"We can't justify a £52 lunch" - AIBU to think you didn't need to?

[PropitiousJump]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg3g11z6d8o

I found this article irritating. Middle earning families complaining they can't afford a day out, in part because of the expense of eating lunch and dinner out. A family of four in both cases.

I completely agree it's got expensive to eat out, but have they never heard of taking your own sandwiches?

And if you look at what they've eaten, they've ordered a lot of extras that have bumped up the bill.

Costa family - £52 lunch for four. If they could have done without an overpriced bag of crisps on top of their mains, and not had puddings (this was lunch, not dinner) they could have got the bill down to a more reasonable £40ish - a tenner each.

Pizza Express family - £174 dinner for four. If they cut out the starter and side orders and the adults had soft drinks instead of alcohol, they could have got the bill down to approx £109 for soft drinks, mains and a dessert each.

This isn't saying they are eating too much - it's not a diet-bashing thread - but common sense says that if you are eating in a chain place on a day out and trying to keep costs down, you don't order loads of extras and alcohol. Have a drink and a snack at home if you're still hungry. Save all the extras for an 'occasion' where eating out is the focus of the event and you're going somewhere special, not fuelling up in a chain restaurant.

AIBU?

I don’t think having a glass of wine with dinner, or a cookie after lunch, is particularly extravagant.

I think the point is more if you’re on a half decent salary why are you having to penny pinch so much all the time.

YABVU.

You've missed the point, I think. The point is that even people with decent / good incomes now are unable to afford a lunch out in a coffee shop. Even if they had cut back on the cookies.

We used to budget £100 for a family activity and meal out, and that’s very rarely enough now.

Well yes we could all take sandwiches and a flask, share a pizza and drink tap water but the point of it is to have a nice time and the cost of doing that is now spiraling.

while I agree with cutting costs to meet a budget I think this is a red flag for society. If people earning a decent wage can’t eat out, have a starter, glass of wine etc. then this will continue to have a big impact on the hospitality industries etc, jobs will be lost. Salaries aren’t matching cost of living, more people will be pushed into poverty.

The issue is they could previously afford this and now cant. It isnt great for the economy if the middle cuts back and back.

Could we all take sandwiches, yes. Will that mean businesses struggle and job losses, yes.

I cant imagine Costa for lunch is anywhere near as nice as a picnic but if people who used to do it now cant, in big numbers, its not a good sign.

If you read that story they featured on a BBC show that paid for them to have the day out to make the point, so it’s not just a family having a moan. They talk about how they have cut back in real life in the piece.

It is when the wine costs more than a tenner for a glass!

Just read that article. I agree the Pizza Express order was ridiculous. The alcoholic drinks and extra toppings could have been easy savings.
But I guess it was for TV, it would be a boring programme if they ordered sensibly.

The article says it was all paid for - seems normal they will have drinks and puddings in this scenario. You can read between the lines that if they are paying themselves they would spend less but think the point stands. Spending over £100 in pizza express with unappreciative children = deeply unappealing.

I’m missing the point completely but who tf has a family lunch out in Costa? Shite sandwiches and overpriced cake.

I think it's the families who are refusing to face reality. They no longer earn enough to order everything they fancy on a menu full of overpriced rubbish - well, welcome to the real world!

The point I'm making is that they can still have a day out, they just need to use some common sense if they want to eat out - or bring their own food - or do a combination of both, bring along some snacks and sweet things and just have mains in the restaurant.

It's a stupid article, Panorama paid for the day out... so of course they weren't going to hold back.

They paid on the door prices instead of vouchers

£15 on completely optional photos? Doesn't count.

They only spent 90 minutes there? Mad.... If if paid that much, we would have taken out time and spent a few hours there.

Going to Costa for lunch? It's a coffee shop and for snacks, not a lunch restaurant... I'd bet there were many other reasonable choices... Plus packed lunches ate always cheaper.

They didn't need to spend that much money.

YANBU
Do what you like if you're rich, but to complain about costs when you're doing 3 treat things in one day is mad. Of course normal people have never gone to an aquarium AND laser quest AND an extravagant lunch all on the same day.

Also, literally never been out for a meal, even a massive (in my books) occasion, where I'd have eaten and drank as much as they did in pizza express. These just aren't representative of what normal families have ever been able to afford.

I agree. When my kids were younger we had a couple of memberships (usually gifted at Christmas etc) and took a packed lunch- mine loved a picnic. We might get an ice cream or a piece of cake but very rarely lunch. I didn’t enjoy lunch out with my kids, quite often they didn’t like the expensive food anyway and/ or they’d get bored and want to go when I’d barely started after faffing about for them!

Even now if we go out for lunch/ dinner they know we probably won’t get pudding (we come home and have it there), and it’s usually tap water (maybe 1 fizzy drink and then tap water after) for all of us.

I see the point they’re trying to make but the price of food/ drink is no reason not to have a fun day out- it just depends on priorities.

I think you are fixating on wording, OP, and missing the point of the story. The story isn't literally about middle-income families not being able to leave the house for a day. It is about the fact that a range of fairly ordinary treats are becoming unaffordable.

Of course they could take sandwiches - in just the same way that they could choose not to go to an aquarium or Laser Quest, and just have fun at home playing Monopoly. But the point is that they used to be able to afford a nice-ish meal for four in a very ordinary eaterie, as well as admission prises for attractions, and now they can't

Of course it's not extravagant. But the point is, it's not essential. Even if you really want those things, you can buy them elsewhere and not pay the additional mark up on them at those places.
When not at home it's perfectly acceptable to take your own food with you or buy a supermarket meal deal, or buy your main meal out but take other snacks with you.
The additional cost of food for a day out can be managed in multiple ways. Including the extra treats.

The wine was £10.95! That's extravagant by most people's standards. The cookies were £2.95 each - you could get a bag of four cookies for that price in Tesco.

If ‘they no longer earn enough’ to afford entry level eating out because they’ve taken a lower paid job than they used to have, then you might have a point.

The issue, however, is the wild cost of living increases versus nigh on twenty years of wage stagnation that have led to very ordinary, bog-standard activities becoming too expensive for people on what were reasonable incomes. It’s a massive erosion of living standards, but people are working just as long and hard. For far less reward.

It’s depressing. Why exhort people to be happy with it?

What I don’t understand is that this doesn’t seem to be happening?

Tradesmen are still booked months in advance, pubs are always full.

How? Debt?

Unless you can't afford it

Mother’s Day meal out in a nice pub. Me, DH and 2 dc who are late teens. Set menu, 3 courses. I was the only one who had an alcoholic drink of a glass of wine. Meal cost, inc service charge, close to £220. I’m sure that just a few years ago, it would have been closer to the £150-160 mark.

We used to go out for meals fairly regularly but it is now special occasions only.

But when kids were small we definitely took lots of packed lunches with us as we used to go out a lot. Mostly free events, National Trust etc.

Missing the point, but who the fuck has lunch on Costa Coffee?