Lifehack.org posted an article today entitled, Save $988/year by bringing your lunch. It linked to an article called Frugal Lunch by Clever Dudette. In this article, the writer provides a few inexpensive lunch ideas and compares the cost to an average cost of $6 per day to eat out.

If you only want to save money, that’s all well and good, but there doesn’t seem to be any good way to actually make money doing this, unless you also start making lunches for other people and selling them. Benjamin Franklin said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” But I say that a penny spent wisely will earn you much more than just the penny. Eating lunch out is a perfect example. Here’s why:

I Need to Disengage to Be Maximally Productive
With my present employer, I do most of my work in my home office. I look forward to the opportunity to disengage from my work and leave the house for an hour in the middle of the day. After I return, I’m usually much more productive than when I eat at home. The same was true when I worked in an office with other people as well. I was much more motivated and productive in the afternoon after I totally disengaged from work for an hour and then returned to fully engage again. Our bodies and minds are machines that seem to work best with periodic rest.

I’m sure that some of you will say that you can still fully disengage and bring your lunch. Depending on your environment, this may be true. When I was in the office, I had a tendancy to work while I ate. If I did bring my lunch and eat in a breakroom, people tended to seek me out and ask me questions so that I still couldn’t fully disengage. Here at home I would tend to surf the net or do some other computer-related work if I stayed here, so I still wouldn’t fully disengage.

On weekdays, when I’m working for my employer, this increase in productivity increases my value to the company, and should therefore make more money for me in the long run. On Saturday, when I’m working in my own business, the increase in productivity generally pads my pocket a little quicker.

A Lunchtime Deadline Helps Me To Be Maximally Productive
I am much more motivated and productive in the morning when I have an enjoyable lunch to look forward to. It just puts me in a better mindset. I am also more productive as lunchtime approaches because I usually impose a lunchtime deadline on whatever task I am working on. Sure, I could do this without going to a restaurant, but just the fact that I am leaving–and leaving to do something I really enjoy–greatly reinforces the idea, and makes it much easier. It’s just not easy to get excited about a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich with potato chips. Even if I was going to eat a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich for lunch, I could get much more excited about eating one at Panera Bread (and I don’t really care much for Panera Bread) than I could about eating one at the same place I spend the rest of my day.

The same thing is true at the end of the workday too. On those evenings when I know that I’m going to go do something fun like see a movie, go out to eat with friends, or go to church, I find that I’m more motivated, focused, and productive in the afternoon. I just don’t find myself quite as motivated on those afternoons when the only thing I have to look forward to in the evening is sitting on the couch reading blogs, answering email, doing house work, or doing some other similar mundane thing around the house.

Social Activity Is a Major Factor In Career Advancement
It’s a nice fantasy to think that advancement is based entirely on performance, but that’s simply not true. How one interacts socially plays a major role in career advancement. If you don’t believe me, consider the following scenario. Three engineers all make $50k/year. The quality and quantity of work they produce is more or less equal. One of those engineers regularly joins her boss and other key players for lunch. She knows them on a more personal level, and they also know her better. The other two engineers bring their lunch and enjoy each other’s company in the breakroom most days. When it’s time for promotion, who is more likely to get the job? The engineer with more social interaction, of course. Even if her performance was a little lower than her peers, she could still likely have increased her chances just because she had more social time with her boss–and more social time with other co-workers. If this engineer gets even a 3% increase in salary due to her new position, she will increase an extra $1,500 a year, while her co-workers have merely saved an extra $1,000. She will make more money be eating out with the right people, than she would have saved by bringing her lunch.

Preparing Your Own Lunch Costs You In Time Spent
Another quote from Benjamin Franklin is, “Time is money.” If I spend 12-minutes a day on average shopping for food, preparing my lunch, and cleaning up afterward, then I’ve spent an extra hour each week. That’s at least 50 hours a year, or more than a single 40-hour work week. That time could be used doing something else that ads value to my life that is priceless, such as sharing time with my wife, or it could be spent towards some other income producing activity. I don’t spend 12-minutes a day writing new content for this blog, but if I did, I could probably increase my AdSense revenue by at least $6/day to pay for lunch out. Alternatively, I could spend that time writing a book to sell, posting things for sale on Ebay, or writing software that I could sell. Any of these would likely provide a higher return than the $988 I would save by bringing my lunch. Of course, if you’re going to waste away your time doing things like watching TV, or other activities that don’t add much value to your life, then preparing your lunch may be a good option.

As with anything, your mileage may vary depending on your own circumstances. Bringing your lunch may actually make money for you, instead of allowing you to just save money, but only if: you are willing to invest time in shopping, preparing, and cleaning up; most of your co-workers and superiors bring their lunch; and you all have a place you look forward to going–a place where you can truly disengage. For myself, I still find eating lunch out to be the best investment of my time and money for that hour of the day.