Saving money.....
 

My question is...being a regional guy now with limited income...what do some of your do to safe money on not only food but other things as well? Obviously not eating/drinking out all the time is key. So I just got one of these cooler packs that loops through the hand on my travel bag. Now that I've got it...I'm just trying to get my head around how I'd pack for a 4-5 day trip (commuting) and trying to eat some what healthy.

What do you guys do to avoid the spare tire/expensive airport food? And what other methods do you use to save money?

I try and bring enough food with me for 3 days worth of lunch/dinner. Breakfast/coffee is what I will spend money on or eat for free at the hotel.

You get creative sometimes. Gorge on free breakfast. If there is no free breakfast, bring some packets of oatmeal. I bring granola bars and fruit packs. Crackers and cheese. Leftover meals in a Tupperware that freeze well. Sometimes you figure out which airports have good deals on airport food. I went to eat with a friend of mine who is also a first year FO and he was really focused on price, and got a decent priced hamburger. I got some teriyaki chicken and rice plate for about a dollar more and twice as much food. My friend realized that he was focused solely on price and not dollar per pound, but you start to figure it out over time.

Panda Express or chipotle is usually a good bang for your buck on the road.

Yup. And a good food poisoning will help save money on a trip.

Hahaha!!! loool.

I'm trying to lose weight anyway.

More likely to poison yourself schlepping that thawed tupperware around than having some panda on the road.

--br br--

As to saving money, you could do the college standard and sell plasma on your days off. Things might get a bit hypoxic and anemic in the cockpit, but hey I'm sure your CA is used to one-man ops....:rolleyes:

First year FO pay really isn't that bad anymore. I made $33,000 my first year. I think that we can afford to actually eat food while at work while making $33,000. Sure, I did work another part time job on the side which payed me another $8k-$9k my first year, but that is just because I have a wife and kids.

If I bring a cooler on a trip, I will never carry more than one day's food in it. Get up in the morning, go to Subway and pick up a footlong sub. Have them cut it in half and wrap the half separately. Eat one for lunch, and one for dinner. That, combined with a free hotel breakfast, and you can eat for $6 a day without even trying hard to do so.
Grab some snacks out of the airplane, as well as a couple beverages, and you are not even close to spending your per diem on food on the road.

I also carry oatmeal in my roll aboard for when breakfast doesn't start until after I leave the hotel for early morning shows. I'll pick up an extra apple or orange from the hotel, or maybe wrap a couple of muffins up in a napkin and put them in my flight bag or cooler if I think that I will want them later.

The best thing, however, is the first class meals when first class isn't full. Those things are pretty darn good, to be honest.

I'd rather bring my own food than eat cheap crap on the road. My wife has specific dietary needs and she's a good cook so everything she makes for me to take tastes better and is healthier than 95% of the crap available at the airport or near the hotel. Some guys don't like the hassle of packing their own food though and you do have to get creative if your hotel room doesn't have a refrigerator so to each their own. I've had food poisoning once already in the past year and before coming to the airlines I hadn't had real deal food poisoning on almost a decade. It isn't a matter of if but when.

You can live off of McDonalds. Just a cheesburger for lunch and dinner. About 5 bucks a pop.......

Ask for crew to give you their leftover food.

Ya. Eating food that is frozen/thawed/frozen/thawed is a recipe for food poisoning. Some hotels do not have refrigerators available. Others only have a "community" refrigerator with 2 week old pizza left in them.

I would rather spend the extra few bucks a week and eat like a civilized human rather than spending 2 days puking my guts out every couple of months.

It is not worth the hassle to me to even consider bringing 4 days worth of food. I think that it is unsafe and I do not want to screw my crew over by getting sick at an outstation and delaying them getting home.

If you delay me on day 4 because you have been eating bacteria riddled food for 4 days and are now sick, I will drag you into the parking lot and kick you in the taint.

Oatmeal, peanut butter, nuts, protein bars for the kitbag. In the cooler is a couple meals worth of leftovers from the house, yogurt, string cheese, lunch meat, veggies, hummus, guacamole, olives, and seasonal fruit.

I eat the free breakfast if it's good (real eggs, fresh meat). Many of them are nothing but pastries, waffles, and high glycemic foods. I avoid these, as it makes me hungrier later in the day.

When I grocery shop, I spend a little more to buy healthy, but it pays off in feeling better and hopefully fewer medical problems down the line.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Find a Costco near your layover motel. You can graze the free samples all day long.

I just swiped a few cases of MRE's before I hung up the uniform......good regional food.....and you won't need to get up from the seat to ever take a dump....

Max out 401k first, PBJ's, fresh fruit like apples or dried fruit which you can make at home. Eat hotel bkfst also when available.

Another way to save substantial amounts of money.... Do not tip the van driver. They are already being paid to pick you up anyway. When was the last time you were tipped by a passenger as they deplaned?

Pb leave the j. Peanut butter has plenty of sugar. Buy sandwhich-thins for bread. Buy peanut butter in single serving cups. All this saves cooler space for veggies...real food.
Really workes well for me anyway.

The glamorous lifestyle of a regional pilot.

Giving flight lessons on my Microsoft flight simulator sitting in the food court with signs saying "flight lessons for food."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To each their own I guess.

There's a good YouTube video a JetBlue pilot posted on eating during trips. ( and probably several others.)

Sad thing is, pay has never been better in the regional world.

Re: food...

Invest in a quality food dehydrator. You can make your own jerky meats and dried fruits. If sealed in a bag with little-to-no air, neither needs refrigeration. Most veggies don't either. Use zip-lock bags, close 3/4ths of the way, then suck out the remaining air while sealing. Hey presto! Instant resealable vacuum packed food.

Supplement with block cheese, quality crackers, and nuts. A few pieces of jerky, some dried fruit, a few carrots sticks, a hunk of cheese, some crackers, and a bottle of water is a very quick, easy, nutritious, cheap, and light weight (ie. easy to carry) meal. Not messy; can snack in the cockpit no problem. Don't need utensils and you can easily pack 3-4 days worth. As mentioned by others, supplement with free hotel breakfasts or the occasional dinner. Eating this way will keep you fit and trim, too. You can also easily share with others to make friends if you so desire.

Lots of excellent recipes and "how to"s for dehydrated foods online.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHYWD29ZNY

A bout with ecoli might be worth a couple million. Not gonna make it as a regional guy.

Ummm, at more than a few regionals that is considered theft.....

Must be wonderful places to work

Those of you worrying about food poisoning from home-cooked food...have obviously never worked in food service, especially fast food outlets (at airports or anywhere). If you saw what goes on behind the counter...I doubt you'd be rushing to write off home-cooked food as 'unsafe' or 'asking for food poisoning.'

I simply carry a crew cooler with me, along with 2 cold packs. I usually make six meals (lunches and dinners), and freeze those in Tupperware. Breakfasts generally tend to be free at hotels, so those six meals will see me through three days of a trip. (There's simply no way to fit enough food for 4 days into my cooler.)

Anyhow, most hotels have room fridges, and if they don't, the front desk almost always has a full-size fridge for the hotel staff, which they are usually happy to let guests use. Also, if you're doing hub turns and are worried about your food defrosting, just toss it in the crew room freezer. With the right cold packs and a good crew cooler, your food will likely stay nicely frozen.

And that food is a darn sight healthier and more affordable than the processed garbage that passes for most American restaurant food. Toss in some fresh fruit, yogurt, and hard-boiled eggs from the hotel breakfast, and you're good to go. Just avoid the bagels, waffles, toast, and sugar bombs disguised as breakfast (i.e. cereal) and you'll be fine.

This strategy has actually allowed me to lose 15 lbs since starting at the regionals 18 months ago. Well, that and religious use of the hotel gyms.

I see these pilots everywhere carrying around 30-50 lbs of extra weight around their bellies, while chowing down on McD's or BK or some other shrine to grease and cholesterol...why would you want to do that to your body? Even salads at most restaurants are more calorific than many of the burgers offered.

That said, when I show up at a DoubleTree and they have those warm cookies waiting...or when I wind up in OKC across the street from the Dairy Queen (which we don't have where I live)...or if we overnight in MFR and I think about Kaleidoscope Pizza just down the road...all of the above goes out the window :D

Pro tip, keep your cooler cool with one of those sacks you put ice in and hold against your head when you've got a headache. Even if you run up against a hotel with no refrigerators, they'll still always have an ice machine. Presto, personal fridge.

Here's a better question for those of you that are sitting in your rooms eating string cheese and biscuits while thawing your 3 day old pasta.

How do you not go insane? I probably wouldn't last one trip doing that.

Actually, there are a lot of foods that are much better after they've been cooked, then refrigerated. Spaghetti is one of them. Apple pie, to cite another example, is also much better done this way rather than eating straight out of the oven. Even if you reheat it later.

Every job has it pros and cons. There's no such thing as a free lunch (pun intended). For every individual, if the cons of this job outweigh the pros, they will leave the job. For those of us who stay, the pros outweigh the cons. Me? I'm not a foodie. If I could avoid all the hassles and necessities of eating, that would be fine with me. So the food plays no role in my assessment of the job.

Cheap a $$

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I'm just saying, I haven't been doing this whole airline thing long but I've only had one person call in sick mid-trip with food poisoning...and they ate out near the hotel..

Wow. I thought i had stumbled upon a Homeless scavenging forum.

I am impressed with some of the money saving techniques put forth here (i should probably do more myself) but it is sad a highly trained professional must even consider 5 day old food. But that's a whole other topic.

Protein shakes and power bars. :)

I have an Acorns account that automatically invests my spare change by rounding up my purchases to the nearest dollar and invests in $5 increments. It's a small amount that builds up over time with the opportunity to grow in the stock market.

Priorities I suppose. I don't live to eat, I eat to live. Food is just food. I don't remember what food I even ate yesterday. But I do remember that awesome vacation I took because I had the money to. Needlessly spending thousands on crappy airport food every year seems wasteful to me. But like I said earlier, to each their own.

Best way for health and money, bring your own food and keep it chilled. I've brought my entire food for 4, sometimes 5 days. Get a fridge every night with a freezer for a good ice pack. Oatmeal, fruits vegetables all fresh none frozen. Low cal wraps for turkey, cheese and lettuce. If you don't get a good cool one night on the food it'll be fine maybe not till the end of the trip but thats happened very few times on me. You can tell if things go a little funky. Never have had food poisoning and always feel great. Done this for nearly a decade. Works great at the majors too when you do make more money and you have more to spend at home. As far as those saying the food is 4/5 days old, I'd eat the same thing at home...left overs cold cuts I buy for the week. Wouldn't change a thing. Add in some self made trail mix with cereal dried fruit; fuels me well. Saving on tips that someone brought up is also a great point.

You can turn your sink into a fridge by wrapping your food in plastic trash bags, double wrapped is best, and putting it in the sink then fill the sink with ice. I do that when I don't have a fridge. To keep it cold during the day, fill the same plastic bags with ice and put them on top of your food in your bag.

I liked to bring wraps with rotisserie chicken, lettuce tomato and onions with refrigerated vinaigrette dressing. Healthy and easy to pack. Requires a little time at home before leaving to get it together though. I would also cook bigger meals at home and package them up in Tupperware and freeze them to bring with me on a trip. Forget the ice pack, takes up way too much room.

Invest your per diem into a Roth IRA and after 30 years it'll be worth a couple hundred k. All just because you pack your food.

In all seriousness I'll smoke some fish, vacuum pack it and bring some crackers. Been doing this for years for flying, biking, hunting etc.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure why but this made me laugh WAY harder than it should have