Every office has a cast of characters, but few are as unforgettable as the colleague who treats lunch not as a break but as a financial strategy. Forget $14 salads and overpriced poke bowls — one man has reduced his mid-day meal to three items and a principle.
The story hit the Frugal subreddit under the title, "My coworker eats the exact same $1.25 meal every day and I'm weirdly impressed." The poster explained: "There's this guy in my office who brings the same lunch to work every single day: one hard-boiled egg, a scoop of rice, and half an avocado. He says it costs him about $1.25 per meal. No snacks, no drinks besides water. Just that. Every. Day."
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At first, the poster assumed it was a diet, or maybe a sign of financial strain. But the coworker quickly clarified: "He's just super into optimizing his expenses. Says he's calculated that this routine saves him over $2,500 a year compared to when he used to eat out." Meal prep happens on Sundays, containers stacked and ready. Even when someone brings in pizza or donuts, "he politely declines and says, ‘Already got my lunch.'"
The routine fascinated readers as much as it unsettled them. "I'm desperately curious how he's keeping his avocados from oxidizing for a whole week," one person wrote. The original poster responded bluntly: "They're always really brown."
For some, the appeal wasn't about taste but mindset. "Some people just don't like food. They just see eating as a necessary bodily function and nothing more. I suspect that might be this guy's secret." Another added, "Some people eat because they have to, not because they want to. They don't want to think about food. It's the people that say ‘if you give me a pill and I wouldn't have to eat, I would take the pill.'"
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Admiration poured in too. "Impressive! I'd buckle when the pizza arrived for sure," one commenter admitted. The original poster agreed: "The man has discipline of steel."
Others used the thread to share their own frugal staples: "Hardboiled eggs with salt and pepper, grape tomatoes, and either fresh mozzarella pearls or avocado with Tapatio." Another replied, "I make the same smoothie every day for lunch. It's roughly the same price. Handful of kale, handful spinach, tsp spirulina, tbsp nut butter, one banana, 6 oz nut milk."
In 2023, billionaire Mark Cuban went viral for telling people to skip the extras: "You don't need that extra latte, that extra streaming subscription, going to that fancy dinner. You want to put that in a money market account earning five, maybe more, percent, and watch that sucker grow. That'll make you feel a whole lot better than that extra latte that you had that day." The clip, viewed more than two million times, drew sharp criticism for being out of touch — but it resonated with the same tension underlying the $1.25 avocado lunch.
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The reality is that most workers don't have the discipline of the Reddit star's coworker. According to a ResumeBuilder.com survey of 800 corporate employees, 71% buy lunch three or more times per week, and half spend $20 or more each time. One in five purchases at least one coffee daily. And while these numbers may sound small in isolation, they add up quickly — which helps explain why 75% of workers said having an extra $250 a month would make a difference in their lives, and more than half admitted they're worried about their finances.
Put that against the coworker's math: $2,500 saved per year just by sticking to rice, an egg, and a bruised avocado. For someone already on edge financially, that figure isn't a rounding error — it's nearly $210 a month.
The post struck a chord because it sits at the intersection of discipline and deprivation. For some, eating the same bland meal day after day sounds like misery. For others, it's the purest form of control — one small, repeatable decision that builds a financial buffer.
Whether you see it as genius, madness, or just habit, the man with the $1.25 lunch forces a bigger question: how much are your daily cravings really costing you?
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Image: Imagn Images
