Anyone see the Marie Claire-"Should you brown bag it" Challenge?

**sidewalks** · 03-30-2009, 06:57 PM

I just got the hand me down mag today, so sorry if it's been discussed before. They have a page where they compare a "Hearty and Healthy" made-at-home sandwich with a Subway 6 inch combo, and the made-at-home only comes out at $0.58 savings a day. Since my dh makes his own Hearty and Healthy subs for work, I studied their results. Here's my sloppy re-write. It may be unethical to re-write stuff like this. Please let me know.

Ingredient Initial Cost Cost per meal
Arnold whole wheat 3.89/18slices .43
[I recently bought Arnold as a BOGO free]

Hellmann's Light Mayo 5.39/30 oz .08
[he uses two different condiments, so this comes out more for us]

Land O Lakes Swiss 5.29/8 slices 1.32
[got Sargento 12 slice swiss for way less on sale]

Sara Lee Fresh 5.99 24 slices 1.00 for 3 slices
Ideas Turkey
[I buy what's on sale. Is the Sara Lee brand special?]

Organic beefsteak 1.79 each .90 for three slices
tomatoes
[Right now, he's got an onion and a store bought bag of fresh spinach for it, and we plan to grow tomatoes. I'm not good at growing spinach. yet.]

Red Delicious apple .69 .69
[He buys his own big bags of chips. Cheaper than the apple, less healthy, but he's not an apple eater. Not sure of the price breakdown]

Six pack Diet Coke 3.49 .58 per can
[if he snags a coke from my stockpile, it comes out to about half that price]

Glad sandwich bags 7.99/180count box .01
[he just brings everything to work and builds it there]

Total Cost Bagging: 5.01
Total Cost Subway: 5.59 "(prices may vary)"

I guesstimated we spend about half that.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 03-30-2009, 07:06 PM

I can imagine that if you used less name brands in the creation of that sandwich, you'd cut the price in half at least. Simply measure the weight of the bag of chips that DH buys at work, look at how much a bag of it is at the store and have him take chips to work in a baggie instead. From my recollection, the small bags from Safeway have like six or seven chips in it.

Nice article and it's good food for thought.

**Jilly** · 03-30-2009, 07:26 PM

It wouldn't surprise me to learn who some of their adveretisers are.

**sidewalks** · 03-30-2009, 07:38 PM

He buys his big bag of chips at the grocery store, I'm pretty haphazard about snacks and sweets, and err on the sideof not getting them.

Dang, didn't even think of the sponsor angle. Not that anyone here is influenced by the brand names I dropped.

**onencgirl** · 03-30-2009, 07:43 PM

Thanks. That was good reading.

**Kazoo** · 03-30-2009, 09:13 PM

Great analysis! Thanks for sharing. Bet Jilly is right. Hope the magazine readers aren't discouraged and can see the possibilities. On the other hand, if someone is new to brown bagging or is used to using even fancier ingredients, a savings of $0.58 (~10%) might not seem so bad.

**brennasmom** · 03-30-2009, 09:50 PM

What about the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car to drive and get the Subway sandwich?

And that is assuming you don't slip in any "extras" (cookies, upsized drink, etc...)

I don't know.... still seems like the savings would be higher to me....

**mauimagic** · 03-30-2009, 11:34 PM

Here (and I assume all over) a foot long Subway is $5.00. Based on our grocery prices it's a good deal. Think it depends on where you are/

**Contrary Housewife** · 03-30-2009, 11:53 PM

The home-made supermarket sandwich might cost about the same, (assuming you bought ingredients at full price and not on sale) but IMO the ingredients are better than what you get at Subway. I've never had a good tomato on a restaurant sandwich. I think most of their cold cuts are tasteless.

But I can see where, if you don't have the time or inclination to shop sales and stockpile marked down items (and let's face it, this is work, ladies) that making your own turkey sandwich is not going to save you as much as you might think. If you're short on time and energy there might be other places where your effort nets you better savings.

**madhen** · 03-30-2009, 11:56 PM

I've never been crazy about Subway sandwiches. They all taste the same to me, and they taste pretty much like wet cardboard.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 03-31-2009, 12:28 AM

Yeah I can make a nice sub sandwich at home with better ingredients for way cheaper. I even get close enough to making a turkey and swiss like we used to get from my hometown's sub shop and that's way better than Subway.

**Sassyclass** · 04-01-2009, 09:35 AM

I brown bag my lunch every day. Most of the time I make a ham/swiss with light mayo on wheat bread and I can actually taste the meat and the cheese. The last Subway sandwich I ate was awful. I got the chicken teryiaki(sp) thingamajig. It had all of 3 itty bitty pieces of something that looked like chicken on it. I basically paid $5 for a bun with some green peppers and tomato on it. I just figured up what I spend for my lunch ingredients. For 2 weeks worth 7 lunches(not counting days off) I spend apprx. $10.00 for everything. This includes ham, cheese, bread,apples, mayo, and chips. I see what the guys at work spend daily on eating lunch out and there is no way they can pay less than what I do.

Cat

**MomToTwoBoys** · 04-01-2009, 12:01 PM

Here's the breakdown of what we do:

Tortilla wrap (whole wheat)
Hot Banana Peppers (I buy them in the 2L jar)
Swiss cheese
Turkey breast
Lettuce

The tortilla wraps are $3 per 10, so $.30 per wrap. The hot banana peppers last me roughly 3 weeks (if we make wrap sandwiches and have things like cheeseburgers over those three weeks, longer if I just stick to tortilla wraps for DH) and I spend $3.99 for the jar. That's at least $1.33 per week or $.27 per sandwich ($.13 if you go by halves alone). The swiss cheese is about $5.00 per package and I can get 8 wrap sandwiches out of one package, so that's $0.62 per wrap. I also spend $13 per club pack of turkey breast and each side of the club pack makes about four or five wraps. At $6.50 per side, I spend about $1.30 per wrap sandwich on meat. The lettuce is $1.50 on average and that's for a massive head of romaine lettuce. I can get at least a week's worth of wrap sandwiches out of half a head of romaine, so that's $.75 per week or $.17 per wrap sandwich.

When I do the math, I spend about $2.66 per sandwich. If I add in the apple (I buy my apples in the 5lb bags for the kids), that's $.20 per apple. So that makes it $2.86 per day. DH doesn't take chips with him to work, so I'll assume he buys them there if he wants them. He's usually happy with just the sandwich alone.

**xtena** · 04-01-2009, 03:48 PM

Well, I actually love Subway Veggie Delights though we very rarely indulge.

58 cents savings is pretty lowball, as others pointed out. Make your own bread, grow your own vegetables (well, I don't, but I could). Buy your meat and cheese on sale, and you could probably save a couple of dollars per sandwich.

But even if the savings were only 58 cents, it still adds up pretty quickly. If you only ate 50 such sandwiches a year, that's $29. Which may not sound like much, but if you also cut back on 20 similar splurges, and saved a similar amount on each splurge, that would be $580 a year.

In my prefrugal, single, vegetarian days, I used to drink a fancy coffee drink (local chain, not Starbucks though I've splurged on plenty of those too) on the way to work EVERY day. It was a tiny company, and my boss and I would also go to the local salad bar four or five times a week for lunch. When I got sick of that, I would buy frozen vegetarian meals (like Amy's Kitchen). I must have spent a couple of thousand dollars on those splurges. Oh well.