Eating #8

I'm doing #8 on my list this month. Bring my own lunch to work for a month.

The purpose of this list item was to save a bit of money.
Lunch costs a lot of money in downtown San Francisco.  Figure a trip to the salad bar at 7.99/lb or a sandwich at $6.99 plus a drink, plus some fruit to have later in the day. That totally adds up. It frequently adds up to be about $13 a day. Gee whiz, that's a lot of money. That's $260 buck-a-roos a month.
I had intended to stick to the only-bringing-in-leftovers rule, but amended that. Since the goal is to save a bit of dough, I decided that all lunches I don't pay for count towards "bringing my lunch to work for a month"

Week 1 started on February 21.
I did pretty good. We made sure to make yummy dinners and when we put dinner away I made sure to pack my self a lunch. One night Tom made some super-duper rockin' lamb stew. So good the next day at lunch.
Week 2 started on Feb 28.
On Monday I had to order lunch for a meeting that was taking place in the office. I poached a sandwich, instead of bringing an actual lunch.
On Tuesday I was treated to lunch by someone I work with. I wanted to go to Houston's because I really like their coleslaw. He wrinkled his nose and dismissed that idea quickly. Who was I to argue? He was, after all, paying. I sold him on the idea of Truffled Fries with Asiago Cheese, so we went to Fog City Diner instead. We split a plate of fries. He had a burger and I had a BLT with a fried-egg on it and we talked about iPads. For dessert I had bananas foster, which was OK, nothing special. He had a pistachio creme brulee. He picked off all the sugar from the top and put it in a little pile on the side of his plate. When he was done eating the creme he put the sugar in his coffee.
Week 3 started on March 7
No company sponsored lunches this week. Good thing, though. As yummy and as free as they are, they don't have the best nutritional value. Can you say "chocolate wheat-germ cookie" from Specialtys? I started P90X this week. For the next 90 days (minus the 7 that I'll be in Hawai'i in May) I have a particular diet to try to follow. Food from Specialtys or Il Fornaio certainly aren't on the menu of a P90X-er.
Week 4 starts today, March 14
Why am I writing this post before I actually finish the list item? Well, at the risk of counting my chickens before they hatch, I don't think it'll be any problem to finish out this week making my own lunch. I'm enjoying packing my lunch every night before I go to bed, and although I've been particularly poor this month and haven't actually benefited from saving $260, I definitely didn't put an additional $260 on my credit card this month.

It'll pay off in the long run.