"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?

Our lifestyle as a nation has been getting out of control environmentally, health wise and financially. Half of these so called luxuries we apparantly all “need” to survive are paid for by debt and additional burden to the NHS.

I agree. The sheer amount of places to eat that offer low quality expensive food has exploded over the last 20-30 years. If the market is changing then it's changing. For sure, always sad to see jobs lost if people can no longer afford or justify eating out all the time but this is the risk taken with all businesses. Supply and demand and people need to adapt if there is no longer any demand. It's always been that way.

@Bjorkdidit

Or like the PP spending £60 on fish and chips for 4. Most people couldn't eat a whole portion so an obvious saving would be to buy 2 or 3 fish and a couple of portions of chips, or a single large portion and share between you as that would be plenty of food anyway and cost far less, probably about £20-25?

This. I don't know anyone who eats a full portion of fish and chips from the chippy - per person. DH and I have a portion between us, and with a slice of bread and butter (he has 2 - I have 1) and a carton of mushy peas, it's plenty. Costs £12.

When one of our DC come with their DP, we have 2 lots, so about £24 for all 4. No family of 4 needs 4 portions of fish and chips. That's a ludicrous amount of food.

And no, it's not competitive eating, and we're not 'teeny-tiny,' before those tedious and predictable comments come in. 🙄 One portion of fish and chips (from a chip shop) between 2 is plenty with a slice or 2 of bread and butter.

Back in the 60s, when I was growing up, we virtually NEVER ate out. My parents just couldn't afford it. We would take sandwiches everywhere. Even if we did eat out, it was the cheapest 'family' restaurant possible and didn't really feel like a treat.

Eating out is very special to me, but I wouldn't call lunch in a Costa special.

It is extravagant!!!

That amount of crap food is not necessary and no kid needs to go to sea world every week or even month.

Most families couldn’t afford all that on a regular basis 2,5,10 or 20 years ago. We certainly couldn’t and are on a decent wage.

I saw this article this morning and thought exactly the same. Spending that much on largely processed poor quality crap at a chain restaurant is a poor financial decision for anyone! Those chains like Costa, pizza express, bella italia, prezzo and the like 100% deserve to go under in my view. Can't understand why people choose them over a cheaper independent place that usually has better quality home-made food. A typical independent cafe near me costs about £25-30 for a family of 4 to get a meal and the sandwiches are home made with good quality fillings. Having a good standard of living shouldn't mean you go out to overpriced chains every week and have a 3 course meal. People's reality and expectations are riduculous and skewed.

Most people can't eat a standard portion of fish and chips?

Here we go, the teeny tiny eaters are out. There were 4 adults, one of whom is 90 years old and genuinely has a small appetite yet she finished her fish and most of her chips.

I am glad I am not related to you, imagine going to the chip shop for 4 people and only coming back with enough food for 2.

Since covid pub prices have rocketed - a basic pub meal for 2 with a glass of wine and a beer is around £45 even on discount days.

2 for 1 lunch type days are even worse re the quality and size of meal. Just not worth it

Exactly this. People are angry their hard earned money doesn't go very far, and rightly so.

Exactly this. We can never eat a whole portion of chips and have very healthy appetites .

When my kids were young and we were very very poor (single mum of five) I used to have to take picnics when we went out for the day, but I remember it being damn nearly as expensive to get in all the ingredients for 'portable food' as it was to just feed them all on chips!

We didn't have things like ham or cheese in the house (too expensive, we mostly ate eggs from our hens) or crisps or biscuits (unless I baked). Home made egg sandwiches and home baked cake with watery squash was our staple 'picnic' food, which did not feel like much of a treat when it was what we were eating at home too. So I'd buy ham and salad and a packet of biscuits and maybe a can of coke each for a treat, which was when it worked out as cheaper to have three portions of chips between us.

And there it is.............. 🙄 The tedious 'teeny tiny' comments are here. Didn't think it would be long.

I mean God forbid some people don't eat as much as others!

Projecting much?

We’re not teeny tiny eaters but neither of us could manage a chippy size portion. We joke about “half a shark” when we unwrap ours. One portion between us is plenty. Perhaps your chippy serves unusually small portions?

Well it does go far if they’re able to afford a home, cars, tech and all the other shite that’s seen as a necessity nowadays days- holidays abroad, beauty, endless remos etc

But they can afford to eat out . They just need to go without elsewhere in their budget. That’s literally how money works. You have to choose how to spend it. The issue for most middle class families is not a cost of living crisis. The issue is that a lot of people have gotten used to overspending and using credit cards. Most of us are not living within our means and instead of taking a long hard look at ourselves and asking do we really need a new car on finance , it’s easier to blame cost of living .

We all buy things we don’t need and if we didn’t, we could then afford the things we want, like lunch at Costa.

South Wales

Agree. If we have fish & chips, we get 2 x large fish and one large chips. That’s plenty for four people unless you eat a lot or waste a lot of food.

Same here. A full portion of fish and chips from the chippy is way too much food for me - or DH. (We are late 50s.) And also both our DC (late 20s.) As I said, when they visit and there are 4 of us, we have 2 portions and split it between 4. (Then we have a pot of mushy peas, and I butter 5 or 6 slices of bread that the 4 of us have between us.)

Are some people really that hard of thinking that they can't understand that some people don't eat as much as others?' Why must there ALWAYS be these snarky and barbed 'teeny tiny' comments?! SO juvenile and a bit pathetic.

As I said, some people are clearly projecting.

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I can't see how food at places like Sea World is a treat or 'part of the experience' either.

Its almost always poor quality and at the end of a long queue as well as being overpriced. Its rare that they serve anything I'd want to eat at any cost so is almost like the punishment option for not being organised and taking your own food.

Or if you didn't want to make a picnic, a good compromise would be to pick up a supermarket meal deal each on the way. At least your disappointing factory food wouldn't cost quite as much.

When I was little we never ate out as a family. We would go to the harvester for birthdays only and I would have to order off the kids menu.
I think there was then this short period where wages rose and property prices were rising fast and rveryon4 had loads of cash to do stuff and it became normal to take your kids to a restaurant once a week and pay 150 quid for an entry ticket for a family of four to an attraction.
Now it is swinging back the other way
But generally throughout history, the average Joe family would not be doing days out and restaurants on a weekly basis

The human race has survived through thousands of years without mini golf and pizza express as a weekly activity.
We were that family who went to pizza express weekly and now we hardly go at all.
I absolutely refuse to pay the current prices when we can have a similar full meal plus drinks at home for a quarter of the price.

Agreed!

Wine £10.95?? Bloody hell 😳
Pizza Express is beyond expensive!

I think you are entirely missing the point that for the generation that came before, it was more affordable.
My boomer parents eat out constantly because they have huge pensions, free bus passes, discounted OAP prices for tickets/entry to attractions.

I think you are entirely missing the point that there is a big fairness
issue at the moment with the current generation of workers being screwed for every penny while being provided with crap education and health services, crap wages and spiralling costs. Meanwhile wealthy pensioners have the triple lock, free bus passes, and reduced costs for stuff left right and centre.

Its pretty indefensible to be honest.

Of all the things we do as a society that are damaging to the environment, eating in chain restaurants has got to be very low on the list.

I'd be interested to know - of all the people saying that eating out anywhere in the UK is an unsustainable luxury (or should be), how many take holidays abroad?

This isn’t only about eating out - it’s about mortgage rates going up, childcare costs going up, rents going up… EVERYTHING going up. But it’s always the cost of eating out that people single out.

People want cheap food and drink when they eat out, but don’t want to admit it, conveniently forgetting there is a (relatively high) price to pay to eat out at a business. Stay home if it’s too much bother.