"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?

But duping people into frittering their money on crappy food and experiences they don’t need whilst others quietly conserve money to pay off mortgages and prepare for retirement isn’t kind.

Oh it very much IS a hardship to only ever be frugal and thrifty (because you have to be), and never push the boat out on the odd treat. Yet to work 40 plus hours a week subjecting your body to unhealthy stress levels, for the privilege of packing home made sandwiches and worrying about whether you can afford to put the heating on.

When you don’t have the choice of whether to spend on the odd little treat, because your whole income goes on bills and even mid range food out is extortionate, life feels like a grind.

Why the race to the bottom? We’re not living in the 1970s.

If you think Amazon is disappearing, then you're delusional. Amazon is what will be left when all the other businesses have collapsed.

No there never has been for many but clearly there were more that could in the recent past than now because this sector accounts half the job losses and has seen a 2.7% fall in people doing it (which is a bigger fall than other sector and is combined with increased costs) so it might be a small group that did this but its now even smaller. It doesnt matter if a significant chunk never did it, they werent supporting the jobs in that sector anyway.

The bottom of the article is the interesting bit explaining the impact of that small shift and some government decision which are hindering economic growth (imo)

Well, people saying that cafe's are struggling, we have just moved from Wanstead in London. It's half a mile long high street and has 15 coffee shops/cafes.

Very little else on the high street, other than food outlets. 3 chemists, a card shop, an off-license, mini tesco/coop and a few pubs. It also has Chinese takeaway, fish and chips, kebab, Italian restaurant, other restaurants.

So the only thing left to do in Wanstead pretty much is buy food or get drunk. While cost of living and price rises is contributing to the demise of cafes, I also think there are too many around and people tend to stay at home more, wait for their online order to arrive than shop the high street. Far less footfall.

What boycott list?

Yes, and the problem with that is that the services industry is, to a large extent and certainly that relevant to this thread, based on luxuries, not necessities, and wants, not needs.

This means in any economic difficulty it is among the the first to go.

As I said earlier in this thread, the service industry in this country is massively overextended. We have more restaurants and cafés and soft plays and attractions than our population and economy can really support.

The contraction in the service industry has been predictable for a good while.

You can't opt out of paying your mortgage. If you've got one, then you do have to prioritise that above treats or end up homeless. As for retirement - if you work, it's compulsory to be in a pensions scheme now. The people who won't be able to do that - or pay their mortgages - are the ones with no jobs, because nobody is buying their services any more. And it's all going to get worse with AI, not better.

You have a point about over-consumption, but going to Pizza Express for the odd treat is not an example of over-consumption.

And those who "quietly conserve money to pay off mortgages" will more than likely find that their jobs depend on those who are "frittering their money (away) on crappy food and experiences they don’t need".

I think perhaps you may have a different idea of what a decent income is. Because I think most of us are talking about people whose income used to allow spending on these things, but now doesn’t.

Not people who were always low-earning and so could never afford a coffee and sandwich out.

Oh come on people go interest free, have mortgage holidays, extend mortgages .., they do all sorts of things which cost them dearly further down the line. Also if we end up losing state pensions people are going to wish they’d put more into their private pensions as they’re not always a lot.

Yep - absolutely. Successive governments have taken some serious missteps. But we something else in place before the services industry rug is pulled away - it could just be a period of correction, except that AI is going to destroy loads of jobs in the knowledge industries. The obvious place to go from there would be hospitality or retail, but those jobs won't exist any more either. It's hard to see where it'll all end.

We were on more than that in the article and couldn’t. I’d love to know how anybody on that salary could afford that kind of day out on a regular basis even when it cost less. We certainly couldn’t.

I think it's approx 50% of our taxes from us buying things that is the base of the British economy. At times of consumer spending being down/cost of living crisis I wouldn't be shocked if we will be heading into another recession before long.

But life is more than mortgages and pensions. There has to be a balance of living for now not just planning for a future that may never come.

All these people whose parents would never have dreamt on wasting money on meals or days out - I bet lots of them smoked and drank. People have always had ways of frittering away money and I'm not as convinced as most on this thread that the 1970s, where half of all adults were wasting their money on cigarettes, was just a peak of virtue and self-denial.

How so?

I haven't read all 27 pages of this thread as I'm on my lunch break, but I think OP has missed the point of the story. The story isn't about whether it's sensible to take sandwiches on a day out. It isn't about choosing to have a pudding as part of your meal in a high street chain. It's not about choosing the cheaper white wine on the menu. It's not about how entitled these middle-earners are to expect to have a meal out in the first place, when so many people can't (that's taken as given).

It was an article about middle-earners (a group that, perhaps, readers of the BBC News site might identify with) finding it absurdly costly to treat a small family to a very modest meal in a bog-standard high street chain cafe. Not about whether any of the readers of said item might have made different choices. It was highlighting how even fairly modest luxuries are now getting out of the reach of middle-income families, and that a few years ago, this wasn't really the case.

(I have to admit it made me gasp and check the current menu prices of Pizza Express! We haven't gone for a family meal there in years, partly because with all the add-ons like fizzy drinks, a beer, a pudding, you're suddenly paying twice as much as you would for a pizza and a glass of tap water, and you feel a bit deprived if you DON'T have a nice drink, coffee, etc. I couldn't quite believe the price of the pizza and wine in the article but looking up the menu for my local (South England) branch of PE, a 'Romana' pizza will indeed set you back more than £21 and my go-to Fiorentina is now £17-something and I'm sure it used to be below 15 the last time I went. It's quite sobering. I imagine the war in Ukraine is a key factor with bread flour and rapeseed oil prices rocketing.)

And where's your evidence that they're all having mortgage holidays to spend more on Amazon?

We can't realistically end up losing state pensions - it could only be done as a gradual fade-out. No government is ever going to tell people that money they've paid into their state pensions in good faith (although in reality it's just another tax as we all know) was spent elsewhere and tough titties.

But what is your point? People shouldn't ever go to Pizza Express because they should be saving for retirement? Christ, what a joyless way to live.

Absolutely no problem to spend how you feel fit, if someone can afford it. The harsh reality though is if can't afford it then life is just about mortgages and pensions and finding other, free or low cost ways to enjoy life.

I think you’re refusing to see the point. When people can no longer afford the things they previously could, when their wages have remained stable or have even risen, it’s indicates serious economic issues.

Yes, people can have a day out on a lower wages. That’s an entirely separate point to the one the article was highlighting.

We’re all interconnected. There’s only money for the library for your free books if someone somewhere is paying enough tax to cover that. Your pension scheme is only worth more because there are things people spend money on to invest in.

With the race to the bottom alongside everything else, the future looks terribly bleak. I suppose if the uk tanks other countries might see us cheap labour and we could start making things again, though no idea what that would be as we refuse as a nation to invest in anything.

It's also that they run constant voucher and other deals - it's like Tesco Clubcard prices, they're factoring in from the start that most people will pay the 'discount' price, which makes the 'normal' price higher (partially by design, so that you feel like your discount is a good deal).

There should a RTFA (read the fucking article) reminder alongside RTFT. So many people are replying without even knowing the facts of what was actually ordered. The article follows TWO families, one for lunch at Costa and one for dinner at Pizza Express. Context is crucial here because each family has two small children but chose not to order anything from the children's menu OR split mains or drinks amongst siblings.

Family Costa - 2 adults, 4 year old, 10 year old
Ordered three sandwiches, cheese bites, bag of crisps, cake, cookies and juice.
Bill £52 - but the sugary junk added at least £20 to the total
So realistically, if you don't stuff your kids full of sugar, a lunch at Costa would be around £25

Family Pizza Express - 2 adults, 6 year old, 8 year old
Ordered 5 drinks, 6 sides (!!!!), 2 salad, 3 full size pizzas, 1 pasta, 4 desserts
Bill: £174 - This one is just taking the piss tbh. Not sure if they were goaded into going this by the BBC producers, or there was some unspoken agreement to get the bill close to £200 for entertainment value. They had two small children but deliberately didn't order any of the kids meals which would have come with free drinks and dessert.

So it's an entirely unrealistic representation of what any "normal" family, regardless of income, would behave in a restaurant. I have never heard of a family of four ordering 15 separate items from the menu, 11 if you don't include dessert. A table that seats four doesn't even have space for 11 plates?! Were they sat on the largest Pizza Express table enjoying their banquet of dough balls and polenta fries?

Unless all four family members are morbidly obese, there is no human way that a 6 and 8 year old would have been able to finish everything they ordered, which is also a gross example of food waste.

Nope it’s about having a balance and a regular family day out being an expensive meal out followed by an expensive attraction is not that. A day like that is a treat.

Many joy filled family days out don’t cost anywhere near that. I can’t say I’ve ever felt joy in PE or a crowed ten pin bowling ally anyway.