The financial cost of
eating out for lunch
Today I’m going to discuss the
true financial cost of eating out for lunch. You may be wondering as to where I’m going
with this. Some people may say, eating
out is no big deal. Everyone does
it. I deserve to treat myself. Since
this is a investing blog there will be a investing twist. I noticed over the years of my 20+ years of
being in the workforce that eating out can get expensive. I for one enjoy going out to lunch on occasion,
but predominantly I pack a lunch daily.
This has always been a topic of discussion and a thought I have had for many
years that eating out is very costly overtime. I never decided to truly
investigate up until a couple weeks ago I bought McDonald's for my wife and
I. I don’t remember the exact dollar
amount, but the total was over $13.00.
The
$13.00 bill caught my attention. I said
you must be kidding me talking to myself and laughing as I pulled away from the
McDonald's drive thru. That is when I decided
to dig a little deeper and quantify the true cost of eating out. I’m going to use my favorite fast food spots
and food selections to run the numbers.
Now instead of spending money on eating out I wanted to see what that same money
invested in the stock market based off an average 8% rate of return would look
like. I based the length of time
invested off 20, 25 and 30 years. The
results were amazing. See for yourself!
-McDonald's-Quarter Pounder with
cheese meal/$6.35
-Panera- Frontega Chicken/$8.55
-Jimmy Johns- Turkey Tom/$5.59
There is an ever-growing concern
of people not having enough money saved for retirement. The primary objective
behind analyzing eating out for lunch was to provide one of the many
ways to uncover money that we could use for retirement. By saving as little as $5.59 a week by
choosing to not eat out once a week will provide you with $52,596 invested for
30 years at an average 8% return towards retirement. You can see by the numbers that contributing
more will only put every one of us in a better position financially for retirement.
It’s never too late to start. Hopefully, I was able to provide a different perspective on how to save. That by choosing to save a little money over time can turn into a substantial amount of money. Compound interest is a beautiful thing and should utilized on the path towards retirement.
Below is the compound interest calculator
I used to provide the numbers given in the examples. It’s a very helpful tool to use to get a
quick answer on compounded returns.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Clay-
Questions-feel free to send an email to wheatleycsmk@gmail.com
I'm not a licensed financial advisor. All recommendations is strictly my personal opinion and the information is intended for learning purposes only. Invest at your own risk!
I'm not a licensed financial advisor. All recommendations is strictly my personal opinion and the information is intended for learning purposes only. Invest at your own risk!
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