To ask if you view food such as takeaways as a waste of money

[Blameitonme7000]

I personally don’t but I know many do

😁 @Eleganz exactly. I love an allotment but it is by no means a cheaper option these days.

And to the pp who mentioned cheese and crackers or beans on toast if you can't be bothered to cook - INSTEAD OF A TAKEAWAY??? Are you mad?!?!? My kids would look at me as if they thought I'd lost my marbles if I gave them that for an evening meal if I couldn't be bothered to cook!! (Lighthearted!)

We have a take away once a week as a treat at the moment, pre covid would have been maybe once a month but we would have eaten out at pubs/restaurants regularly. I dont see it as a waste of money it's a treat

Total waste of money. Saying that, we've had a few this week and have bought out ready made sandwiches, fish and chips and ice cream. Only because we are on annual leave though

We rarely get takeaways and usually on the odd occasion we do we are disappointed by them.

Both me and DH love cooking and are fairly good cooks. We certainly can make better pizzas than most pizza places - both think Dominos are vile. If we want pizza and can't be bothered to make it supermarket ones are pretty good.

Our favourite food is indian and we have got pretty good at making curries. I make gorgeous onion bhajis which are not greasy like most of the restaurant ones. I can make lovely paratha, chapati and puris. My naan breads are not so good but that is because we don't have a tandoor oven

Once in a while is fine.On a regular basis a complete waste of money in my opinion.

Lots of people are doing it as a way to cope with current situation and if they have money to spend on it why not.

@CandyLeBonBon

😁 *@Eleganz* exactly. I love an allotment but it is by no means a cheaper option these days.

And to the pp who mentioned cheese and crackers or beans on toast if you can't be bothered to cook - INSTEAD OF A TAKEAWAY??? Are you mad?!?!? My kids would look at me as if they thought I'd lost my marbles if I gave them that for an evening meal if I couldn't be bothered to cook!! (Lighthearted!)

Haha! Yes I can imagine the riot my horde would have if presented with beans on toast instead of a takeout when we do have them! Chaos!

And in terms of growing enough food to feed my large blended family - I'd have to be a full time subsistence farmer!

Yes in that I hate handing over £30 for a 2 person meal, knowing it costs much less to make it.

But no, in that sometimes I can't be bothered to cook and can't cook a curry as well as the local curry house can so in the moment it's well worth it.

So yes, it's a waste of money but I still do it once a fortnight.

We get an Indian every couple of weeks but I do actually cook really well. This week though with it being Easter will prob be more expensive we went out and collected a Pizza Hut yesterday and bought ice cream! Lockdown easing costs going to start mounting up!

Yes definitely. They cost so much and the quality is usually dissapointing. Once eaten, the offer no lasting benefit. You'll still be hungry again in a few hours.
I can whip up an omelette or pasta in less time than it takes to order a takeaway, with only a bit of extra washing up.

We certainly can make better pizzas than most pizza places - both think Dominos are vile.

Oh god, yes, it's fucking disgusting. Cheap and doughy bases, topped with sugary thick tomato sauce and watery, undercooked toppings. The cheese would be ok if they cooked the bloody things for long enough.

And, to top it all off - insanely expensive.

No thanks.

For me, I only tend to spend the amount needed for takeaway if I am eating with friends. It’s about the social occasion and I’d pay to go out for a meal or to eat at a friends and have takeaway. Actually, if it’s with friends at their house, the host normally pays.

I wouldn’t pay £30+ for a meal to eat with just my family. I’m always surprised when people do this more than once a week and especially with not particularly high incomes or stable finances. But people make all kids of choices about what to spend on dont they.

I wouldn’t eat a meal like this more than once a month. It’s not just cost but fact that it’s not healthy either. Fine as a treat. If you have it twice a week, that’s close to 1/3 of your main meals...seems a lot to me and not just treat. I wonder how many families who eat takeaway really regularly are overweight. It’s probably not a popular question, but we all know there’s a link between being overweight and eating choices.

If I wanted to eat easy food that felt like a treat on a more regular basis, just with my family, I’d probably pick a nice ready meal like one from Cook. I could feed 4 of us from there for around £15, perhaps £20 to include some sides.

People have to make their own choices about their leisure spending. However, the rise of the weekly takeaway as normal rather than a treat is a significant expense for many families, even if it’s not recognised as such. Things like this can make the difference between being able to save to buy a house or struggling at the end of the month. Lots of people feel entitled now though to things like a takeaway on a weekly basis. It’s interesting when things shift from a. Treat or occasional luxury to standard expectation, but people’s incomes haven’t risen to match it.

Not a waste of money but I do view them as a treat. For me they are a chance just to kick back and enjoy a night off cooking and have something I know everyone will enjoy. I wouldn’t have one more than once a week both for money and health reasons.

At our local takeaway you can get a hot 11 inch pizza delivered to your door for 3.99 - and it's exceedingly yum. That's cheaper than buying a pizza and cooking it yourself. So not a waste of money at all.

There are good and bad takeaways. We normally have one each week - favourite is Thai or Greek. We’re lucky that there is a huge choice local to us. The best we’ve had is our local Deli which has turned to takeaway during lockdown. We knew they would be excellent as we’ve been going there for breakfast on Sunday’s for the last 20 years.

We tend to have takeaway once every 10 days or so. Fish and chips is about £25 for us as a family of 4 adults and its an award winning chip shop so well worth it. Japanese food is about £40 and absolutely lovely. The local Chinese and Indian takeaways are both vile and I wouldn't have it for any price.

Pizza is a funny one around here as prices can range from £40 to £75 for us and there isn't much difference between most of them. The best one (in my opinion) works our about £60 for us.

We can afford it and it's our biggest treat so I don't mind paying for it.

Why are you asking?

It is money well spent, I am exhausted and bored of cooking my own food for a year.

So many people on here say it’s a treat.
And it seems to me there’s a move towards suggesting that everyone is entitled to treats on a pretty regular basis. It’s the ‘I’m worth it’ thing.

Of course it’s lovely not to have to cook or do hardly any washing up. To me, a treat is occasional and not totally regular or expected. If it becomes every Saturday night and you start to feel cheated if you don’t have it, that’s not a treat anymore but a sense of entitlement. Fine if that’s how you feel and is easily affordable, but it’s no longer a treat.

People differ in their expectations about use of money. Some on high incomes will resent spending £20 on pizza and see it as a rip off but some on low incomes won’t see it as excessive at all and do it in a weekly basis.

In some ways it’s the same as saying is £25 for a 30 minute piano lesson a waste. Lots of people paying £35 weekly for a takeaway would never spend £25 on a piano lesson and see that as really expensive for a short activity. Many of those spending on the piano lesson think the £35 for 1 meal eaten with their family at home is a lot.

It’s all about choices. Some people can actually afford their choices and others can’t really. But again, people have to choose for themselves dont they and if spending £120 a month in takeaway means they can’t have a holiday, as long as they can see they had that choice it’s fine.

If it was just for me I wouldn’t get them, but the kids like it as a treat. I’ve stopped getting Indian/Thai/Chinese as I don’t like the takeaway food much - instead we get a supermarket ready meal version sometimes. But we do order pizza or fish and chips, once a week usually. I shudder at the cost but then I think it’s helping keep people in jobs so if I can afford it it’s not a bad thing to do. Also it can be nice if I’m just fed up of cooking.

You'll still be hungry again in a few hours.

Isn't that the normal digestive process??

We have been eating takeaway a couple of times a month in lockdown but, except for the occasional fish and chips, never really had it pre-covid as we would tend to eat out. There is just me and DH though and we have learned to order just the right amount so it's not terribly expensive. It's nice on a Friday or Saturday night to have a day of cooking and cleaning up the kitchen afterwards.

That is true about regular “treats” becoming expected wombat. I reserve the right to say no and my kids understand if I say I don’t want to spend the money, but it does become a habit nonetheless.

We sometimes buy frozen pizza dough (or make if I have time) and make pizzas which is a fun alternative if you have the energy.

I have fish and chips alternate Fridays £4.90 as my treat for getting through the last two weeks with the DC ... as they go to their Dad's that night.

Takeaway on birthdays which is always pizza for the DC ... my least favourite of takeaways.

I also have sneeky McDonald's for lunch when the DC are at school.

So... overall l do have quite a lot really

Never get pizza takeaway as we consider that to be an easy dinner to make and use up leftovers with. So cheap and easy to make a base, throw on freezer veg and cheese and its lovely. Also Mexican easy to replicate at home.
Thai or Japanese, much harder to make with generic cupboard ingredients so would pay for that, if we had any locally!

We had one once in a blue moon before Covid - say twice a year. I enjoy cooking, and we also ate in restaurants at least a couple of times a week. I really couldn't see the attraction of takeaways with all the attendant packaging and still having to clear up afterwards.

Since the first lockdown though we have had a weekly deliveroo order for anyone who is home on a Saturday night (we have teenagers, and one is at university). We also watch a film together. It has created a bit of a ritual and in the first lockdown especially was a way to break up the monotony. I do think it's expensive (pizza especially - £15 each for a bit of bread dough and a few toppings!) , but we're not spending anything else on eating out or entertainment at the moment and the dc enjoy it. If it was just DH and me we probably wouldn't bother, but so far there's always been at least one dc at home.