If you are working, you may start each week at a run and you may not have considered packing your lunch lately. Lunch time comes around and you leave your work place looking for something tasty, something close by, but cheap! Lunch for $5 or less is doing pretty well by today's standards, but let's take a look at what bringing an inexpensive lunch with you to work might do for your future.

Five dollars a day, times five days a week is $25. Times 50 weeks in a year (less vacation) is $1,250. Take away what it will cost you to bring lunch to work instead of purchase... you can do it for only 50 to 80 cents a day, and you will have saved over $1000 in a year. Wow, you think. That would be nice to have on my vacation. But, it gets even better!

Einstein was once asked what was the strongest force in the universe and he answered, "compound interest!" The stock market has averaged 10% growth over the last 50 years. What if you invested your lunch money each year at compound interest? If you switch to bringing an inexpensive lunch from home, in twenty years a thousand dollar annual investment of your lunch money would be worth over $63,000. In 30 years you'd have $180,943. And in forty years, you'd have $486,851; close to half a million dollars! Now doesn't that sound good to you?

Let's take a look at the financial hazards of making lunches at home before we go to the market tonight. The grocery industry is always looking to serve you... for a price! They know that many people are trying to pack their lunches, hoping to save money or eat healthier, and they want a piece of the action! We are tempted with soup cups, cute little packets of lunch meat and cheese with crackers, mini pizzas, single serving pudding or applesauce cups, yogurt cups with cookie crunchies, soft drinks, and a myriad of other items designed for our convenience and their high profit. And they don't just market these products for our lunches, either... but for our kids so that we feel like a popular mom or dad.

Make your lunch inexpensively from home, and if you invest your savings wisely you will soon be on your way to wealth building.