To think no one eats out everyday?

[1AngelicFruitCake]

Lighthearted pondering about meals over summer holidays.

Yesterday talking to my friend about making lunch and tea everyday during school holidays. I love my children but it does feel relentless! Shop at Aldi or Lidl and buy varied food to keep it interesting. My friend knows someone who goes out everyday and eats out so the evening meal is simple. I’m like ‘how?!’ How does anyone afford that?!

It’s interesting listening to all of your thoughts.
I love eating out and getting takeaways. The thinks that stop me are cost mainly and wanting my children to home cooked meals.
I feel quite inspired to set myself a budget for the last week and see how many ‘kids eat for £1’ deals we can make the most of!

Singapore’s a different food culture though. There’s a lot of cheap eating out to be had at hawker centres and food courts because the country grew on the back of immigrant labourers who often didn’t have cooking facilities. Cheap and tasty meals are available everywhere at almost any time of the day or night.

I know someone who gets Deliveroo once a day, sometimes twice. But pretty much without fail every day. Actually the only time he wouldn’t is if he’s eating out.
But he’s got shit loads of money and no desire to cook.

There's nothing wrong with salt. Your body actually needs some salt.

Tbh I can see why it's tempting. When our house was flooded we had cereals for breakfast and we ate out once or twice a day.

With using Asda cafe £1 meals (they're 60p now) and kids eat for £1 at Toby Carvery, the local prem Inn restaurant and a local pub it was nowhere near as expensive as expected

I think it wouldn't be much more expensive than cooking tbh. Like my local pub does a humungous beef roast with all the trimmings on a sunday at 5pm for 10 quid. I couldn't make it for that! Its 22 quid all day until 5pm so you do risk them running out. But yeh, with the price of food shopping now, and deliveroo deals I think if you were smart it would be comparable and you could still do it and be healthy I reckon.

I have a friend who, in 6 months of being in her new flat, has never used her kitchen to cook a meal. She meal preps a yoghurt/fruit/oats combo for breakfast and a set of cold salads for lunch (no cooked chicken etc.) and then eats out every evening (either alone, with colleagues or friends.) She lives in the city centre and sometimes I think her life might actually be the plot of a romcom 😂

My ideal would be to eat out at a decent restaurant once a week (it's more like birthdays and anniversaries here atm). I would hate to have to drag myself out every day!

I've never ordered anything from Deliveroo and I would be embarrassed to be reliant on other people for bringing me breakfast or lunch.

Our local Chinese takeaway asked us to always order direct from them (they have offered home delivery for years) because they pay a huge percentage to Deliveroo.

Me too ! I eat a lot of vegetables and really miss them if I don’t get plenty with every meal

Maybe if you're just feeding one person but if you have a family of four for example...it would cost £40 then drinks would bump the total cost up. I could easily do a roast dinner for four for less than that. I could probably do a roast dinner for 4 for between £10-15 if making pork or chicken.

😮

I spend way more on food than I should.

Both of my kids are picky/eat restricted diets for various reasons.

I hate cooking at the best of times, holidays are very relentless so going out a bit (certainly not every day) breaks it up. I am otherwise reasonably careful/frugal.

We took early retirement and whilst we don't actually eat our main meal out daily , we do have cafe trips of maybe just coffee / cake or soup or toastie out several times a week which comes to £200 -£250 average a month . We don't smoke/vape or drink alcohol at all , don't eat takeaways or buy coffee on the go so think that's reasonable .

I think it's quite common for people who travel a lot for work to eat out every single day, but that's usually on company expenses.

I used to waitress in a restaurant and a couple who lived on the same street used to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with us. Even when the wife was recovering from surgery and couldn't leave the flat, they ordered food from us, which was wrapped up in tin foil, and I would go up later for the dirty dishes. They said it saved them so much time and gave them something else to think about other than what to make for dinner. I wish I had their money to have that choice!

I’m a bit ashamed to say we are in this category and I do hate it. I do think it’s a waste of money, even though we can afford it, and it’s quite unhealthy. We do have breakfast at home most days, lunch at home twice a week and tea at home twice a week but I would say it does all add up. Easily £800-£1000 a month if not more. I dread to think!

Now we're Empty Nesters, DH and I eat out most days, usually just a nice lunch but sometimes dinner. I have very little interest in grocery shopping or cooking and prefer to spend my time doing other things. In our fridge we have milk, fruit and a few bits from M&S, that's it. Honestly, it's bliss.

Who’s been watching sex and the city?

Before having children, my husband and I used to eat out frequently. After the kids came along and before the pandemic, if I didn’t feel like cooking, we’d usually order a takeaway. But now, with our circumstances having changed and the cost of everything rising, we rarely eat out or order in anymore. I don’t really miss it though, standards in restaurants, in my opinion, have declined since the pandemic.

We use to do this. We never use to realise how much we was spending. We would just grab something in a coffee shop etc daily for lunch.

Although Some days (Friday in particular) we use to have breakfast at a cafe, lunch somewhere like beefeater then McDonalds or similar with the kids later.

one random day we decided to look at our outgoings more for curiosity and realised how bad it got.

we still eat out maybe 2-3 times a week. But it’s no where near what we use to do.

If you are somewhere with First table or lots of Groupon deals it could be possible

Occasionally some of those are cheaper than home cooked!

When I used to work in an office I would to eat out most lunchtimes. Not sure where people are eating out, but I’ve never had a problem with finding vegetables, there are plenty of restaurants that only sell vegetables!

My husband eats out every lunchtime (at work), which doesn’t seem to work out that expensive as we have something light for dinner. If you factor in your time planning, buying, cooking, etc., then for us it’s actually cheaper.

We eat out as a family 3/4 times a month, which is expensive as the bill can be up to £200 a time - certainly couldn’t do that every day!

I used to have a high pressure job with an expense account. I could expense lunch if working from the client and dinner if I worked past 8pm (which was every day). I only ever cooked during the weekends.

I have single American friends who get dinner (evening meal) out every day, because it is so cheap, and easy either as take away or sit at a bar stool type idea rather than full on restaurant.
They literally have milk and cheese (and maybe beer) in their fridge that’s it.
once you’re feeding a family of 4 or 5 it gets pricier, but my friend over there who has 2 kids still eats out at least once every weekend.

My mums friend and her husband eat out every single night. I could no more be arsed!!!