Is buying lunch with coworkers a waste of money?

Not necessarily. Bringing your own lunch is usually cheaper, but occasionally eating with coworkers can help you build relationships, exchange information and become more visible within your organization. The value depends on whether the lunches create genuine professional and personal connections.

How often should you go out for lunch with coworkers?

Once or twice per week may be enough to participate in workplace social circles without allowing restaurant spending to overwhelm your budget. You can continue bringing your lunch on most other workdays.

Can eating lunch with coworkers help your career?

It can. Informal lunches give coworkers time to build trust, discuss workplace developments and learn about projects or opportunities that may not be mentioned during formal meetings. These relationships may eventually lead to referrals, stretch assignments or promotions.

How can you keep coworker lunches affordable?

Choose modest meals, skip expensive drinks and desserts, set a weekly lunch budget and decline invitations when necessary. The purpose is to spend time with coworkers, not to order the most expensive meal available.

Are coworker lunches useful for remote and hybrid workers?

Yes. Hybrid workers may benefit from prioritizing lunch with colleagues on the days they are physically in the office. Fully remote workers can look for occasional office visits, conferences, team gatherings or other opportunities to spend informal time with coworkers.

Should you go to lunch with coworkers you do not enjoy?

You should not force relationships purely for career advancement. Lunches are more valuable when the conversations and relationships are genuine. Forced networking can feel uncomfortable and may be less effective than spending time with people you naturally enjoy and respect.

Is bringing lunch or buying lunch better for your finances?

Bringing lunch is usually better for reducing immediate expenses. However, occasional coworker lunches may provide career benefits that outweigh their cost. A balanced approach allows you to save money most days while still investing in workplace relationships.

14 Jul 2026 6 min read Advice

Career Advice - Going Out for Lunch Is a Career Investment

It is true - the wise thing to do is to bring your own lunch to work. It is one of the easiest and most repeated pieces of personal finance advice for office workers. Skip the $20 sandwich, brown-bag it, invest the difference, build wealth. You have heard it. Everyone talks about it. I have written some version of it myself.

But what no one talks about is what happens at lunch.

The Lunch Bunch

If you have ever worked in an office, you have seen them. Groups of coworkers heading out together a few times a week, sometimes for a special occasion, sometimes for no reason at all, to a nearby restaurant or fast food place.

Those office workers are building relationships. And unless they are the office evil bunch (every office has one), those relationships pay off. They deal with work problems easier. They advance a little faster. They often carry a slightly reduced workload because someone is willing to lend a hand when things pile up.

It helps to have office relationships that were not built exclusively inside the office. There is something about breaking bread away from your desk that a Teams call will never replicate.

“Big Deal”, You Think

Here is what you are not seeing - what happens to the lunch bunch over time.

One of them is likely to get promoted soon. Once promoted, they will vouch for the people closest to them and help pull the rest of the bunch up to the same level. Sure, it may take a few promotion cycles and a few years. But the long-term trend is clear: these relationships, no matter where you sit on the ladder, elevate the friendlies.

This is not corruption or favouritism run wild. It is just how humans work. When a manager needs someone for a stretch assignment, they think of the people they know and trust. When a hiring committee is on the fence between two candidates, the one with an internal champion wins. I wrote about this exact dynamic in my post on why showing up matters - decision-makers favour the people they see and interact with, whether they realize it or not. Read that one first if you haven't.

The Stuff You Only Learn At Lunch

Here is a point that took me years to appreciate - lunch is an information channel.

The upcoming reorg. The project that is quietly falling apart. The senior person who is about to retire and leave a vacancy. Which manager is great to work for and which one to avoid. None of this shows up in a meeting agenda or a company-wide email. It travels over food and usually not in the office environment.

I have learned not only about internal openings at lunch months before they were posted, but also those at organizations and associations our company is a part of. By the time a job posting goes live, the informal shortlist often already exists. The lunch bunch is on that shortlist. The desk-lunch crowd finds out when everyone else does.

Let's Look At The Numbers

This is a personal finance blog, so let's do what we always do - the math.

Say you go out twice a week and spend $20 each time. That is roughly $2,000 per year. Invested at 7% over a decade, call it $28,000-$30,000. Not nothing. This is exactly why the "bring your lunch" advice exists, and why it is good advice in isolation.

Now look at the other side of the ledger. A single promotion or a strong raise is worth $5,000-$15,000 per year. That’s every year! It compounds through every future raise, bonus, and pension-adjusted or RRSP-matched dollar for the rest of your career. If a few years of intentional lunches contribute to even one earlier promotion, the return crushes the savings from eating at your desk. It is not close. I was extremely fortunate to experience this in my earlier years when I had the time for lunch and worked in an office. But even nowadays when I am working from home, I make the effort of travelling to offices just to join a lunch group. I don’t have to do this, but I do it because the lunch bunches are just fun people.

Frugality has a ceiling. Your income does not. (Another post I wrote a while back!) The lunch money debate is a rounding error next to your career trajectory.

The Rules That Keep This From Becoming a Money Leak

I am not giving you a free pass to spend recklessly on lunch. Lunch spending only works as a career investment if you treat it like one:

Keep bringing your lunch most days. Going out is the exception, not the default.
Twice a week is plenty. Once a week still works.
Order modestly. You are there for the people, not a three-course meal. Skip the drinks and the dessert.
Take a raincheck when you need to. "Not today, but I'm in on Thursday" is a perfectly good answer. Nobody keeps score.
Go with people you actually enjoy. And no, I am not saying you should suck up to anyone. Forced networking lunches with people you can't stand are worse than eating alone - people can smell it.

What About Remote And Hybrid Workers?

If you are fully remote, the lunch bunch doesn't exist for you - which is exactly why remote workers need to be deliberate about this. On your office days, say yes to lunch. That is when the relationship-building window is open, so use it. See my earlier comment - I still deliberately travel to nearby offices once or twice per week. A hybrid worker who eats at their desk on their two office days is paying the commute cost and skipping the payoff.

Can’t get into a lunch bunch? Here is a trick I started using a few years ago that works. At your next meeting - bet a co-worker a lunch on the outcome of a project. If you win - they owe you a lunch. If you lose - you owe them a lunch. Let them know next time you are in the office that you are going out for lunch to pay or collect your dues. Invite others.

Let's Go Back To The Start

Bringing your own lunch saves you money and builds your financial wealth. That advice is still true, and I still follow it most days. What it doesn't do is elevate your career - and your career is the engine that funds everything else.

So don't pick a side. Bring your lunch, and be open to going out and spending some money to build relationships outside the office walls. Think of it as a career investment with a long-term payout. You cannot expect to build trust instantly - like I said in my showing up post, it takes years. Start now.

The way I see it - going out for lunch and spending a bit of money here and there is perfectly fine, as long as you are doing it with your coworkers. The cheapest lunch you will ever buy is the one that gets you promoted.

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