I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours.
| Item | Cost/Serving | Qty/Day | Cost/Day | Qty/Month | Cost/Month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snap Kitchen 500cal meal | $10.00 | 1 | $10.00 | 22 | $220 |
| Fairlife 42g Protein Shake | $3.50 | 1 | $3.50 | 22 | $77 |
| Liquid Death | $1.75 | 1 | $1.75 | 22 | $38.50 |
| Ruta Maya Dark Roast | $0.25 | 3 | $0.75 | 66 | $16.50 |
| Califia Farms Café Oat | $0.11 | 3 | $0.33 | 66 | $7.26 |
| Total | $16.33 | $359.26 |
To keep me and my brain running during working hours costs me ~$359.26/month. Not much to say beyond that –no grand epiphanies– except that I think it’s too expensive. Sitting in an office by myself costs me $16.33/day (or $2/hour). This budget doesn’t include breakfast, dinner, exercise, healthcare, transit, internet, electricity, or office supplies… all necessities that enable the work. This is just the daily cost of caloric fuel to keep my body going during the nine-to-five. My family has three other humans in it too, so this seems collossaly expensive.
If I wanted to save money (I sort of do), here’s what I’d could try to optimize from top to bottom:
- I could make my own pre-made meals for about ~$2/meal. I’ve had success with this but it requires a lot of weekend logistics to execute properly. This would be the most significant cost reduction, costing only $44/month and saving $176/month.
- I could buy whey protein in bulk. A 5 lb bag of Muscle Milk (nearest approximate flavor) is $72/bag and contains 68 servings for a reduced costs of $1.05/serving. However, one serving only has 25g of protein, so if I’d need to double the scoops. The total cost would then be $2.11/serving or $46.42/month. Buying bulk powder makes fiscal sense, but $30/month to not have to deal with drinking clumpy protein shakes and washing crusted stinky shakers seems almost worth it.
- I considered eggs as an alternate source of protein instead. A single egg has ~6g of protein and costs about 50¢. The cost could potentially come down but the bigger issue is to get the same 42g of protein I’d need to eat 7 eggs. I don’t know if you’ve eaten eggs before but 7 eggs is a lot of eggs. Imagine woofing down 7 sweaty hard-boiled orbs a couple times a day, yikes.
- I could brew my own agave-sweetened tea. I’ve done this once, but the crisp flavor profile wasn’t the same so I wouldn’t call it a success. Needs more experimentation.
- Thanks to Costco selling our favorite local coffee roaster in bulk, we have caffeine ritual costs dialed down about as low as they can go. Feel comfortable there.
Lowering my lunch costs stands out as the best candidate for improvement. But as I noted before, adding even a small pile of extra duties risks toppling the wagon and I’m back to eating emergency $14 Spicy Chicken Sando Combos to quench my hunger. I wonder where my daily costs fit on a graph of national statistics. Is this average? Is this Bidenomic inflation? Am I making myself poor with my avocado toast? Someone who understands finances help me budget! Ack!