Meal Deal vs Packed Lunch Calculator
See what your weekday lunch really costs over a year — a bought café lunch, a supermarket meal deal, or a packed lunch from home — and how much switching down a tier could save you.
Estimate only. Prices are editable examples — real café, supermarket and ingredient prices vary by retailer, location and loyalty-scheme membership. This is an estimate, not financial advice.
- Bought → meal deal
- £835
- Meal deal → packed
- £595
- Bought → packed (total)
- £1,430
Ways to save more
- Batch-cook on a Sunday — a big pot of soup, chilli or pasta bake portions out into 5 packed lunches for pennies each, no daily effort needed.
- Supermarket loyalty apps (Clubcard, Boots Advantage Card, Nectar) often unlock a lower meal-deal price than the shelf price — scan before you pay.
- Meal-deal prices vary by store format — a big supermarket is usually cheaper than the same chain's train-station or motorway-services branch.
- Even 2 packed-lunch days a week captures most of the saving without giving up meal deals entirely.
Invest the saving instead?
If you switched from a bought lunch to packed and invested the saving every month rather than spending it, here's roughly what it could grow to.
| Years | Projected pot |
|---|---|
| 10 | £18,505 |
| 20 | £48,983 |
| 30 | £99,180 |
Illustrative only, not investment advice — growth is never guaranteed and real returns will differ.
How this is worked out
Each lunch option is priced per day, then multiplied by the number of days you buy or pack lunch each week and by 52 weeks. A bought café or sandwich-shop lunch typically costs around £7, a supermarket meal deal around £3.79, and a home-packed lunch (bread, filling, snack, drink) around £1.50 in ingredients. Small daily differences add up fast over a working year — this calculator shows the annual cost of each option side by side, plus the saving from moving down a tier.