What's a reasonable amount to budget for eating out/take aways /coffees each month?

Get her to keep a diary of every penny she spends for a week. She needs to understand where its going.

When you're trying to take control of your finances you work out your essential expenditure, food, rent, utilities, clothes, insurances and travel; how much needs to be saved for short term stuff like birthdays and Christmas; how much you should save in case the washing machine breaks or the car fails its MOT; and ideally how much for the longer term future.
After all that's been put aside, what's left is what you have for coffees and eating out.

Surely it depends how much is left over after all bills including the allocated food shop & petrol/travelling budget?

We have approx £2000 left over that’s unallocated money. We both take £300 each “fun money” to do what we want (can be coffees when alone, eating out with friends, personal treats such as makeup, clothes etc) and £150 goes into the Revolut for couples fun such as date nights, coffees out, takeaways, cinema etc so if we wanted to grab a coffee whilst out when together it would come from this. If I was alone I would use my £300.

So between the two of us we have around £750 money we could spend on coffees, eating out but we would never spend that much as we use it for other thing. Between the two of us I would say we probably spend around £200/£300 max of that money on that.

At the moment, yes.

Top priority if I had any spare cash would be replacing my two remaining single glazed windows, so we are warm.

Coffees and a takeaway don't even come in to it. 😁

£250. Get them to buy a thermal cup for coffees while out and about. Or take coffee bags or sachets to work, to avoid being tempted to join the coffee run.

Get them to look at the Indian and Chinese food deals in supermarkets. You can often get a big bag of starters or sides, mains and rice or noodles for about £12 for two people (and there's usually some left over.) Encourage them to add some ready meals to the weekly shop, to store in the freezer and then be heated on days they fancy take out. It takes no longer to heat up ready meals from frozen than to order takeaways and wait for them to arrive.

Suggest every time they buy one of these deals they put the money they saved from a take out or restaurant meal into a savings account for something they want or badly need but can;t afford.

Then go out to a restaurant once a month as a treat and lookout for special offers and fixed price menus.

DH and I eat out far more now than we used to, but we often just go for a bowl of noodles or bento box at a Japanese place for about £10-12 rather than a full dinner with wine. It's delicious and affordable.

£3k a month with benefits is a large amount and this family clearly cannot budget or work out where they are spending their money!

The benefits system is broken and isnt going to be fixed anytime soon (the 2 child cap is about to be removed) making things worse.

I'm astonished that you consider doing without takeaways and coffee out of the house to be extreme frugality. In my book that would be buying only the cheapest version of everything, buying only things you actually need, doing the rounds of all the shops to price everything before buying anything, and so on. All of which many of us have done when needs must.

If you present cutting back slightly as if it was extreme frugality then you're more likely not to get buy in. Your friend will think you're suggesting something dramatic and possibly unworkable instead of some modest changes.

Or to get full time jobs.

I would advise saving pots e.g Christmas, birthdays, holidays and the money goes in as soon as it's received. Bills, groceries etc are accounted for and then see how much fun money is left over.
Sounds like the whole family needs to learn how to cook and get used to taking packed lunches and coffees etc.

I think the suggestion of one month with nothing at all makes sense.

For our lives we only do a takeaway on payday weekend. It is a real treat then. It's not if you have it all the time. My kids look forward to it a lot.

I do think it must be hard if you live near so many options though. Too easy when tired or running late to just grab takeway

Just google Starling. It's just an extra current account.

Or coffees.

They are spending the money. But it's causing problems in other areas. Presumably if the washing, or whatever, broke tomorrow they'd have to get a loan for a new one. Far better to use the savings that OP is looking to help them build up.

5 people? £20 each will get you a main course and a non alcoholic drink or two at many pubs or restaurants.

They can and do.

For me, habits and behaviour help a lot.

If I go out to the shops after eating then I’m less likely to end up hungry and buy food. Same with hot drinks- if I have a coffee before I go out then I’m less likely to want one. Obviously I can take a travel cup out with me but a bit of planning so I’m not hungry or thirsty helps me.

If she’s “addicted” then limiting the meals out to say every other weekend rather than every week could help. If she’s goes to a chain then it’s worth looking at if they do a midweek discount. For example Dominoes used to do discounts on Tuesdays.

as well as mcdonalds, non-chain kebab shops, pizza and fried chicken places all have options under £10 a head, and if you use vouchers/deals you can get dominos for less than that. Sure, it won't get you indian or chinese, but there are lots of options if you're not fussy and just want food made for you.

But they can't! They are spending the money that should be put by for unexpected expenses. Which is why OP is trying to help. A lot of the people who say they can't afford to buy coffee out could afford it in the sense of still pay the rent. But they choose to spend it on other ways. Which is all good! They've worked out what gives them value. I also very rarely buy coffee out, because it's not worth it to me. But I will spend money on nice food etc. I could choose to spend less.

So many sniffy people about! Telling you how you are doing it wrong too. I think the difficulty is that a reasonable budget is hard to state because it is ultimately discretionary and so it goes on what value this gives to you. They could go cold turkey - some people find a simple rule like that easier. Or they could halve spending. That would still provide room for some fun, but it would have to be considered. Seeing that £200 saved might encourage them to cut back further. Or maybe they'll decide that to them £200 is worth it.

I think I would have them set the budget with you. Work out what's important to them and what that would cost. Let's say a weekly coffee while kids play in the park - that's £20. Then a MacDonald's once a month when they currently have it twice etc. Working through it like this can give them some ownership of the decision and a real view of the benefits of the cutbacks. Whereas having a 'you must not buy coffee' can just make you feel contrary. In the long run this is about helping them be the one in control.

Not if I means that i don’t have enough money for all my necessities and some savings for the future!

Hyperjar is thecsame. You can put money into different ' jars'. Money comes out for different purposes. Mine is in my google wallet.

I love eating out- cafes, pubs, restaurants, coffee spots, you name it. If do it every day off I could. I've ended up with a DS who is the same. However I calculated that I was spending over £100 a month on coffees, lunches, little treats just for me, so I now just dont do it. McDonalds isn't cheap. I was taking DC's and without the children's meals ( they are teens) its nearly £30 a time for food that is unhealthy and doesn't fill you up. I presume she gets so much in benefits because she has 4 children. That money isn't for McDonalds and other treats. Its to ensure her children are well fed.