"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?

And I certainly can speak with disdain at length about people getting what they voted for.

I would wager about half the people moaning about price increases voted Brexit.

Good on them, I hope they're happy.

No, many people were able to do both - if you say that wasn't your experience, I absolutely believe you, but that doesn't reflect the whole country.

I think it can depend on where you live and what you do for a job. Also how many children you have, what kind of property you live in/car you drive/holidays you take. These things have always been variables. Yes, some people undoubtedly go into debt to drive flashy cars, have expensive handbags, etc, when they don't need to. Which is stupid, and entirely a choice.

But what we're talking about here is a coffee and a sandwich being out of reach for middle income people. Which hasn't been the case, in my experience, for a long, long time.

A coffee and a sandwich! We're not talking lobster, or even a steak. A sandwich and a hot drink!

Whichever way you look at it, if middle income people can't afford that, on occasion, there's an issue.

I literally said I’m obviously not comparing it to the Pizza Express situation?

I packed a picnic for the park but it would’ve been cheaper and less hassle just to get a meal deal from the shop.

Did people miss that it was one parent and one child did laser quest whilst the other parent and child did Sea Life? It wasn’t as if all 4 did both activities!

But, you all ate a lot more food by doing that than eating in the cafe.

And I don't see how it did cost more - that's about 15EUR worth of stuff - 20 if you buy some more fruit, and that's a decent lunch for a family - everyone's having multiple sausage rolls/sandwiches/bits of fruit.

If I go into Costa, I'm not walking out without paying less than 20EUR for 2 drinks and 2 cakes - and we haven't actually even managed a meal at that point.

People can do what they like but please don’t expect sympathy when whining about not being able to afford overpriced crappy “luxuries” on a regular basis when you’re not Rockefeller and people have been living without the for decades if not centuries. They’re not necessary and you can’t have it all. If you fritter money on things that are a waste of money there are consequences.

Until you want to buy quality goods that last, and only have cheap Chinese crap available. Or you want a nice restaurant for the one time a year you want to celebrate something and they’re all closed. Or you want decent quality clothing and it’s all Shein fast fashion.

It’s not about getting into debt to keep McDonald’s afloat, it’s recognising that good businesses going under undermines the economy.

You're really going to need to show your workings there, because a meal deal in a shop is a sandwich, a bag of crisps, does it come with a 'side' (as businesses like to call it) of chocolate or fruit? Then a drink

Set out how that is more expensive to make yourself than buy a meal deal

And in any case what you provided was not akin to a meal deal each, it sounds like it was about 3 meal deals each

How many adults and how many children and what ages are the children?

OK, great. Hope the view's nice from up there on your high horse.

Pizza Express is ok.

Didn’t think it wouldn’t happen - obviously rising costs affect everyone. And I’m more than aware that we are privileged to have a roof over our heads and enough money to put food in the fridge and pay the utility bills.

BUT - I didn’t expect to be 50, on an income level that is pretty high in terms of the UK and be unable to go for more than very, very occasional meals out with my family or friends, because the cost of living is so high. We weren’t exactly rolling in it a decade ago, but having a certain lifestyle didn’t feel so impossible then. Nor did it during my childhood.

This may sound very ‘tiny violin’ to many - but isn’t this the point of the article? That even decent salaries mean a pretty frugal lifestyle now, because everything is so expensive?!

We were middle income and just in the higher tax bracket. We didn’t have an interest only mortgage though which many had and paid for things outright. We definitely couldn’t have afforded Costa and Pizza Express, expensive day trips every week or even monthly without debt and pensions/ mortgage not being paid properly.

Interestingly we could afford these crappy places now even though we’re supporting kids at uni but just couldn’t justify it or want to. They are a complete rip off and always were.

Our MP's will not understand as they are on £100K and some of them do a good job but as for Thieves and her family with an income of £350K it will not touch water!

No, just weird, with no grounds in real life.
Personally, I don't care.

Are you not concerned that there has been a change? A change in what the majority can afford to do. And a significant change. And not a positive change in the right direction, but a change backwards.

Setting aside your own circumstances for a moment, doesn't it concern you that the UK economy is deteriorating?

peoples wages have stagnated and they aren't earning a decent salary. If people can claim benefits earning £100,000 a year there is something wrong

Wages are too low, earning out isn't expensive

The thing is thought if I’m making a packed lunch for a day out, I’m not doing a sandwich and a bag of crisps because it should be nicer than a supermarket meal deal. So there will be a home baked cake of some kind, and a sausage roll, maybe a pasta salad and some fruit. I do it because I can do something much nicer for the equivalent cost, not because it’s necessarily much cheaper.

Some folk won’t be happy until everyone is eating cheese sandwiches and drinking water.

I agree !! Back when my kids were small in early 2000 we never ate out when we had a day out we would take a pack up of sarnies like picnic stuff it's always been expensive but Costa coffee is not somewhere u take a small family for lunch !!!

I think the problem is here, on this thread, I dont know if its the same in real life and I dont think it is, that people think that not eating out as much is = to a 'frugal life'

Taking a packed lunch every other trip out or most trips out and saving a meal out for a 'meal out' event, is not a frugal lifestyle

I grew up with a frugal lifestyle, its nothing like this. Its nothing like choosing to have a coffee each and cake to share rather than cake each. Or just going out for the coffee

Or just going out for a snack rather than a meal, a couple of starters each instead of more

This is not 'frugal'.

Frugal is not being able to go out at all, its unthinkable that kids could go to attractions let alone go to a pizza restaurant on the way home.

Yes, there's definitely something of a whiff of hair shirt with a lot of these posts.

Either 'it's all too decadent to eat in a cafe, and we should all exist joylessly on a dry oatcake and paring of cheese and like it', or 'I couldn't afford it, so you shouldn't be able to either'.

God almighty, I haven’t read the whole thread since I posted this morning but nothing has changed. As a high earner I would like to be able to go out for lunch without sharing with the dc or ordering tap water or making a cheap pack up and eating on a street corner. What a spendthrift I am.

I don’t want dead high streets and no jobs - this is not the 70s , we are a service economy now so we can’t go back to these idyllic childhoods of tomato sandwiches and ginger beer - the country will be fucked. We need people earning money and spending money, a few people hoarding wealth and 99% on the breadline is not good - I don’t understand why people aren’t angry at how things are going and instead prefer to sneer at people who they believe don’t spend their money responsibly.

No Brexit caused an earthquake and nothing can turn that round. I think people have been living really badly- environmentally, health wise and economically for some time. Far too reliant on material things and debt. The rot has been there for some time and I actually think learning to live normally is woefully overdue.

There is no way that will cost more than buying it ready made, is my point, you can stop snarking at me in every post.

The poster seemed shocked that a few days of lunch products cost her more than she thought it would for one packed lunch out.

But wages being too high (ironically) is why the cost of eating out is so expensive. Hospitality runs on really low margins, and national minimum wage going up has massively added to costs for restaurants and cafes, and they have no choice but to pass those costs onto the consumer. So we're in a catch-22 position right now where people aren't earning enough to afford a good lifestyle but higher wages mean more businesses will fold and that will massively impact the whole economy.

My view is that 13 years of the Conservative government with no wage inflation (thanks to low interest rates and inflation) in that time helped create this - wages had to go up eventually and when they did, it burst that bubble we were in and now we're screwed. Brexit screwed us. Ongoing war and rising costs is going to screw us even more.

Exactly. And it’s even more bloody depressing when you DID make the endless fucking packed lunches, and lugged the flasks around, and carried the snacks and pinched the treats, and endlessly made-your-own-fun in order to be able to go out sometimes and now you can’t.

A few years ago, we had a comfortable, life. No debt, if the car needed work, in it went without a second thought. Treats and (very unextravagant) luxuries on the regular. I was so so happy and counted my blessings daily (although I did wish we could order dessert or not drag bloody flasks everywhere, I accepted that having the time and energy to go was worth it) Now, we’re scraping by. It’s horrible. And there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s no joy and nothing to look forward to. I can’t plan nice things, I’m always playing catch up from shit that hit the fan last month. Always having to say no.

My poor DD can’t understand it. How did we used to be able to afford it and now we can’t? Why can’t you earn more money? Because, darling, no one wants to pay me any more money for anything I know how to do. Why can’t you learn to do something that earns more money? Because I’m too fucking knackered from decades of lone parenting on one mediocre wage and drained from making-your-own-fun. Those things have a cost, just not a financial one. A physical one. My hearth. My energy. My life. I’m sick of people pretending you can packed lunch and treasure hunt your way through life and it’s exactly the same experience as buying lunch out and enjoying fun with your kids that someone else made. It’s not.