How many times have you heard the personal finance or frugal lifestyle experts (or a charity that wants the money you spent instead on a restaurant lunch) say to “stop buying lunches and brown-bag it instead”?

Well, here’s a great response “How I don’t brown bag and I’m happier for it” from the blogging doll at Money Relations. This is another featured article in the Nov. 12 Carnival of Personal Finance:.

Snippet:

I’ve come to the realization that it is not in my history, nature, mental make-up, DNA to brown bag or do leftovers. If the food sucked the night before, logic dictates that my taste buds would probably not approve the day after.

Therefore, I’m letting my inner hungry goddess free – but within limits. I’m going to try to limit my lunches to $5 daily and still treat myself only once a week be it a Friday lunch with co-workers or my favorite sushi place. I should clock in at $35 a week on lunches. That still sounds like a lot but I’m okay with this and it’s realistic for me.

OK, I can so relate to this story, but in a different way.

I have learned that to keep my sanity throughout the work day I have to take a break from the office, computer and phone. At an afternoon edition newspaper, such as The Monroe Evening News, the morning newsroom deadlines can be extremely hectic. By lunchtime, I need to get out of the building! After a change of scenery, I can happily settle in for the afternoon’s work load.

Well, at my previous newspaper job that I held for three years, I had a 20-minute commute between home and work. This happened because of a job transfer that was originally temporary and later became permanent. We lived two blocks from where my husband worked, a half-mile from my parents, in a neighborhood we were happy with. It was also cheaper to live there than move closer to my workplace. So I did the commute.

My lunch break routine was to pick up a pile of newspapers to read and settle down at a nearby fast food restaurant. I was a regular customer at Wendy’s, Burger King, and a locally-owned fish fry. This is in addition, mind you, to a coffee or bottled tea ritual (often combined with muffins or doughnuts) to start off the day.

This routine was not good for my wallet, nor my health.

After I took my current job at The Monroe Evening News, my husband and I looked at communities close to the state line because he still worked in Ohio at the time. Unless we could find a home right off I-75, and I quickly learned how difficult that would be, the combined commute times weren’t worth the trouble. Besides, it was more practical to have only one of us on a commute. My husband was stuck with a commute, no matter what. My day needed to be flexible enough to run errands, pick up groceries and take the child to her school and doctor appointments.

The result: we moved to a rental in Monroe. And when we bought a house, we stayed in Monroe.

So … do I “brown bag” my lunch?

Nope. Unless I am not driving that day (such as when teen-age daughter needed to borrow myvehicle), I go home to eat my lunch.

I’m eating the same peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich or leftover spaghetti that would go in a lunch box.

I’m getting a break from the phone and computer.

And I’m happier for it, as the Money Relations blogging doll says.