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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be annoyed that DH has just spent £25 on dinner?

203 replies

SnappyHorse · 23/09/2023 18:18

We’ve just had our usual Saturday night ‘what shall we have for dinner’ conversation. Me not wanting to cook because I cook every night because I’m home earlier than DH, and DC’s wanting takeaway fish and chip which costs £30 every time. We compromised on fish and chips from the Co-Op round the corner which I can just chuck in the oven.

DH said he’d nip out. He’s just come back from M&S having spent £25 on Gastro fish and chips. I’m sure they’ll taste lovely, but I’m annoyed that he’s spent £25 on 1 dinner. We haven’t really got £25 to spend on 1 dinner and if he was going to spend that, why didn’t he just get takeaway?

Slightly light hearted, but I am annoyed with him.

OP posts:
Darkmode2 · 23/09/2023 18:49

HunterHearstHelmsley · 23/09/2023 18:37

How much did he buy? The Gastro fish is £4.50 for two pieces, and then chips, another £4? Works out at less than £15.

Two pieces wouldn't be enough for 4 people

pleasefuckinggodno · 23/09/2023 18:51

Husband swap please?

BarbaraofSeville · 23/09/2023 18:52

You mean you want a lazy one who spends more than the family can afford on food?

HunterHearstHelmsley · 23/09/2023 18:53

Darkmode2 · 23/09/2023 18:49

Two pieces wouldn't be enough for 4 people

Indeed.

Fish for 2 - £4.50
Fish for 2 - £4.50
Chips - £4
Total - £13.50

Otherwise I'd have said it came to less than a tenner 🤣

NalafromtheLionKing · 23/09/2023 18:54

Combusting · 23/09/2023 18:27

This is not going to help now but for future…

one way we tend to avoid the exhausted Saturday/Sunday night dinner situation is to preempt it by designating those nights for Fake takeaways, and building those items into the weekly grocery order.

This might mean designating certain things as always coming for the eat-crap moment -

Battered fish
chips
Naice pizza
Ready meals
Naice steak

If you preempt and designate then even £15 will gey you naice supemarmet food and save on takeaway

My go to is the fresh Waitrose pasta sauces (eg bolognese or carbonara), 2 pots cost £4.50 and generously feed four.

Wendysfriend · 23/09/2023 18:57

I think I'd rather the chipper food, especially if it would only be a fiver in the difference. I'm not a huge fan of M&S food so would be doubly disappointed. And it still needs cooking jeeze that's shite.

Greensleeves · 23/09/2023 18:57

Mine would also do this. He's more sensible with money than I am in some situations, but when it comes to food he'll do what your dh did. He also has a habit of massively overdoing it when we're having a lazy freezer-dive meal; he'll get confused by the range of stuff in the freezer, shit the bed and just cook everything, so we end up eating it cold for days. Nobody's perfect 🤷🏻‍♀️

SnappyHorse · 23/09/2023 18:58

He bought 2 gastro meal deals. Meal deal was 2 mains, a side and 2 desserts. Box of four battered fish in the co-op is £5ish and a bag of oven chips would have been £2/3.

Maybe I should be planning a chuck in the oven dinner, but I plan, shop for, and cook the other 6 meals a week and I’m bored of it!

OP posts:
towriteyoumustlive · 23/09/2023 18:58

My DH does this. If its his turn to cook he will order £40 of domino's!

I have to specifically plan something and give him a recipe to follow.

As he has blown so much on food shopping then just cook some cheap vegetarian food for the rest of the week.

DixieLandReject · 23/09/2023 18:59

I would be annoyed because you may as well have had the chippy for and extra £5 which presumably would have been nicer. If you're saving a lot more by having prepacked supermarket stuff then fair enough but for a fiver, I personally would have rather had the takeaway version. Though I am basing that on my local chippy which fries in beef dripping and is delicious. Smile

Edwardbear1 · 23/09/2023 19:00

And now I want some fish and chips 😭😭

SouthLondonMum22 · 23/09/2023 19:02

SnappyHorse · 23/09/2023 18:58

He bought 2 gastro meal deals. Meal deal was 2 mains, a side and 2 desserts. Box of four battered fish in the co-op is £5ish and a bag of oven chips would have been £2/3.

Maybe I should be planning a chuck in the oven dinner, but I plan, shop for, and cook the other 6 meals a week and I’m bored of it!

You plan more than enough. It shouldn't be down to you to plan for every single meal or cook every single one either.

yogasaurus · 23/09/2023 19:02

It will be ten times better than the co-op though.

It’s done now; go and enjoy it. It’s still cheaper than the chip shop (round here anyway)

Lovemusic82 · 23/09/2023 19:04

Glorifried · 23/09/2023 18:29

So £30 feeds 4 adults for a special treat?

Sounds absolutely fine to me.

It’s not if you can’t afford it. It’s half of what I spend on a weeks shopping for 4 of us.

Choppysue · 23/09/2023 19:04

It's shit, just in the last week I have noticed prices in local sainsbury have gone up loads again, they put things on offer then when they come back they have increased by loads. Even the shitty local takeaways round here are £35 for blah food. Takeaways are not a treat anymore, the chip shop has gone manky, undercooked scrappy gross chips.

Watchthedoormat · 23/09/2023 19:05

I bought jumbo sausage and small chips and fish&chips x2 last week and it was £28!
I had hold of £15 and expected change.🤣

Dontfuckingsaycheese · 23/09/2023 19:06

Edwardbear1 · 23/09/2023 19:00

And now I want some fish and chips 😭😭

Me too 🙄

Anonymouseposter · 23/09/2023 19:08

@Glorified How do you manage to feed 4 people for a week for £60
It's costing me almost that much for one and I'm trying to economise.

SkyFullofStars1975 · 23/09/2023 19:10

Those berating the cost of takeaways - we run a small business and our commercial rates of gas/electric are probably double that of domestic consumers. Add in insurance, staff, rent/rates, and increases in food prices - no such thing as a cheap meal anymore.

Hankunamatata · 23/09/2023 19:10

We got a chippy last week and it was £42 for two adults and two older children

JudgeJ · 23/09/2023 19:11

SnappyHorse · 23/09/2023 18:23

Dinner is for 4 of us. 2 adults and 2 older teens. I remember when a chippy cost us £10 for all of us.

I remember when fish and chips was 1/6 (1 shilling and 6 pennies, 7 1/2p now!) but that was a very long time ago. Last time I went I paid £16 for two cod and 1 small bag of chips, the chips feed 2 with leftovers, so £30 for a family is about right.

Hankunamatata · 23/09/2023 19:11

Funny enough I was saying to dh about getting a deep fat frier again so we can do homemade fish and chips

Southerngirl99 · 23/09/2023 19:12

Don’t cook on a Saturday. Have a sandwich and soup or beans on toast. Have a night off they won’t starve.

CrazyBatIknow · 23/09/2023 19:13

Last week we had a chippy tea for 7 people
1 battered fish (massive so fed 2 of us)
2 large chips
2 mushy peas
2 sausages
3 x 1/4 cheeseburgers

Came to just under £30 and the portions were huge.

Floralnomad · 23/09/2023 19:14

The gastro meal deal includes the triple cooked chips , which are the best oven chips in the world . We had chippy last night 2 medium cod , 1 reg chips and a portion of battered halloumi and it was £23.50 . That is from a fish and chip van that comes to our area on a Friday and it’s really good , much nicer than any of our local chip shops .