"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 agree and the sneeriness of the packed lunch and using examples of warm meat paste sandwiches just shows where posters are coming from.

They're snobs ultimately.

Ah so we fund billionaires to rip off workers and consumers- no thanks .

Exactly this highlights how expensive a 'normal' pizza meal out is now for middle income families. We can't afford it anymore and our household earns £60K per year.

but there's absolutely no law compelling you to have a big party either..,, my 6yo had a trip tot he cinema and McDonald's with 3 other friends - we went to the kids club so tickets were £2 each - we paid a total of £16 for tickets with adults) and then they had a happy meal each at £4 (so £16 total) - and we gave them all a mini bag of sweets and a bottle of squash for cinema - total costs was c. £50 including parking, coffees for adults etc

Only in certain places in the UK. They do it in Salford on the Ship Canal. But then they ship it all over the country. It's not like getting it from the next village or town over is it?

The ship still costs a lot. As do the import duties. And we then still send it further overland via road using staff on British wages rather than Spanish wages.

Arguing over bottles versus big shipping containers and rebottling in the uk basically nitpicking at the same underlying point. Only the very cheapest wine is imported in this way too - the stuff that the Spanish etc don't take first pick of. The better stuff still comes over in bottles. Part of the reason for this is about how well wine travels and how if you bottle it locally it it doesnt go through so many processes.

It's also getting more expensive to bottle in the UK because Spain is more self reliant for non fossil fuel energy...

They're all cannibalising the same market though. I'm not a fan of the major coffee chains - don't like the taste of their coffee. But taking customers from Costa isn't creating a new market of coffee drinkers. Some indies do offer a much better experience but they're not significantly cheaper in my experience.

That's kids on the kids menu deal and no alcohol – of course it's cheaper.

I would also entirely assume that the median average family still feels fretful spending £66 on lunch out.

Using grandma's house is absolutely a freebie, unless you're saying you were charged?

The fact remains, access to somewhere cheap or free is not a luxury available to everyone. Cheap halls, for example. Don't presume they exist everywhere. I actually moved to soft play parties for mine when I found it was costing the same as the place I'd previously been hiring to cater and host it myself and the floor was probably cleaner.

And if you're old enough to have had kids in the 00s, you were operating in a colossally different housing market to parents today. There is no getting round this one. It's also the case that mothers as a cohort work more now than they did then, including more full time.

No more snobby than the people proclaiming that chains such as Costa and PE are shit. They all - packed lunches, chain restaurants and indies - have their place, no one is more worthy a choice than the other, depending on circumstances.

Um, no. Chains often have more flexibility to pay their workers more than independents. Most of them can barely afford minimum wage.

This is true. We ate out at pizza express in Feb half term. It was kids eat free. We got 2 adult pizzas, 2 kids meal, kids had tap water, we had a beer and a coke. Kids got desert with their meal (I had a nibble). We all left beyond stuffed!
It came to less than £50.

My mother cooked every day. I think we only had fish n chips as part of a trip to the seaside. Never ate out and were probably MUCH healthier for it. Also far fewer cars.
The right question to ask is what businesses were there before all the food/pub places?

Which is fine, but what's being talked about is the different ways of hosting parties. The poster referencing cheap hall hire must mean big groups, otherwise her point about extravagance would be completely idiotic because you don't need a large space for like 5 kids.

We both worked full time and we struggled financially. My kids rarely got to eat out and we camped whilst doing zilch in the house and sharing a car .

Nobody needs to spend£££ on birthday parties. You just don’t. There are endless ways to celebrate a birthday well and cheaply.

But they’re (indirectly) asking for sympathy, whinging;

We struggle finding the right reasons to go out because we can't justify the cost," Paul told BBC Panorama.

Boo hoo.

Sure, if you have family members who have large enough houses that they'll let you use for free or access to cheap halls. That's two, which is not endless, and both things are privileges that you simply cannot assume everyone has access to.

And the point about parents having less space to host at home on average than they used to a few decades ago remains both true and unaddressed by you.

Eh? Nobody's talking about it being 'society's' role to fund. We're not talking about people on benefits.

What's being discussed is the fact that people earning what used to be decent incomes are now being priced out of very ordinary, bog-standard things like a toastie and a cup of coffee in a cafe.

That's a problem with the economy, not the individual. With an economy that enables the majority of funds to be siphoned upwards, while most of the population gets poorer.

I mean, come on, you surely can't think that people in middle-earning jobs should be having to order tap water instead of a single glass of wine or pop in a cafe or restaurant, or taking warm egg sandwiches every time they go out somewhere, because they can't afford the odd meal out? That's ridiculous.

We shouldn't be scolding people into accepting crap like this. We should be holding our politicians to account for it.

We did all manner of things from a free treasure trial we made in a park to a birthday tea at home for a couple of friends with games to paying a cheap hall fee we shared with a friend.

What we never did is pay ridiculous amounts of money on whole class soft play parties. Nobody needs to do that and many people don’t.

It doesn't really matter as we can't go back in time. The world was a very different place before the 90s.

No, but people will spend their money where they see fit. We also do not actually need so many coffee shops, it's insane how many there are anyway. The bubble has burst. We've had the same throughout our history of the high street! We started to lose huge, well known brands on the high street way before cost of living crisis because people's demand comes and goes and unless those stores keep up with customer trends and wants, they will close down.

While the cost of living is part of the problem, it's not the whole issue here. People will need to use their noggin on the high street and sell things that people do want to buy, as I said, it has always been this way.

In many cases there weren’t. Where I am many chain restaurants have sprung up with purpose built premises - the standard Pizza Hut, Costa, type buildings.

The high street has been absolutely decimated, with premises transformed into eating places.

I think you are kissing the point.

7-10 years ago a day out was a treat, but a regular treat for many. People would grab a snack from the attraction. It wasn’t cheap but it was affordable.

When people start thinking twice about eating out then how do the cafes etc sustain their business, and if those businesses fail how do the people support themselves?

It is in everyone’s interest to keep money moving through society, when it stops moving we are in trouble.

The money stops moving when it reaches the top of the chain. The CEO’s hoard it all like Scrooge McDuck. That doesn’t help anyone.

We lived in a house the size of a dolls house with just a tiny kitchen and lounge and managed it.

Yes same here, fish and chips, perhaps, on a day out

The very rare meal at Pizza Hut (remember them), perhaps twice, maybe 3 times a year

The very odd chinese takeaway and perhaps a couple of times a year, a Wimpy

Just wasnt a thing

The other thing that comes to mind is something I say on many a thread about portion sizes, pubs/cafes/restaurants get away with extra prices charged because the meals are enormous, mainly due to cheap filler items like the chips or something covered in batter so it looks massive

This is to psychologically persuade the customer that they're getting good value for money even though a) they dont need that size meal b) leave a lot of it (I see this in restaurants/pubs a lot) c)the big bits are the cheap bits, it just fills a plate, its not value for money as such

All increasing the cost of going out and all increasing our notion of whats a normal portion and all increasing our calorie intake

Its virtually impossible to go somewhere now and have a small plate of something for less money that doesnt involve bread. And even a sandwich these days comes with chips/crisps, salad, bits of this or bits of this.

In Spain you can just get small nibbles/tapas bits, not aways a carby thing. Here its chips or bread or pastry, massive items.

It wasn’t affordable 7-10 years ago. We couldn’t afford it and were on a healthy household income. We live debt free though.