<p>Hi Everyone,</p>
<p>What is your typical food budget if you work in the city and eat out for breakfast and lunch? I know a friend of mine spends on average 20 dollars a day for breakfast and lunch. That is 100 dollars a week and 400 dollars a month. That is a bit much.</p>
<p>This is for a recent graduate who doesn’t prepare food because of late hours.</p>
<p>Which city? In NYC, $20 a day is too low but doable if you are very thrifty and can eat from vendors on the street. How does $20 a day amount to $100 a week? Does your friend live in the city or commute?</p>
<p>If you order lunch/dinner in, even then each could come out to be around $12-$15 or so with tips for each meal, so that is around $30. Then there is breakfast, but if you eat that at home, it should be next to nothing. Despite eating out, if you buy fruits/vegetables/cereal/milk, that could come to around $40 per week, just fruits and a little veggies. So to be comfortable, I would budget $800-$900 or even $1000 per month, in NYC. Don’t know about other places.</p>
<p>What’s “the city”? New York? DC? Cleveland? LA? Dallas?</p>
<p>And what is your definition of eating out? Is that an Egg McMuffin and coffee from McD’s, a scone and latte at Starbucks, a sit-down dinner at a diner? For lunch, is that food from a cart or cafeteria or a sit-down meal? What is your typical food budget if you work in the city and eat out for breakfast and lunch? </p>
<p>If your friend has the budget to eat out to his taste, then it’s really not your business or problem. If your friend is spending too much, he’ll figure it out soon enough. </p>
<p>For some people, it’s worth the convenience and they’ll scrimp in other areas. Other people would rather make their own food and splurge on having a cleaning service.</p>
<p>I’m working in NYC for the summer, and I’d say on average I spend around $20 on food a day (sometimes a little more, sometimes less) Breakfast is pretty simple, usually just bread+peanut butter and some fruit. Lunch/dinner I usually do take out or pack a sandwich.</p>
<p>I don’t think she was saying it was an outragious price for her friend…she was compairing what the student would need and could it be less. </p>
<p>Yes, she forgot to mention specifics…in Missouri two quick meals could run 12 to 20.00 daily.</p>
<p>You just came across as a bit snippy and not sure if you meant to run someone off instead of being helpful. I’ve read some of your posts and they have been helpful but this one just read hateful. sorry…just letting you know from a new one here.</p>
<p>^^Lemme get this…you just joined CC and are picking on a post that is 16 months old and on a thread that has not been active in 16 months. Really???</p>
<p>Stalking Pizzagirl? just asking.</p>
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<p>My typical breakfast/lunch is:</p>
<p>1 cup of beans (pinto/black/red kidney - whatever is $1/pound)
1 cup of black bean soup or chili ($0.75 for soup, $1.10 for Chili)
1/2 cup of almonds or pistachio nuts ($0.60 from Trader Joes)
2 cups of cabbage/broccoli/tomato ($1.00 at the most)</p>
<p>Optional (typical cost well below $1.00):</p>
<p>Banana, peanut butter sandwich, extra 1/2 cup pistachio nuts,
Clif Builder Sampler bar (1 oz), one or two fried eggs, turkey
meatballs, soy chorizo, peeled apple or pear, brussels sprouts,
okra, broccoli</p>
<hr>
<p>So my typical lunch is $3-$4 per day. But this requires preparation.
My wife cooks the beans in a crock pot overnight on Sunday night so I
have about six - seven cups of beans. I have had to throw out one or
two cups regularly because they went bad but I’m putting some in the
freezer to fix that problem. The soup (New England Country Soups has
been $0.75 a package for two cups but has gone off summer discount
and is now $1.25/2 cup pouch). I have two GlassLock containers that
I use to put in 1 cup of soup and 1 cup of beans - bring one to the
office and leave the other in the refrigerator. This typically works
out to 400 to 500 calories.</p>
<p>My wife prepares the cabbage/broccoli/tomato in the morning though I
could do it too (I used to host dinner parties when I was single and
did a lot of cooking and cleaning on my own). She buys a large head of
white cabbage (it’s pretty dense) and just slices off some, we use
frozen broccoli which is about $1.10/pound and small plum tomato. The
proportions are usually 1.4 cups cabbage, 1/2 cup broccoli and 1/2
tomato. She sautees it in the skillet. This works out to about 80
calories.</p>
<p>Almonds are about 300 calories.</p>
<p>The options are typically 100 to 200 calories.</p>
<p>So for me, breakfast/lunch are typically 750 to 1,100 calories. I
adjust the number of calories for my planned activity level for the
day.</p>
<p>This approach requires some food preparation - I think that everyone
should learn how to prepare food beyond throwing frozen food in the
microwave. It also involves optimizing for nutritional value (it’s
high in protein, relatively high in unsaturated fats, very high in
fiber, low in sodium, cholesterol except the eggs, and very low in
sugars). These ingredients could cost double what I pay in New York
City and I imagine that it would take some effort to find grocery
stores to source the ingredients.</p>
<p>DS worked at a job where he ate “out” for every meal for a year. It’s not particularly good for your health. He hated it, and is very happy to cook for himself…and eat healthier…and for less money. He’s in a city too (not in the northeast) and finds he can easily make things that are easy to grab and go. He can’t imagine going to restaurants that much…he’s done that.</p>