A mathematician writes:
There is a lot of talk these days about the cost of our hobby. I think that through the power of advanced mathematics, we can all enjoy our favorite pastime at absolutely no cost.
Let us take as our example, a man who works in an office in Solihull doing web stuff. He gets up early in the mornings, and uses the bus and train to get to his place of employment. No savings there I think as the price of petrol and car parking would be very similar if not a little more.
However, when he partakes of his lunchtime refreshments, there is a possibility. Currently he tends to visit Subway for one of their delicious turkey and salad wraps of 6 inch sandwiches. This costs him £2.79
Now if we assume a normal working pattern, then over a year he will consume 235 X 256 = 60160 calories and more importantly will spend £655.65
However, there is also a sandwich delivery to the office. These cost a more reasonable £1.90 each and that at 235 X 1.90 = £446.50 saving a whopping £209.15. Or to put it another way, 2 High Level models locomotive kits, which at his current rate of production would probably take a year to construct !
Of course there is the problem that the office sandwich man doesn't actually make very nice sandwiches and those that he does produce tend to be the flavours no one would want to eat anyway. You'd think he'd learn that coronation chicken wasn't popular when he had to lug them down from the 6th floor every single day.
Now our hero could save even more by making his own lunch in the morning. Sandwiches can be produced for around £7 per week giving a cost of 47 X 7 = £329. That saving of £326.65 put the purchasing power into O gauge kit territory. Mind you that early start would have to get even earlier !
The biggest saving though comes from not buying Marks & Spencer sandwiches. A club sarnie there costs a nice round £3 or over the year 235 X 3 = £705 and that's before you consider the other goodies to tempt the hungry worker, or replacing one of their stupid non-working self serve checkouts when you beat it to death for being useless. Taking your own lunch saves not only a court case but also £376 which would buy you a 7mm scale Ivatt 2P 2-6-2 tank kit and the wheels it needs to stand on !
2 comments:
Agreed - I've done so for years, dating from a time where if I didn't take my own lunch, there was a risk that I wouldn't get any!!
You could take this a stage further. For instance, instead of taking the bus to work, run behind it all the way, thereby saving yourself £2 (London prices) each way. That's a saving of £4 a day. Better still, run behind a taxi and save even more!
Terry
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