"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 beg to differ. The NHS runs on goodwill to a huge degree. Every day there are people staying after the end of their shift to provide patient continuity. You need a particular mindset to be a healthcare worker in a job where you might get covered in other people’s blood, shit or vomit and everyone you see is at their worst. It’s not sainthood, it’s dedication and only a deeply unpleasant person would sneer at those people.

Ditto other sectors - education, care sector, child care etc whose workers are on a lot less with far less favourable pensions.Many many NHS workers are far from blood, shit and vomit.Doctors and consultants in the NHS are well paid and many consultants do private work on the side with exorbitant fees.

Sheer bloody ignorance. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Well hate to disappoint you but I’m not.

Doctors and nurses only make up a third of the NHS pay role. Doctors and consultants are paid well and other sectors provide just as much goodwill on much less with worse pensions.

I work full time and sometimes I am just too tired to cook - it would be nice to treat ourselves to lunch or dinner here and there. Capitalist life be crazyyyyy

When I grew up, things like this were a treat. Laser Quest, bowling, etc.,was once in a while of for birthday parties, not monthly or weekly. When we had a mortgage, these things were treats.

My husband doesn't earn much more than £60k. For years he earned far less. Not received tax credits for over 10 years when he started earning around £30k. I don't work because I can't be arsed tbh. Those spare 52 pounds here and there went on the mortgage as over payments and towards holidays. Not on cheese toasties in Costa.

Taken the kids to nearly 60 countries, some several times. They've been to Poland, Uzbekistan, Malaysia and Indonesia several times, for example. They've also been to 20 US states. We had booked to go to South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and had hoped to pop into Paraguay whilst in Iguazu) but that got cancelled doeto covid. We've done all that and had a two storey extension and paid off the mortgage.

Could we have done that whilst having lunches in Costa or Pizza Express. Not a chance. Any regrets? None. I'd rather miss out on that than my holidays. We prioritised our mortgage and holidays over that and financed cars. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Our service industry does include manufacturing, for example the fashion house Chanel moved to London from New York, it means all the product development is done here just not the actual manufacturing. We have the third largest fashion industry here after USA and China.

Isn’t it sad that people are saying that a job earning 60 k a year isn’t a lot of money these days. I know im
old, but not that long ago it was seen as a decent wage and people could survive on it.

I don’t think it’s sad at all. It’s all relative to your circumstances.

This is a great thread. I think things are really tough for small businesses. But the big companies I’m not so sure. There’s very little transparency in terms of what restaurants/pubs/coffee shops/care homes/nurseries/retail charge for their goods/services, the mark ups and what the directors and CEOs are paid. There would be riots if people really knew. I’ve been to really nice restaurants before and had lovely wine for £38 a bottle, then looked it up online and it’s £11 to buy. I know restaurants have to make money but that is ridiculous. Care home owners sending their kids to private school and several fancy holidays a year but then complain that they have to pay their staff a living wage. People are just greedy now in a way that people were not in the past. I got a take out starbucks coffee a couple of months back and it was £4.50. I can remember when a glass of wine cost that. I take my own coffee when I can but it’s nice to treat yourself now and again. In my local high street a new high end cafe has opened and it looks lovely. Was looking in the window and thought about getting me, my son and husband a scone. They were £4 each. wtf

You’ve clearly never been a teacher or a social worker - child protection services pretty much run on goodwill and coffee (not Costa).

or a therapist/counsellor

We can't blame everything on Brexit, convenient as it may be. Before I escaped the chalkface 20 years ago there were many different ways in which colleagues spent their salaries, that's human nature. Some lived from month to month, usually on an overdraft at the end, I recall being told by one colleague that a night out for him and his wife usually cost £150 at the weekend with drinks, meals, clubbing. Others were more careful in how they lived, not changing cars every 2 or 3 years, not moving house for bigger, better and more mortgage.

It's not that they are in the worst situation, it's that if they are finding it financially harder, what is happening to average earners? If people who were financially very comfortable now aren't, ordinary people are going to be struggling much more. Housing, energy and food prices have escalated. We have so many food banks now, they weren't a thing before 2010. It's an across the board (although not at the very top) reduction in the standard of living, and it's going to be much worse at the bottom.

I can see your point but it feels tone deaf as heating, food, tax and just about everything goes up and up.

We go out to eat most weeks. Maybe once a fortnight but family dinners, dinner with couple friends, dinner with extended family, dinner or lunch with our separate friends etc.The places we go to are always full. Mainly independent places. I must live in a bubble.

Never ate in either PE or Costa. Nor would I want to tbh.

Which affects everyone. I really dislike this 'tone deaf' thing. Unless youre saying it directly to someone in a much worse situation, it is actually ok for all levels of society to have a conversation about what effects them.

Independent places are down a quarter from pre-pandemic, which is a colossal reduction.

I find 'wet-led' places in town are still busy, the long established places that have always been considered 'trendy' to drink as well as to eat. I definitely don't have the same issue booking places that are solely 'food-led' as I once did though, I can usually get booked last minute.

@icreatedasceneThis group of people have had massive pay rises. They can afford more than most and are well paid. It’s a luxury for one parent not to work. In my day, a second parent worked to pay fees for school.

Like....?

I would be interested to hear what sort of 'new growth' and 'new wealth' (with the capacity to employ hundreds of thousands) would actually pass the MN 'value and necessity to society' test that apparently the food, retail, beauty and entertainment industries don't.

Problem is that if they’re like me they used to and their salaries haven’t changed enough to accommodate the increased costs everywhere else
yes there’s loads of places in that article that savings can be made but the point is that a day like that used to cost a lot less. I’m absolutely not on the breadline but I also don’t have the same standard of living I had five or six years ago.

Yes exactly, I'm not going to lose sleep over any family where one of them is an NHS consultant, and my heart isn't breaking for anyone who is finding school fees "a pinch".

I have noticed a big change in my friendship groups spends now . We have a mixed bag of financial incomes between us but we always met for a meal out once a week as a catch up , any place we fancied . Nowadays it has organically moved to a discount offer or in the main brunch which is 3x cheaper . I agree money goes nowhere these days but I would absolutely hate for pubs / restaurants to disappear from our high streets .

Agree!! Or a tesco meal deal!! Also having alcohol with dinner always seems completely a waste of money to me. If you enjoy spending £8 on a glass of wine that would cost £2 equivalent at home, go ahead... but dont say you can't take your kids out because its too expensive.

They didn’t though, they’ve always been expensive.My kids only did things on Tesco points even though we had a good wage.