Does your firm provide free meals or a meal expense account?

I'm working at a private equity firm. The hours (in terms of face time) are around 65 - 75 per week, depending on where we are in deal closing. At my firm at the end of the day we get to go home to finish some work (ex. modeling, due diligence reports, ppts, etc.)

The issue is my firm does not provide meals or an expense account. In NYC it is expensive to constantly eat out on top of other living expenses. I try making food at home and take some snacks but usually I don't have enough or run out by the middle of the day. It takes a while to cook and I get little sleep as is. It becomes very hard to concentrate when you are starving after a certain point and I already lost a few unhealthy pounds.

Any tips or ideas?

29 Comments
 
NabooruThat's odd; sorry to hear that. Maybe buy some form of protein to help curb the hunger so you're not completely famished?

That's a good idea, I will try doing that.

 

Make sure you have more than enough snacks on hand when you're first testing them out. I tried the cliff bar and protein shake one time but I was still starving so I had to stop working to go get more food anyways.

 

I have about 24 boxes of Cliff Bars in a huge drawer in my office for this exact reason. Also second the Blue Diamond almonds, though they are expensive, and need to echo that the Wasabi & Soy Sauce flavor is simply orgasmic.

 

cold chinese takeout from last night makes helluva lunch ;-)

this summer at lehman i did this sometimes...use the whole 25 bucks for dinner, then save some stuff for lunch the next day.

Although it often turned out being trashed since all the interns co-erced me into going out for lunch with them.

does this happen at the analyst level? this group meal thing?

otherwise, this is an excellent idea. you spend no money for food!

 

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