> and eating a Tesco meal deal for lunch (£3) [$4]. I know I should be preparing my own lunches to save an extra bit of cash, but the effort required to save an

> and eating a Tesco meal deal for lunch (£3) [$4]. I know I should be preparing my own lunches to save an extra bit of cash, but the effort required to save an extra dollar a day doesn't quite cut it for me This for me is a wonderful little example of how costs build up. If you're not familiar with a "meal deal" in the UK, they're a sandwich/snack/drink combo. They are almost universally pretty poor. The author talks of the effort to prepare lunch, when compared to a basic sandwich and thinks this would still cost about £2 per day. If they could cut the lunch cost in half it'd be equivalent to them getting a £500/year payrise. Edit - oh, the meal deal was them trying to save money. Then making at home you can have something a lot better and cheaper and if they were spending 5-6 per day before (easy to do) it may be worth £2k/year in salary, up to 2500 of they have a student loan too. > As I spend my lunch break stolidly working my way through a seventh straight chicken sandwich, But you weren't limited to that sandwich, and the sandwich wasn't part of your savings! As usual, it's a fairly lazy look at the concept. Take a moderate salary in a high cost of living place and try vaguely to cut it drastically, then sum up by saying you might die anyway so why bother. Here's a quick simpler rundown: Keep track of what you're spending, it's a simple habit that can pay off well. Spend less on things that don't improve your life. Spend more on the things that do. If one of the things that would improve your life is more financial safety or being able to not have to work, spend some of your money on that. Other than "earn more money if it's worth the change in job satisfaction" that's a recipe for making your life better whether you want to retire early or not.