Thursday, July 19, 2012

#101 Lunching In or Out

I don't enjoy cooking. I like eating good food, I just don't particularly like preparing or making it. The only other adult in my household – my husband – takes a very passive role when it comes to preparing meals for us. He pretty much won't make a meal unless he's absolutely starving and I am nowhere to be found – and even then he won't actually make a "meal". So, meals are generally left up to me and he has no room to complain except to maybe provide suggestions on how I could do it differently next time.

Over the past few years I have started buying extra food to prepare a much larger meal than what we would normally eat in one sitting. That way, I can make approximately 4 meals-worth of food at one time (2 meals x 2 people), then package half of it up for lunch for the next day while we're at work. This seems to work out pretty well most of the time... except when my husband decides he wants to eat fast food instead.

As I mentioned, I don't enjoy cooking. So when I go through the trouble of making extra food and then even go one step further to package it up nicely in smallish containers so it's portable, won't leak, and will be easy to reheat and eat... AND THEN HE DOESN'T EAT IT... that's when I get pissed off. Yes, the food will probably get eaten either the next day or the following, but it's the principle of the matter. I went through the trouble of taking up my own precious time to prepare a meal, so don't waste money on fast food that's no good for you anyways. Yes, there are healthy fast-food options these days, but he would never choose them. His excuse is that he's already out on his lunch hour running an errand (spending more of our money!) and he wouldn't have time to eat when he got back, so the best option for him would be to just drive-thru somewhere for something to eat.

Let's review the main reasons for bringing a lunch to work instead of eating out:
a) Saves money on food (and tips if you go somewhere that isn't self-serve).
b) Eliminates the need to leave the building for lunch (saving money on fuel).
c) Get to leave work on time or early to run errands after work on the way home (when we're already in the car anyways).

Upon discussing with others of my annoyance regarding this topic, it has been suggested to me that I just make my own lunch and let him worry about what he's going to do for lunch on his own. In my opinion (and probably his) it would be rude of me to just make a lunch for myself and not for him... If I eat my lunch and he has fast food one day, the next day there's still only one lunch to be eaten and one of us still has to go out for food (unless more food is made which, let's face it, probably won't happen). That would be a waste of money yet again!

Perhaps if we shared the responsibility of making meals, I would be less likely to be so annoyed by this situation.

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