Finding it increasingly difficult to justify eating out at pubs etc

[JupiterJa]

This is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, but I just find the financial outlay to be hard to justify now. A fairly average meal is now usually between £17-£20 (say a burger, or fish and chips) with a pint or glass of wine usually over £6. I just don’t feel the experience warrants the outlay now, especially midweek, so these trips are becoming rarer and rarer.

Not so long ago £15 would comfortably cover everything and I felt that was good value.

Does anyone else find themselves making less frequent visits now?

Agreed.

TBH finding it increasingly difficult to justify even for drinks at almost £8 a pint or about £12 for a glass of average wine.

I agree, mainly for us because the quality just generally seems crap these days. We had an expensive meal at a restaurant last night but it was absolutely bloody delicious

Extremely overpriced ready meals are exactly how I would describe most pub/restaurant food now.

I honesty don’t know how people can afford to eat out. I say this as someone in a two-income household with no mortgage. As PP said, I feel like I could afford it more when I was earning less. Prices are ridiculous. Service is frequently terrible and it makes you feel even more crap about having spent a fortune. It used to be a once a week thing for us to go out for evening meal. Not anymore. Portion sizes are really tight in some places too. Couple that with your average £15-£25 for a main meal and I want to cry. Also agree about the roasts - terrible and extortionate.

Agree with everyone. We still eat out though. Small local places are often best.

Agree. It’s completely mad. Definitely not something we can justify at current prices.

Brexit done well thank you

Yep. We live near the beach, we did an impromptu trip for dinner (fish and chips on the beach). It was £40 for 4 of us but only one had fish and 2 were kids meals.

I consoled myself by knowing that it probably would have cost double for average food in the pub.

Good Lord, where do you work - Monaco?!

Went to a pub chain for Sunday lunch recently. 2 plates of very average roast beef (1 slice each), some breaded mushrooms, a pint of lager and pint of shandy: £45. No tip either as it was self service on an app.

I think most people feel the same…..

I agree, I’d rather go to a restaurant that I know will be good & spend a little bit more but go out to eat less often.

i work in a pub, we are still busy - Sunday lunches are £15 with a pint of coke being the most popular drink at £3.50. Children’s roast £9 and it’s a carvery. it’s decent home cooked

You are all saying the things that I am thinking.
We restrict ourselves to the "two meals for..." value box on the menu, and I get a lasagne which is always worse than a frozen individual microwave lasagne from netto. And we aren't even posh foodie people.

DH made a home made lasagne last night, topping it up health-wise with kidney beans to bulk out the beef, so I'm not sure why we bother going out - though we do if en route to butlins or something. We ought to stop with these "gastro" pubs. So many are grotty, filthy chairs and carpets, sticky stained menus too.

We never eat out now because it's too expensive for tiny portions. I went to Wendy's the other day and got a wrap for 4 quid...took it out of the wrapping and it had been folded in half so it was child's size with one piece of chicken inside.

We bring packed lunches on days out and have friends for dinner but don't eat out. No takeaways either - we used to maybe once a month but don't ever do it now as the value is just not good enough.

Have you noticed that wetherspoon food has gone up in price by a lot too!

I also agree!
We have a small chain pub close by and we'll only eat there with a code/voucher deal. Even then it can hit £100 with 2+2teens.
(We also check who's cooking- an actual cook/chef or the potwash kids who's working on the cooks day off 😅)
'Nicer' meals out were defo doing a lot less and we'll chose something we're unlikely to do better at home
We are all good cooks but enjoy eating out.

the biggest cost rise hasn’t been wages - it’s gas and electricity, the running cost of this alone has forced the prices to rise so much.

yes inflation and other costs haven’t helped, but the cost of gas and electricity has made inflation rise even recently

drill baby drill 🙈

Totally agree op, even mcdonalds and Burger king are expensive 😫

Homemade take aways for us. I can't justify spending the £££ on eating out. After Christmas me, dh and dd went out for a meal. One main course each, dh had a cola me and dd had tap water.. Bill was just shy of £100. Food was nothing fancy just pub food type of things.

We were thinking of having a pub lunch the other day, burger and chips was £25, absolutely no chance am I paying that.

completely agree

Also you only need to learn some very basic cooking skills to make similar quality food at home at a lot cheaper price

Life is unrecognisable now, the things we used to take for granted but are having to do the maths first every single time. I also agree it’s not just the expense, it’s the service.

I can only really justify McDonald’s now and Pizza Hut buffet. No gastro pubs anymore.

The food has to be amazing, freshly made and not something I can or would cook at home. Even a place I use to frequent more than once a month, had me thinking this just isn’t worth it anymore. I’ve ate out 5 times this year and I’d only visit 2 of these again as the others just cost too much for what you get nowadays

Best value meal out we’ve had lately is at a BeefEater. At lunch time, I had a veggie lasagne for £7 with their lunch specials.
At lunch time they also had really nice rump steak for just £14or £15.

We’ve also stopped going out for meals much anymore - not that we can’t afford to necessarily…. But because we don’t like feeling like we’ve been fleeced!
Once lockdown lifted, we went to a little village pub where they were charging £17 for a plate of chargrilled broccoli cheese!

Agreed, we used to go regularly to a lovely local bistro for a lunch/early supper but the prices now are around £17-18 for a main course, so we've had to cut back on that unfortunately.

We're just back from a supposedly very expensive Scandinavian city and similar style places for lunch were £14-15, so prices here are getting ridiculously high.