bar at a check-out counter. No temptation to just eat whatever questionable items were left in the break room from last weeks event.

Plus, youll have the option of eating outa different kind of out. There is nothing as pleasant as eating in the open air on a beautiful day and still having 10 minutes for a stroll.

Please realize that I am not a doctor, nutritionist, economist, or chef. Nor do I hold any degree related to food, nutrition, or time- or money management. My system is completely from first-hand experience and anecdotal research.

Feel free to tweak these recipes and systems to work for you in your life. This is meant to be inspiration rather than instruction. Get on board with a lunch-packing routine that is efficient, economical, healthy and practical for you . Use the timeline and menu suggestions as a springboard to your own lunchtime pleasure...