Exactly, I am so all about keeping long-term costs down. Going out once in a while to celebrate somebody's retirement or new baby or something, OK, but 3-5 times/week?! That's just flushing money down the toilet. Although your homemade sandwich and fresh fruit is probably a lot healthier than my noodle soup full of salt and MSG...

I just got back from a business trip, the 3-meal per-diem was $71. There was a Trader Joes near my hotel, I spent less than $10 for breakfasts for the whole trip, cafeteria lunches under $10 each, probably netted a couple hundy out of the whole deal.

I think this kind of thriftiness is tied to the mentality of the bike commuter: why pay $5+ per day for somebody else to make me a lunch, when I can make it nearly for free myself? Why pay $X per day on gasoline to move a multi-ton vehicle and myself between home and work when I can, with my own power, move a 30-lb bike and myself between home and work for free?

That's also why, even though I'm generally a techie, I have no interest in paying $30-50-??/mo (per person in my family) for smartphones, when I can buy a tracfone for $10 and spend $10-20 every few months to add minutes (which I never use). If I got a smartphone fully-paid as a work benefit, that would be a different matter, but to pay to be able to waste more time on mobile than I already waste on computers....it's just silly.