F$ck. Where’s that $600…
Actually, funny little story after the break.
So, one of the sore spots between my lovely wife and I is my penchant for fast food. I just love me some burritos for lunch, even though I know they’re bad for me. My wife, on the other hand, is feeding two children every day instead of heading to lunch with co-workers, so tends to eat at home.
She HATES having to put Taco Bell receipts into Quicken.
As Missy’s a mathematician (Yeah, our kids are doomed. Doomed, I say. To be geeks, that is. Although I suppose there’s worse things than being both genetically and behaviorally predisposed to a comfortable, well-paying life in Math or the Sciences…), she sat down a couple of months ago, and lowered herself to doing some applied math. Put together a spreadsheet that showed, in detail how much money and calories I’d save taking a sandwich instead of heading out for fast food a couple of times a week.
Being an engineer, I’ll spare the details and give you the back-of-the envelope.
Twice a week for a year is roughly 100 occurances.
Costs:
– healthy lunch? About $2.50
– Fast Food? About $7, and she showed receipts
– Delta? (Delta is a fancy engineering word for the change in a factor) – $5, give or take, per meal
Calories:
– Healthy Lunch? About 600, based on a 500 cal breakfast and an 800 cal supper
– Fast Food? About 1100. I disagree with this, but could buy 900 each meal. And that’s with diet soda…
– Delta? 300 to 500
Annual Savings:
– Dollars: $500, or enough to be within spitting distance of an iPhone. Half a MacBook, annually
– Calories: 30,000 to 50,000 – roughly 10 to 15 lbs, or the equivalent to 300 to 500 miles of running.
The killer is that there is emperical proof that not eating crap works for me.
Well, no time to start saving like today. I’ll let y’all know what iPhone v2 is like in a year…
delta = cheese wedge or at least that’s what i how i used to remember it
the friend i had lunch with yesterday wanted “cheap” food so we went to TB, i had 3 tacos but convinced myself it was ok because there was no cheese in it but i still felt ill the rest of the day. and of course diet soda with fast food cancels out all the nasty.
I went to Mickey D’s one Saturday for lunch recently, on a lark. First time in ages. I felt like I needed to go to the Health Church right away. I was such a sinner.
It is hard to argue with the numbers, although I’d rather spend the extra $ on something other than a phone, i or not.
That’s pretty awesome math! Don’t worry about your kids, I’m a librarian and my soon to be husband will be a History teacher… Gosh, I hope they like sports!
I want one of those darn phones, and I don’t even know how to work the cheap phone I have now. Hope to see you soon, Bill!