"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?

Try going for a Sunday dinner at the local pubs is a nightmare.

In the end surely the point of the program is really to highlight that many people have significantly less disposable income now vs a relatively short time ago & therefore are noticing the impacts on their life. While I acknowledge that on an individual basis we all have to recalibrate a bit (easier for some than others) surely it’s not good news that collectively people are getting relatively poorer & it is something worth highlighting?

What on earth in that post has triggered you so much? The poster is absolutely right, she's said nothing that isn't fact.

Exactly.

"Panorama offered to pay for the family to have a day out, and they agreed to add up the cost. For the Osbornes, from Bredbury in Stockport, it starts with lunch at Costa, which costs £51.89 for the family of four."

Seriously, ridiculous.

This is the point really. I cannot complain with our household income. Over 200k. However, I did think as a child that anyone in professions earning a good income would be rich rich. Whilst 200k is rich for most, what you get for it isnt what you would expect. I have just planned out easter holiday activities and jam packed it with free things because when I looked at theme parks I just couldn't justify pricing. I also use tesco vouchers.

So 200k salary shakes down to about £9,800 a month net of tax and NI (although of course your figures may be different depending on pensions, student loan repayment etc) ... and yet you still don't feel comfortable with the cost of theme park tickets. It's the same point the Panorama programme was making, but on a larger scale. You do have to wonder how it came to this.

Well is it that she can't afford it, or she doesn't think the day out is worth £200+?

Or some poor sod ends up with the tail . Most of a fish is the middle portion only , the rest is tail and batter . I had a relative over recently and was shocked at £57 for 3 large cod and 3 x small chips but no way would I have arrived home with 2 fish and a chips between us .

Depends what you’re buying with that £200k. If you’re spending it on private education
and an expensive house then you will have to watch elsewhere.

Are we actually getting poorer though, or is it a case that we increasingly want/expect more? Yes certainly cost of living is increasing, but so is the creep in lifestyle. I'm not poor (nor wealthy) but don't consider eating regularly in Costa or Pizza Express in any way necessary, I think it's frivolous spending. Trips like Sea Life are not ordinary days out. We increasingly take on debt due to COL but how much of this is non necessity that we seem as being necessary or "grim" if we don't have it? I didn't feel sorry for either of the families on Panorama, they want it all on low wages and feel hard done by, but that's always been the way, it's nothing new.
How many time has there been a thread where the poster says she is a low earner but wants to increase her salary to £100k, but doesn't want to do any qualifications or work extra hours, or eat into school runs or sports day. It's not rocket science.

I've been a greedy, overweight pig for most of my life but I don't think I've ever been able to finish a standard portion from a fish and chip shop either. We order a piece of fish each and one portion of chips between two. We've always done this even when we had big hungry teenaged boys at home and no-one ever went hungry. If it's fitted into one of those styrofoam boxes then it might be a smaller scoop of chips, but when it's just wrapped in paper it's always insanely huge.

I can never finish a whole doner kebab either and I'm certainly not one of those 'teeny-tiny eaters' people on MN like to mock. I'd really like to see the size of all these people sneering at others for performatively picking at their tiny lady portions.

I find it extremely hard to believe that a 90 year old woman could finish a full sized portion (not the smaller OAP size which is always available in chip shops) of fish and chips when I've never managed it.

I have better things to do than to lie to strangers about my mother in law's appetite.

We were actually quite pleased as she is a bit underweight and often not interested in eating.

Most people are able to eat a standard portion, I suspect that's where it gets the word " standard" from.

You are also ( like quite a few others) missing the point of the thread entirely, that small rewards that used to be the norm are becoming unaffordable.

Still, on the plus side, you could always scrounge a month old loaf of bread from a supermarket waste bin and eat it under the flyover.

Things could be worse, you might have be born and lived your entire life in a North Korean prison camp.

Set your sights low and cheerlead your children's impending poverty.

If I had turned up with half the food expected I would have been sent back.

I think most people are missing the point. Why should we always have to eat Meal Deals from Tesco, alcohol at home (I don’t drink) or picnic…. The point is this a mid range lunch has become unaffordable. The purpose of going out is to have a break from cooking at home, to have a nice time with friends/family, change of scenery etc. It really is a classic case of MN race to the bottom mentality.

It's like the four Yorkshiremen python sketch.

Fish and chips? LUXURY!
We used to get by on month old bread under a flyover.

Under a flyover? LUXURY!
We didn't even have a flyover.

Etc.

Quite!!!

It almost feels competitive - who is the most frugal or hard done by.

Perhaps some people could make different choices? Not running two cars, not mortgaging themselves to the hilt, having cheaper holidays, not getting into debt. Stuff like that.

And another lesson in economics - the trickle down theory, the 'rising tide lifts all boats', the rich make everyone wealthier theories - bollocks. Rich people were either born rich or become rich by not spending.

I do admire your stance and your points- our free museums are fab and eating out with young kids isn't always fab.

But if two people in the top 5% of earners are not prepared to pay out, then who is and who can? Businesses without customers go under.

A standard portion of fish and chips is roughly twice what it was 40 years ago. So it could be half the cost if people ate like they used to. Want more? It costs more

being able to over eat and needing that much are two quite different things

The whole thing is mad though

yes living standards are declining and it should not be a shock to anyone that they have declined more steeply in the last few years as inflation was very high for a couple of years

yes living standards are declining and it’s shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that that usually happens a few times in any persons life

climate change , Brexit , neoliberalism, austerity- these are all things the majority have supported and the impacts will be real and continue , again no shocks or surprises

yes its not nice

no you can’t expect sympathy from everyone when some people are in much worse state, and some people cant understand why you fell for the spend spend spend lifestyle anyway

I could quote the bible and the multi coloured coat guy - save in the feast years for the famine years. It’s nothing new.

Interestingly its the people who feel they are entitled to a blow out meal as part and parcel of normal life who are telling everyone how hard done by they are

Most people who dont do that so often or use it a a treat or have other ways of eating out which are less costly, dont feel hard done by and dont see it as frugal.

Thats the point many are missing here.

Are we actually getting poorer though, or is it a case that we increasingly want/expect more?

Most of the economists and money people I see doing interviews do seem to think we are getting poorer unless at the very top - various reasons given for that.

Though expecations have risen since my childhood and parenting seems more expensive than ever - some things like housing costs - rents and buying - are having huge implications for younger generations as more of their income is consumed by housing.

Yet they spend more than we ever did on uber eats, fast food, Ubers, Shein/ Temu orders, skincare,nails, tech, holidays, cloves, skincare…..

Many are missing the point that the people featured in the programme are not mid earners. It isn't something new that certain things are unaffordable to some, even if that's only a Costa lunch. One of the women was working PT, maybe she could try to get extra hours or take in ironing? The social media lifestyle has fed the idea that we should be entitled to what we want, when we want it but with no extra effort on our part.

I can't believe this actually needs spelling out but I'd hazard a guess that the reason previous generations didn't spent money on those things were because they didnt exist, not because they were happy go lucky, forelock tugging, know-our-place bastions of sensible frugality.

People did waste money back in the day as well, you know. In the 1970s 50% of people smoked, compared to 10% now. I would say actively poisoning yourself several times a day is probably more of a waste of money than a Costa sandwich once a week l, but what do I know? Same for pubs...the amount of which have halved in the UK over the last century while the population has nearly doubled.

I think you’re the one not getting it. You should have to be a surgeon or lawyer to afford a two course dinner with a glass of wine.

You shouldn’t have to cut out cookies.

Yes, the real world is currently ridiculously expensive, unsustainably so. But that doesn’t mean we should accept it for how it is. Put up and shut up or stop going out. We should be demanding a better way of managing our taxes so that we can afford these things.

Im a senior manager, as is my husband. Combined salary of £110k (one of us works part time as we have three young children). We haven’t been able to afford to take the kids on a holiday abroad yet and the eldest is 8. That’s crazy isn’t it! Yes, we cut out cloth accordingly and don’t book expensive holidays, but that doesn’t mean I’m unreasonable in thinking we should be able to afford one every other year. We are in stressful jobs and at times I do wonder what’s the point.