How much do you spend on food at work?

Scam said:
Mental. Paying £2-3 for porridge is crazy town when you can get a 1kg bag of oats for like £1. I know obviously, markup is markup but on porridge it's especially brutal. Why not do overnight oats? Even if you haven't got time to eat at home you can bring it in to work.
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I bloody love overnight oats. Blueberry and maple syrup, breakfast of kings.
 
Average of £20-£25 a month. This goes on 3-4 coffees a week from the coffee shop and a breakfast roll from the work canteen on a Friday for team breakfast. Occasionally if we haven't done our food shop for the start of the week I'll buy lunch on a Monday however I try to avoid it as it is overpriced for the quality.

Also recently I've been lazy with breakfast and have been getting either beans on toast or poached eggs on toast which works out at £1.50 a time.
 
I don't spend anything as food is provided. I'm lucky enough to be able to have breakfast (cooked breakfast on a Wednesday) if I come in early, then there's cake or cookies etc mid morning, then lunch which can easily be 3 courses (soup, main, dessert, salad bar, fruit/yogurt bar), mid afternoon more cake etc and then supper if I'm here late. Tea, coffee, biscuits and fruit available any time of the day. Tis a great setup but sadly does lead to everyone putting onweight when they first start here!! lol
 
FortuitousFluke said:
I bloody love overnight oats. Blueberry and maple syrup, breakfast of kings.
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Yep. I only started doing this summer. Unfortunately the easy-ness of preparing them somewhat goes out the window as my girlfriend insists on putting apple in it (as I sold it to her as more of a bircher muesli style thing). Chopping/grating that and having to clear it up is annoying. All I prefer is oats and chia seeds overnight, then add banana, almonds and honey in the morning. Lush.
 
Scam said:
Yep. I only started doing this summer. Unfortunately the easy-ness of preparing them somewhat goes out the window as my girlfriend insists on putting apple in it (as I sold it to her as more of a bircher muesli style thing). Chopping/grating that and having to clear it up is annoying. All I prefer is oats and chia seeds overnight, then add banana, almonds and honey in the morning. Lush.
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Yeah I can't be doing with chopping or peeling. *protip - whack the banana in with the milk overnight and it all breaks down a bit and everything gets all bananary. #Iusedtobemuchcoolerthanthis.
 
If I'm in early, I'll buy breakfast at work. A 7 item cooked breakfast is about 80p for staff and it's very good.

Some other food is sold at not much above cost, but you have to cook it yourself and I don't care to spend any of my lunch break cooking so I don't. I usually bring food in from home instead. The staff room has the basics - kettle, microwave.

Sometimes I'll get something from a nearby shop if I didn't bring something in. Tuna and rice, for example, is about £1.20 if you buy a pouch of rice and a tin of tuna from somewhere like B&M. Cheaper and healthier than buying a pasty from a bakery. Sometimes I'll buy a sandwich to eat while walking into work, but I don't like mayonnaise and it has become the fashion to put it in almost every sandwich. So sometimes maybe £2 - 2.50 for a sandwich. Sure, I could get a sandwich for £1 but I'd rather not eat tasteless cheese or reformed meat products in damp, cold bread.

The most annoying expense is when I've gone too long without eating something and need something quick that I can sneakily shove down my throat while working in order to avoid becoming Mr Grumpy. That comes down to a bar of chocolate, which is 85p at work. Just metres away, the same chocolate will be about 20p in B&M. That's annoying.

If you don't count the cost of food I bring in from home, I estimate I spend about £10 a week on food at work (or on the way to work).
 
I don't eat at our canteen, it's a ripoff and the dude that serves you is grumpy as ****. Staff shop is much better though and I spend £30-40 a month. Only reason I'm still here all things considered.

Spent £5 yesterday and got

2kg mince beef £1
500g cooked chicken 50p
24 pork and leek sausages (not the best but all they had) £1
Slab of bacon (50 rashers) £2
8 pints of milk 50p

There was also 10 fillets steaks for a £5 but I've got enough of them already :p
 
For all intents and purposes very little. Around 2 a day which includes pastries/coffee, full lunch/deli sandwich soup etc.

A fraction of what it would cost me to do.

Then again we work pretty hard so its not like they are not making money haha
 
jon86 said:
Do you work for a retailer of some kind? You're practically paying pennies for the food at those prices! :eek:
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You'd be amazed at the markup at retail on food and drink. If a business sells to staff at cost, it will be a fraction of the retail cost. Then there's stuff close to a sell by date - better for the business to sell it to staff for something than to throw it away and get nothing for it.
 
i used to go over the shop at break time and spend anywhere from £5-8 a day in there

now i changed job and there's no shop nearby i don't spend anything, just take in a home made sandwich for lunch and drink water
 
Various.

Used to bring a salad in from home which would cost me about £1.50 with all the meat and fillings.

More recently I have been buying the Soup and bread which is like £1.40 from the canteen or the cooked meals are around £4-5 which are usually pretty good.
Alternatives are Pret which ends up being around £5-7 depending if I go for a salad or a sandwich or there a bunch of 'street food' vans which do wraps and an odd chippy which usually ends up being £5-7 again.
 
Too much. Usually 1-2 coffees a day (min £1, max £2.50), breakfast is usually around £3-5, then lunch anywhere from £4-8.

I've always wanted to get organised and pre-make as much as possible, but it's easier said than done.
 
Mulder said:
Too much. Usually 1-2 coffees a day (min £1, max £2.50), breakfast is usually around £3-5, then lunch anywhere from £4-8.

I've always wanted to get organised and pre-make as much as possible, but it's easier said than done.
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It's actually incredibly easy, provided you have the freezer space.

I can have a stock pot full of curry, another full of chilli, and a macaroni cheese in the oven all at the same time, and within 2 hours I can start portioning them all.

So 2 hours one weekend can sort me for like 3-4 weeks of lunchs.
 
I buy wraps, ham and sandwich filler at the start of the week and that does me Mon-Thur ready for fat boy Friday :p Mon-Thur is around £1.10 a day, Friday being £5-£11 depending on where we go.
 
I used to buy a croissant for breakfast, a couple of coffees and lunch which cost me about £15 a day. I then realised that at an effective tax rate of 60%, that was more than £8K of my gross salary every year. Now I use the perfectly adequate coffee machine at work, have a piece of fruit from the office fruit bowl and spend less than a third of what I used to.
 
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