The cost of buying lunch every day

Annual total · ten-year spend · what it could be worth invested

What do you buy? (tick all that apply)

Or enter a daily total

£ per day

Working days per year

100 260 235 days

250 working days minus approximately 3 weeks holiday = 235

Introduction

The meal deal is one of the most discussed small spending decisions in personal finance, and also one of the most misframed ones. The argument usually goes: stop buying lunch and you will save enough to become wealthy. The reality is more nuanced. A £5 meal deal, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, costs £1,250. That is real money and worth knowing. It is not, by itself, the reason most people do not have enough savings.

The more useful version of the argument is this: how much does your specific daily routine at work cost, across all the items you actually buy – the meal deal, the coffee, the bakery thing at 11am, the can of Coke on the way back to the office – and is that amount a deliberate choice or a daily default?

This calculator makes the total visible. Tick the items you actually buy. Adjust any prices that differ from the defaults. See the annual spend, the ten-year cash total, and – the figure that tends to be larger than expected – what that same monthly amount would produce if invested in a stocks and shares ISA over the same period.

The nuance panel at the bottom is important: this is not an argument for bringing sad sandwiches to work every day. It is an argument for knowing the number and choosing deliberately, rather than spending on autopilot.

How to use this calculator

Tick the items you buy. The list covers the most common work-day purchases: coffee, meal deal, bakery items, hot food, restaurant or café lunch, soft drinks, and snacks. Clicking anywhere on the row toggles the tick.

Edit any price. The defaults are approximate current UK prices. If your coffee is £3.80 or your hot lunch is £11.50, change the figure – the totals update instantly.

Or enter a daily total directly. If you know what you spend at lunch on average, type it into the manual entry field and the item ticks will clear.

Adjust working days. The default is 235 – 250 standard working days minus approximately 3 weeks of annual leave and bank holidays. If you work more or fewer days, adjust the slider.

Slide the investment projection period. The teal investment card shows what the equivalent monthly amount would grow to if invested in a stocks and shares ISA at 6% annually. Slide the year selector to your preferred horizon.

Frequently asked questions

Is this really just the “latte factor” argument?

Yes and no. The latte factor – the idea popularised by David Bach that small daily spending is the key obstacle to wealth – is a useful illustration but an incomplete argument. Cutting a daily £4.50 coffee saves approximately £1,057 per year, which is meaningful but not transformative. Most people do not fail to save primarily because of coffee.

What the argument is actually useful for is making the size of a habitual spend visible. Most people do not have a number in mind for what their daily work routine costs. Knowing that it is £12 per day, or £1,175 per year, is information. What to do with that information is a separate question, and the answer might reasonably be “nothing – I enjoy it and it fits my budget.”

The calculator is honest about this in the nuance panel at the bottom. The goal is awareness, not abstinence.

What is a realistic “bring from home” saving?

The calculator estimates the home-made equivalent at £2.50 per day – approximately the cost of a homemade sandwich and a flask of coffee. The difference between that and your daily spend is the saving available from switching. Whether it is worth switching depends on whether you actually would make and bring lunch consistently, how much you enjoy the daily routine of buying it, and whether the saving matters enough in the context of your overall budget.

For some people the saving is significant and worth making. For others the daily lunch is a genuine source of enjoyment and social connection at work, and the money is well spent. The calculator does not make this judgement.

How is the investment figure calculated?

The calculator divides your annual lunch spend by 12 to get a monthly equivalent, then projects that monthly amount invested at 6% annual return over your chosen number of years using a standard compound interest formula (future value of regular contributions). 6% represents a broadly realistic long-run expectation for a globally diversified equity index fund.

The result is what that same stream of money produces if redirected from daily spending to monthly investing. The compound growth effect means the later years contribute proportionally more than the earlier ones – which is why extending the projection from 10 to 20 years produces a figure considerably more than double the 10-year result.

What does “working days per year” mean in this context?

It means the number of days you are physically at work (or otherwise buying lunch away from home). 235 is the default – 250 standard UK working days minus approximately 15 days for public holidays and typical annual leave. If you work from home some days and do not buy lunch on those days, reduce the slider to reflect your actual office days. If you take less annual leave or work more days, increase it.

Does the ten-year figure account for price inflation?

No – it is a simple multiplication of the current daily cost by the number of days over ten years, in today’s pounds. If prices rise, your actual spend will be higher in cash terms. For the investment comparison, 6% nominal return is used – which is also not inflation-adjusted. For a real-terms comparison, subtract approximately 2.5% from the return rate to get the real annual return, which will produce a lower but inflation-adjusted investment figure.

The information on this site is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing on Be More Peter constitutes financial advice, and nothing should be treated as such. The calculators, articles and tools on this site are designed to help you understand financial concepts and run indicative numbers - they are not a substitute for professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances. Before making any financial decision - including decisions about mortgages, pensions, investments, savings or insurance — you should seek independent financial advice from a qualified adviser who is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Calculator results are estimates based on the information you enter and the assumptions built into the tool. They are illustrative only and should not be relied upon as accurate projections. Rates, thresholds and rules change regularly - always verify figures with an appropriate professional or official source before acting on them. Be More Peter is not authorised or regulated by the FCA. The content on this site does not constitute a financial promotion.