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Pick the year you'd have started. This replays real lunch prices, and the stock market growing what you saved, from then to the latest month.
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The same lunches on both paths; packing puts the difference away each month.
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This packed lunch vs buying lunch calculator replays what making your own lunch would have saved, with real prices. Pick the year you'd have started, any January from 2000 to 2025, and how many days a week. Each month it prices the lunches both ways, puts the difference away, and follows it to the latest month, invested in the S&P 500 with dividends or held in savings at the real rates of the day.
Both lunches start at a real price for January of the year you pick, tagged AVG, and you can type your own over either. From then on, a bought lunch rises with the official price index for eating out and a packed lunch with the one for food from the shops, month by month, so a £4 lunch in 2015 costs what that lunch really costs now. It counts 46 working weeks a year, leaving out holidays.
In the UK, a bought lunch is a cold takeaway sandwich, a soft drink and a bag of crisps at the average café prices ONS collects for inflation, and a packed one is a cheese sandwich, an apple and a bag of crisps at ONS shop prices. In the US, no official source publishes the average price of a lunch out, so the bought lunch starts at the federal travel lunch allowance, $19 at the standard rate in 2026: a spending limit, not an average, and higher than many lunches. The packed one is a ham and cheese sandwich, a banana and chips at BLS average prices. Investing is tax-free, as in an ISA or a Roth IRA, with no fees.
These use the calculator's starting figures for one UK case and one US case, and are refreshed when the data updates.
Had you packed your lunch 5 days a week from January 2015 and invested the difference, by August 2026 you'd have £26,169 from £10,872 saved on lunches.
Had you packed your lunch 5 days a week from January 2015 and invested the difference, by August 2026 you'd have $88,863 from $36,256 saved on lunches.
At January 2026 prices, a UK café lunch of a sandwich, drink and crisps averaged £7.09 against about £1.96 to make a cheese sandwich, apple and crisps at home: about £5 a day, or roughly £1,200 a year over 46 five-day weeks. Pick a start year above to see what that added up to, and what it grew to invested.
Five bought lunches a week for 46 weeks is 230 lunches. At the UK café average of £7.09 that is about £1,630 a year; at the US federal allowance of $19 it is about $4,370. The table above shows what the lunches cost in total from the year you pick, with prices rising as they really did.
That is the "Invested" setting: each month's saving goes into the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, converted to pounds in the UK. Switch to "In savings" to see it earn real savings rates instead, and the chart shows the money saved on its own for comparison.
ONS doesn't price meal deals, so the UK bought lunch uses café prices for each part. If your lunch is a £3.85 meal deal, type that in as the bought lunch; the calculator carries it back to your start year with the index for eating out, and packing still saves the gap.
No US agency publishes the average price of a lunch bought out. The $19 is the federal government's travel lunch allowance at the standard rate for 2026, a real figure but a spending limit rather than an average. Type in what your lunch costs to see your own answer.