When did cheap nights become so expensive.

[gothicomedy]

A trip to the cinema last night cost £9 for ticket, £5 for parking, £3 for bag of chocolate sweets and £3.50 for a cup of coffee before hand. So over £20 for a night out at the pictures for one person.

A fish and chip supper for two with a bottle of supermarket wine last saturday cost £23.

AIBU to wonder when what was traditionally a cheap treat has now become an expensive luxury?

Were these things ever cheap?

I grew in a middle class home, comfortable financially, and takeaways/cinema visits were occasional treats, not regular occurrences. That was in the 90s.

Yeah, this was my experience too. I was privately educated but the cinema was still something we only did a few times a year, the same with takeaways.

My local cinema does a daytime silver screen ticket during the week, £6.50, a cup of tea or coffee and as many biscuits as you can get away with!

Mine does a similar thing plus special screenings for those with Dementia and Autism . They are currently doing the warm space project too - a film, hot drink and a hot snack totally free of charge! Our community cinemas are invaluable and we need to hold onto them. We occasion go to the Multiplex but it's a real experience visiting our local one and ww want to supply it.

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It's worth looking at membership of cinemas like the Picturehouse chain if you go regularly.

£23 for fish and chips and a bottle of wine is super cheap- given at least £6 of that must have been the wine.

I used to budget £20 for a meal out inc. drinks in 1998 when I was a student!

I worked in a cinema more than 20 years ago and people complained then it was too expensive - if anything prices in the cinemas by me are cheaper today than they were in the one I worked in in the early 2000s!

All three of the closest cinemas to me do £5 tickets if you book online. Parking is free if you're prepared to walk 10 mins and I honestly don't understand how a bag of malteasers bought for £3 at the cinemas is more of a treat than a bag bought for £1 on the way! So in some places the cinema can be a very cheap night out, if you spend money on completely optional and extortionately overpriced extras then

Presuming the supermarket wine was c£7 then I don't think £8p/p for a large meal is hugely expensive either. A burger king whopper meal is about the same price? I do think since Covid takeaways have become very similar to standard restaurant prices (i.e. not nice restaurants but fish and chip from a shop is the same as from an average pub, a curry is the same price whether you get a takeaway or eat in), despite the fact you still have to clean up yourself after and don't pay any service costs!

Always buy cinema treats at the Co-op before going to watch a film. It’s bonkers how much they charge at the concession stand.

When I went to the cinema as a teen in the 2000s the cinema was £3.50, the Vue by me now is £4.99 a ticket fore recliner seats unless you want the back rows. Inflation-wise I actually think the cinema is cheaper for us now than it was back then.

5 of us went for £30 the other day - 5 tickets plus £5 of sweets from B&M and water we took with us!

It’s regional too- you can still get fish, chips and peas for less than £6 here, and the portions are massive (I know my friend splits one between her 3 kids).

If we need a night out when we are skint, we buy either one kebab or some Brie and crusty bread and drive up to a nice viewing point to sit in the car and share the food while enjoying the view.

The thing is, prices have risen but wages have too!!

In the year 2000 the main rate of minimum wage was £3.60/h. Now its £10.42 - almost 3 times higher.

So yes - things probably do cost triple what they used to. If a couple of cinema tickets with snacks and drinks used to be £15, it would be £45 now.

I've got a tastecard, it's free for the first 3 months but quite affordable thereafter and I get discounted cinema/ coffee/ meals out etc so it's worth thinking about if you would use it a lot.

Basically it puts prices back to what they were a few years ago!

WTF?!

That is extortionate- please tell me you live in a London. I'm in suburban Liverpool and the chippy over the road costs about £2.50. They give you loads too 🙏🏻

Yeah it’s sooo expensive. What about if you take your own drinks and snacks, walk there, and use those voucher codes you can get online 2for1 tickets. £4.50 night out each then instead.

I'm in my 60's and the cinema has never been cheap and buying snacks there is notoriously expensive. £23.00 for a fish supper and bottle wine however would be considered pretty reasonable in my neck of the woods.

We don’t get takeaway regularly anymore. Less than once every to moths. Cinema is £5 at the moment and we busy our snacks at the supermarket. Sad times

I think it's totally okay to go to the cinema as a treat, drive and park close by, get premium seats and a snack and a drink each. But that's obviously going to be an expensive way to do it. You can make it a cheap night out and an expensive one.

Our cinema is £6.99 per person, we walk there (about 30 mins) and bring our own drinks and snacks.

We will also buy a large chips between the 4 of us and have with frozen fish and veg, or sausages for dinner. A large chips in south London is £4 - I'm amazed at it being £6.50.

But given there are 4 of us - we tend to try and do things on offers, or we stock up on treats at the supermarket. It helps that I am a very good cook so eating out isn't really a treat unless it's Michelin starred. I'd rather bring a decent picnic or home made cake with us whilst out than spend a fortune on something not as good in an on site cafe. Even going out for a fry-up costs around £50 for the four of us, so I'll do a quality fry up at home for less than £20.

We have been perfecting the art of the 'poor man's' (insert going out experience eg sauna, cinema, restaurant etc)

Basically just stay at home but try to have some fun recreating the experiences we used to go out to have but can't afford anymore.

I just went to book mine for tomorrow only have odean here and cineworld and it's £9.49 a ticket but add your drinks on and it gets expensive which is why I don't go often

£23 for fish and chips and a bottle of wine, for two people, works out at £11.50 a head. I’d say that is a cheap night.

Not for supermarket food that's not cheap! I buy beer battered cod in Aldi, £4.50 then Mccain triple cooked chips £3. Unless the OP bought a fancy £15 wine then I'd say £23 is a lot.

People don't buy fish suppers at their local supermarket. I'm pretty sure it's just the wine that came from there.

(and yes, I know it's a zombie thread, I'm replying to a post from today)

If you did want to go often, you could bring your own drinks and get a cineworld membership - two tickets a month usually more than covers the cost.

Amazon Prime member cinema deal is cheaper than Meerkat movies