Abandon Nest

For the last couple of months I’ve been packing my lunch for work almost every single day. I do this for two reasons. First, it is much cheaper to pack then it is to go out to eat every single day. You can save a lot of money by preparing your own food. Second, I don’t want to leave my desk every day at 12:00 to drive somewhere, deal with the stress of other people, and then have to go back to work. Leaving work provides me with a feeling of finality and doing it in the middle of the day thwarts that.

For these reasons, and many more, I’d like to encourage you to pack your lunch. To assist you in this endeavour, I’ve prepared the following list of tips, tricks, and hints that I’ve gathered since I began packing a lunch (way back in 6th grade!)

• Buy a lunch bag - It may seem like an extraneous expense at first, but buying a lunchbag leads to many great things. First, your food will stay colder or warmer longer. Second, you’ll be able to pack silverware without worrying about rips and tears. Finally, the amount of food you can safely bring will increase.
• Pack the night before - If you don’t listen to anything else I say, you must obey this rule. Packing your lunch the night before will exponentially increase the likelihood that you’ll actually eat food from home rather than going out more often than you’d like. The pressures in the morning to hit the snooze alarm and sleep for “5 more minutes” are just too great. More often than not you’ll run out of time and not prepare yourself something.
• Sandwiches are great! - I recommend making sandwiches for lunch for several reasons: They’re easy, require little room, are filling, and are usually not temperature dependent. The best sandwiches are made of cold cuts (unless you’re a vegeterian, I guess) and I would personally recommend ham, salami, and pepperoni. That combination might not be the most healthy, but it certainly is the best tasting. If you want to reduce the perceived sogginess of your sandwich, you may wish to hold off applying condiments like mayonaise and mustard until you’re actually ready to eat.
• Take a side dish - If you do start packing sandwiches, you know you’re going to need something else to fill you up. I recommend packing an apple or some yogurt. You could also bring along some baked chips and salsa or cheese. All these things will go a long way toward making sure you’re not hungry.

Packing your lunch can be fun, or it can be frustrating. Follow my tips to make sure its the former rather than the latter. Do you pack your lunch? What do you recommend?