Lunch Spots and Budgets

Do you have a regular work lunch spot? The kind of dining establishment that you run to in the middle of the work day because it’s fast and decent and serves sandwiches (usually), but you’d never be caught dead in on a weekend because it’d remind you of being at work and make you sad?

Pret a Manger is one of those places. For me and many of the people I work with, Hale and Hearty, a soup/salad/sandwich eatery, has become one of those places. I have eaten solely at Hale and Hearty for lunch for the entire month of October ever since a location opened up a block away from the office (location, location, location, they say). Perhaps even more importantly, I have downloaded the Hale and Hearty app to keep track of how much I’ve been spending on lunch:

This is from an email I get sent each time I make a purchase at this establishment, and it shows that I’ve spent $54 on soup this month, and if I spend another $46, I’ll get a $10 credit to spend on even more soup (I can’t lie, that’s been an incentive to keep going back too). Though I know it’s a form of marketing, I appreciate that this has gotten me to keep track of how much I spend on lunch. I’ve mentally budgeted about $100 a month for lunch, and it’s good to know I’ve managed to stay within that range. What about you, do you keep track of how much you spend on lunch? What is your version of Hale and Hearty?

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