My DH takes soup, a sammy or leftovers.. i live in a very pricey area and buy all organic and it is not as much as your lunch bill... His lunches are about 1.50. Much cheaper than fast food and better for him. Sounds to me that you are really conscience about portions at dinner.. hopefully to save money.. maybe it would save you even more to prepare an extra serving for lunch.. just my thoughts..

Does he have access to a microwave? My dh usually takes his lunch. Some things we send with him are pot pies, frozen burritos, wraps made with tuna or lunch meat. He isn't a big sandwich eater but will eat the wraps. If you want to switch to left overs, then make more each night and take his lunch out first. Make sure he knows it is his lunch and not to eat it. I know not buying water may not be an option, it isn't an option here because the tap water is really nasty. If he has access to a microwave, you can buy frozen meals for less than what you spent. Try the stouffers or lean cuisine, they are a little more expensive but most are really good and well worth the extra $ especially if your hubby is adverse to frozen dinners. As far as the gatorade goes, you can buy them in 6 or 8 packs for less than $1 each, You can always buy a 6 or 8 pack and a couple of the large jugs and refill them daily.

Thank you! I'm going to have to try this. One question ... how do you store these things?

I put mine in a Tupperware, and then in the fridge. Take a couple out in the morning when I'm packing lunches (or the night before, if I'm not too pooped). They're room temperature again by the time my kids pull them out of their lunchboxes.

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My husband has been bringing a lunch to work for over 20 years and it is by far cheaper.

He has four Rubbermaid plastic containers that have dividers in them. We empty all our leftovers from main meals into these containers, add and salad, some fruit and voila ! A lunch, and he likes it. He brings tea to work.

My child that goes to school bring soup, and crackers, homemade granola bars, or cookies, water bottle. She can have a jucky snack or fruit when she gets home.

Neleh

Brown bag lunches are DEFINATELY cheaper than 7.00 each day! WOW! forlunches outside of the home we buy our water bottles at sam's club and we just re-fill them a few times before throwing them. Off the big list of things that you bought, that would be good for close to two weeks of lunches for my entire family! And my DH is a big eater.
bottled water at sam's club (at mine) is 4.88 for 32 bottles (we use bottles more than once, that's over a months worth of water). I would skip the pretzles, gatorade is adding one dollar to that $7, is it really worth it? My dh would take water and I made some "single serve" packets of lemonade powder or koolaide to send with in his lunch if he wanted something with taste.
We pay a heck of a lot less for deli meats and cheeses than what ever you're buying...$5.99 for a lb. of cheese is insanely expensive.
As far as fresh fruit goes we buy ours at Sams' (mostly) and our banannas are 37 cents a pound (and they're very good), apples are $1.16 a pound and other fruits there are cheaper as well.
I'm not saying everyone needs a sam's membership, but holy cow- things have to be cheaper doing it a different way than $7.00 a lunch!
My daughter takes lunch with her to school 3 days a week. We spend anywhere from 75 cents to $1.10 to make her lunch and some days she can't even finish it all! She brings 1/2 of a sandwich- some days with deli meat, cheese other days with peanut butter and jelly. She always has some type of fruit or veg. We'll buy a big bag of carrots and cut them up and put them into little snack baggies (that are like 1 penny per baggie), she also likes celery, cucumbers. For fruits I'll send things that are in season. She loves grapes, clementines (and they are EZ to peel), 1/2 of a banana, orange wedges.
most days she brings a small water bottle (we re-fill the same one and she uses it for 1 week and we throw it away at the end of the week) OR, on special days she gets the "Koolaide Jammers" (juice pouch for 15 cents each).
Her hot school lunch price started off this year at $1.80 and went up to $1.85 after Christmas break. I am saving AT THE VERY LEAST 75cents PER day that I pack her lunch. I understand that some people don't have the extra time to pack lunches, I understand that some of us like to pack more expensive items and I understand that some people don't "shop for the value" but if you truely want to save money by sending lunches- people have to shop around and find things at better prices, then they would be saving money. It is all about personal preferance...but the fact is that for the majority of people in the world, it is much cheaper to pack a lunch (as many people here have stated). You just have to do it the right way.

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One happy wife and mommy!!!

I'm guessing my dh eats about the cheapest lunch possible - by his choice. He has had a peanut butter & jelly saddwich every work day for about 20 years. He likes store brand bread.
He brings 1 sandwich and a baggy of pretzels (we buy the large box from Sam's) - that's it!! He gets free milk at work.

He likes to brag how much money he saves each year eating such an economical lunch.

He's better than I am - that would be far too boring for me!