Home-made VS Store-bought work lunch

So it has been quite some time since I posted and wanted to get things up and running again with a dilemma I struggle with often: should I prepare lunch at home and bring it to work or should I run into the nearest grocery store and grab a frozen one?

Here are a couple of things I want to address:
1. Price
2. Convenience
3. Variety

First off, let's talk about the cost. Depending on what type of lunch you are used to or want, the cost of a home-made vs store-bought lunch can vary also. When I stop at Publix to grab something for lunch, I tend to head for the freezer section and pick up a Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine. Usually, these run right around $2.50 - $4.00. If I do this 5 times a week, lunch will cost me about $15.00, on average.
For $15.00, I can also have an awesome daily lunch that fills me up a lot more than something out of a plastic container that was flash-frozen 3 weeks ago.

I think the convenience of picking up a frozen meal at the grocery store is a no brainer, as compared to standing at the stove the night before or morning of to prepare the meal. Personally, I prefer picking it up at the store, but then I think about the fact that I will, probably, want more for the $3.79 I just spent on a Healthy Choice Cafe Steamer.

Lastly, variety! Sure, all of the frozen lunches have something for anything you are craving, but there is nothing like making your own and using exactly the foods you want to eat. Sometimes, with the frozen meals, you want the chicken parm but dont want the pasta that comes with it, or you want only the rice that accompanies the chicken enchiladas and so on and so forth; you see where I am going with this, right?

Overall, I love the convenience of the store-bought lunch, but love the overall cost, variety, and taste of a home-made lunch, so I tend to do a mix of half home-made and half store bought lunches throughout the week.

Here are lunch ideas for an entire 5 day work-week under, roughly, $15.00:

1. Rice with a sauteed chicken breast and a side of your favorite veggies
2. Black Bean and cheese burrito with a side salad (or left-over veggies)
3. Turkey Burger
4. Pasta with Turkey meatballs (divide a pound of ground turkey and use part of it for the turkey burger and part for the turkey meatballs to save money)
5. Orzo with roasted vegetables

The most expensive part is always the meat, so this will be most of the $15.00 budget you have. Vegetables should be fairly cheap, and don't hesitate to make it more convenient by picking up the frozen mixed veggie bag. Pasta and Rice should also not break the bank, especially if you are going for the store brand, not the Uncle Ben's or Bertolli kind.

Another tip I can give, if you make lunch at home for yourself, make all recipes, or most recipes have one or more ingridients in common. This way you do not have to buy 4 different meats and so on. This is why, for example, in the meal list above, the veggies are prevalent throughout most of the meals, as well as using the same meats for different dishes.

Which type of lunch do you prefer?