How much does your city spend on food? Plus a contest from Bundle

There’s a wonderful infographic at Bundle that shows how big cities in America spend money on food:

A couple of Bay Area cities like San Jose and San Francisco are near the top of the list, but it is Austin, TX that wins by spending a whopping $12,447 per year on food and groceries! That’s over $1,000 in monthly terms or $250 weekly. (I bet these people are eating their retirement savings.)

Getting to this spending level is usually the result of dining out frequently. A simple homemade meal or brown bag lunch here and there can really add up. And that brings us to the contest.

Bring your lunch to work contest!

Bringing meals from home is a good step toward reducing food spending. A $10 deli sandwich could easily be replaced by a $3 one made at home.

And so, to encourage mindful spending habits, there is a contest at Bundle about bringing lunch to work.

Here is how the contest works:

Post a picture of it on our Facebook page, or share your story on Bundle. The crowds will vote for their favorites, and winners will be chosen by our distinguished panel of judges

…

Here’s what to submit:

A photo of your best brown-bag lunch, uploaded to our Facebook page. Tell us what’s in it, how much it cost (roughly), and anything else you want us to know.

Or…

Post a story about your homemade lunch on Bundle.com. To indicate it’s a contest entry, please include “My lunch” in the title.

The contest goes until May 28, 2010, so you still have a week to enter.

The winner gets a limited edition Bundle lunchbox and ever-lasting glory and fame (Bundle routinely gets coverage in major media outlets)

I submitted a veggie wrap with whole wheat tortillas, grilled potato, zuccini, tomato, onion, calabaza squash, bbq sauce, and my secret ingredient toast (sounds weird but adds texture and crunchiness to an otherwise mushy wrap). It doesn’t look great but I assure you it tastes fantastic.

So go and check out the contest! And bust out your most creative dish to help people see that bringing lunch to work is a great way to save money.

Also on Bundle

I have to highlight an article I found fascinating:

The cult of Groupon

Groupon offers are fun and often very good: “$55 for oral cleaning if 100 people sign up!” But are these social coupon sites really good for business and consumers? Janet Paskin’s article examines the issue and reveals things like how much of a cut Groupon takes–it’s more than you might think!

Many restaurants in fact lose a lot of money via Groupon promos with the hope that repeat customers will make up the costs. This hurts competing businesses too, and it appeared to me to have a game theory analog. I felt trying Groupon was like a “defect” strategy in a Prisoner’s Dilemma. At a minimum, read the “merchant math” section of the article to see what I’m talking about.