The price of a Costa Coffee mince pie (and other eyebrow raising prices) !

[A580Hojas]

Because I am fat and don't have a sweet tooth I never have anything to eat in a coffee shop so perhaps I'm very behind the times - but aibu to be shocked that they wanted £2.20 for a mince pie in Costa yesterday? They were flogging them at the till. I'm afraid I snorted at the idea I might want to pay that for 1 mince pie (and yes I know I'm sounding like my mother).

Any prices/charges that have made you do a double-take recently?

A cup of mint tea which cost £2.60 it was hot water with four mint leaves in it.

Sweets in the cinema !!! It makes me mad 😡... I do have a coffee habit I'm trying to curb .. but I never buy sweets in the cinema . I just run in Poundland or Tesco's

Buying a Costa or Starbucks coffee to drink on my walk to work is my treat to myself so the price is what it is.

I'm not sure why people buy a takeaway Americano when they can just get a cafetiere at home and take it in a flask. But if you drink in, you are paying for someone else to make your coffee, the experience and ingredients you wouldn't necessarily have or want in bulk at home like flavoured syrups, whippy cream, milk frothers etc. When you rarely go out in the evening, it's a nice grownup treat to sit in a cafe with a magazine and have a drink in peace. We all have packed lunches every day. Before kids, we'd have dinner out at least once a week. We don't do that now.

To the pp who mentioned magazines, libraries offer digital one for free now - ours has a good range and it's great!

A relative of mine was recently in hospital for a month, due to their condition it required a family member to sit with them all day every day, they couldn't be left alone.
I started off buying four or more takeaway cups of tea or hot chocolate a day from the hospital shop but at £1.80 a cup it was costing me a fortune (also due to the extortionate car parking fees and there's no reason for our hospital to worry about commuters parking there, it's not that sort of town). About two weeks in I realised I could have been paying 20p a cup instead for boiling water. I took my own teabags or hot chocolate sachets in after that and just made fresh drinks when I wanted.

WHSmith at mainline train stations in London e.g. Charing Cross, so bloody expensive for all the stuff in there, even things like mints are extortionate!

Starbucks, especially at service stations - over £20 for 4 drink and 3 cakes!

And buses where we live - £3 a journey (same journey is £5 in a cab, we don't use buses now)

I definitely minded recently that my local Waitrose were offering coffee and a mince pie for £2.something, and then didn't have any left at the end of a long queue.

They still had plenty in the attached shop, practically floor to ceiling. They were pretty unapologetic, too, and failed to take down the big floor stand announcing the offer after I complained. I wonder whether it was a ploy to keep customers numbers up?

Hospital parking....we went early for visiting hours and although my mum has a blue badge we still couldn't park.
Staff explained it was solid with commuters using it as Park and Ride. The actual town parking cost even more.

Oh, yy to buses outside London. This is what always makes me life on poverty-bashing threads. 'Just use the bus' when it costs a bomb in many areas or 'just cycle' when you cannot afford a bike and live in some rural backwater with 60mph roads all around.

Cinema tickets. Most are about £15 :0. The most I’ve paid for an adult ticket was £16.50 and the least about £12. So expensive!!!

On the flip side, the three of us were pleasantly surprised earlier to have a bacon roll with cappuccino, a cheese and ham toastie and cappuccino and a steak slice and orange juice for £8.50 at Gregg's.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell me Gregg's use shit-quality products or something along those lines, but I found the coffee really nice and the toastie wasn't a kick in the arse off the same I've bought previously at M&S...maybe slightly less cheese but I can live with that

Agree with PP we need a 'best value' thread!

There is a reason Greggs is so popular

Greggs porridge is great.

Greggs coffee tastes the same as Costa to me. And it costs £1.50 rather than £3.50. The festive coffees are also much cheaper than Starbucks, and let’s face it, they’re just full of sugar and syrup anyway so what’s the difference? It’s not an artisanal blend or whatever, it just does the job. Our local Greggs cafe is quite nice too.

I just spent nearly £60 at the odeon, There were 3 of us. 2 of which were kids. Farking hell.

Does the money even go to the NHS? I'm kind of assuming it'll be some PFI buggeration. I don't think it does. What an own goal that is.

@abacucat ooh do tell! Or are you just referring to the low prices?

Ok going to start a Best Value thread!

Oh yes we've gone down to one car to save money.
There's only one bus here. It goes to local town for £2.60 return or the next slightly larger town for £5.80 return. My DS is free but it's too expensive!

There's an cafe in Brighton that charges £7.50 for plain scrambled egg on toast. Even described that way in the menu.

We got charged £7 for two small cokes in the Vue at the weekend. Next time I'll be nipping in Poundland first!

That's what we do as our Vue is in town so Poundland is nearby. Last time we got a mini box of chocolates each and had them in the cinema. It felt like a right treat - and no rustling!

I don't even remember the name of the place but when commuting very late at night back firm a meeting to my son who was in hospital in London, I stumbled out of South Ken station and into the nearest place that had sandwiches in the window, I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and the person behind the till casually says,
"That's £13.70 please."
I just shook my head and left the sandwich on the counter and went straight to the hospital where a kind nurse made me some toast with jam and a coffee, it was delicious.