I wanted to know exactly how much money I could save by bringing my lunch to work everyday, especially if I invested the savings or put it toward paying off debt.
I ran the math on a few different scenarios, including (1) my current situation, in which I put the savings toward my 401(k), (2) putting the savings toward student loans on the standard 10-year repayment plan, and (3) putting the savings toward student loans on the 25-year extended repayment plan.
I used my own numbers to calculate — $11 takeout lunch vs. $2.68 homemade lunch for a daily savings of $8.32. Here are the savings I found:
Daily: $8.32
Weekly: $47.01
Monthly: $183.04
Yearly: $2,171.52
10 Year: $21,715.52
401(k) Scenario — invest lunch savings in 401(k) over 10 years: $54,180
Student Loans Standard Repayment Scenario — put lunch savings toward student loans over 10-year life of the loan: $25,660
Student Loans Extended Repayment Scenario — put lunch savings toward student loans until they're paid off in ~10 years, then continue to bring lunch for next 15 years and invest the savings in 401(k): $201,140.
I wrote up the full breakdown here. The takeaway: these small savings, when compounded, add up to huge differences in your wealth.
Submitted January 03, 2019 at 09:36PM by millennialtoast http://bit.ly/2RqtMkk
