Brown bagging it everyday?

How often do you bring your lunch to work? It's an interesting question. I posted on www.savingsadvice.com and WIR message board. The most common answer is everyday. I guess because most people on financial message boards are very financially savvy. So the population of people polled will not spend a large amount eating out.

That being said, I had a fun laugh this weekend. DH sit in bays of 4 people, so out of the 4 people there is one guy who eats out every day, the other two eat out 3-4x/week, and he's the only one who always brings lunch. He was told on Friday that he's the most disciplined guy they ever meet, he pretty much never goes out to eat lunch and brings something everyday. He's worked there over a year, and before this job, DH pretty much always brought lunch.

Eating out is a luxury for us. I guess both of us grew up with moms who always packed lunch, though they could afford to eat out. Both of our moms thought that what we ate should be monitored as we got older because we'd get fat. When we were kids it was price because they were less affluent, later because it would encourage fast food eating. So to both of us we've never had exposure to not brown bagging it.

I wonder if we'll change as we have kids and earn more money? I don't think so because honestly I gain weight very easily eating out. Even with portion control it's very fattening. Thus for me personally, it's not the cost of eating out, it's the weight gain. I find I don't monitor as closely my calories and I eat a lot more unhealthy food choices eating out. So I guess I'll have to be a brown bagger for life.

I did want to do a poll for people, but was unable to figure out how to embed a poll. But if you'd like to weigh in on how often you bring lunch versus eating out, that would be great.