"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 with you OP. I grew up in a lower middle class factory household - dad had a skilled job in a factory, mum was a lunchtime supervisor and cared for my gran. I would guess our household income was average or a bit below. We had days out all the time - trips to the beach or a museum or a historic house or a concert and we’d take cheese sandwiches, apples and plastic cups of lemonade, and a box of home-made flapjack. Sometimes mum might buy us an ice cream and she and dad might enjoy a cup of tea. We didn’t bother with the souvenir shops.

We ate out at the local Chinese restaurant once or twice a year, once to celebrate my parents’ birthday (born in same month) and once for their anniversary. For my ninth birthday I went to Wimpy and that was the only time I remember my parents paying for us to eat there.

There was no expectation of additional treats - the day out is the treat. We always had a great time.

I think the “problem” is the expectation of very cheap entertainment and treats

Common sense wouldn't make an interesting article to express how hard done by middle earners are.

We have a household income of around £120k a year, admittedly a huge mortgage, but it’s a reasonable income. Eating out as a family (of 5) is very rare and historically would be by using CLUBCARD vouchers at pizza express. To be honest just the husband and myself eating out isn’t a monthly habit and takeaways are rare.

COL has skyrocketed but salaries haven’t

Not necessarily true everywhere. There's not too many seem to have gone bust in the local high street. A couple of independents extended.

I recently looked up a 1 hour activity that was...£100+ for 4 people. For an hour. I'm not paying £100 to do anything for an hour!

I could literally stuff stuff £25 each into the kids savings, give them £25 to spend in the toy shop and still have change!

I'm certainly not paying that for dough and coffee, especially to feel pressured into tipping on top!

Agreed. I think the families they featured sabotaged the journalism by picking places and food options that are clearly going to have everyone taking the piss. Even though one child was just 4, they clearly ordered adult portions at every meal including sides and dessert. No real family would do that. The 4 year old gets a snack box or half a sandwich from someone else.

And the family with an 8 year old and 6 year old ordering the entire Pizza Express menu is absolutely mind boggling. They had 3 full sized pizzas, 2 salads, 6 side dishes(!!!), a kids pasta, and 4 full-sized desserts, one for every person. That is utterly bonkers...unreal gluttony tbh. Even millionaires won't be physically capable of stuffing that much food into a 6 and 8 year old.

It's not making any sort of statement about COL because no family in the history of time orders that sort of meal at Pizza Express. You can twist anything into "journalism" if you send two adults and two tiny children into a restaurant and tell them to order at least £200 worth of food.

£52:is incredibly cheap for lunch out for a family of 4. But a lot of prices have gone up in the last year or two. £174 for dinner for 4 people at a pizza hut. Faints!

The "race to the bottom" mentality is this recognition that our national debt is unsustainable and certainly doesn't need to be added to so we can all eat out once a month inc wine and all the trimmings.

I do with work colleagues regularly. It's not somewhere I'd go if I was planning a nice lunch out - but if I need somewhere quick and convenient during a work day or running errands then it's fine. No stress about having to book a table.

I think it’s true there are still plenty of options you can go for but I guess the point is if everyone keeps trading down to cheaper options it’s not great for leisure businesses.

It’s just stopped feeling like good value to eat out lots of the time. £175 is more than a day’s net pay for the vast majority of people. It’s objectively a significant amount to spend on what will be a fairly average family meal.
It’s not that long ago that we were regularly able to go to a chain place and have 2 adult 3 course menus and 2 kids menus plus a couple of glasses of wine for £50-70. I’m sure they do equivalent deals now and also sure they will cost less than the £170 meal in the article but a lot more than they did 5 years ago. Most people don’t earn a lot more and have higher fixed expenses so it’s unsurprising things constantly feel like they are excessively priced.

You absolutely can still go out and do all sorts but surely virtually everyone is conscious of the cost of living rises?

I think you’re still missing the point though.
i don’t think the article is saying (and hands up, I haven’t read it) that this family feels entitled to costa lunch every day and a 3 course meal out of whenever they please. The point being that if you’ve invested in your career and earn pretty well as such, I do think you should be able to afford a day out without a load of penny pinching.
while I don’t say order the entire menu I do think when you go out to eat as a family, the point is to relax and order what you fancy

@Hallamule yeah and it's really sad.

Yes I was a child in the 60’s and my parents literally never took me out for a meal, activities were playing outside/board games/cooking. Partly because most of these places didn’t exist and partly because they couldn’t have afforded it. I didn’t feel deprived it was the same for everyone I knew.

By the time I had my children in the 1990’s these places existed but we did one activity possibly 3/4 times a year; not on a regular basis and not three things in one day.
Can anyone explain when this golden era was that normal parents went out on a regular basis to multiple activities?

I agree with you OP. The amount of food that the Pizza Express family ordered in particular!! I’m guessing they came nowhere near to finishing that meal.

We enjoy family days out that include meals, but I’m always acutely aware that our own childhoods weren’t this extravagant in the 80s and 90s. A day out certainly didn’t include a full restaurant meal on top of the activity. And picnics were the lunchtime norm on road trips. Our expectations have become completely warped.

We like to eat out a lot and luckily we can afford to. But we've become much more discerning because even the quite 'affordable' and unglamorous, everyday sort of places you drop into out of convenience are no longer affordable at all. I think if the base price for lunch for two of us is going to be 60 quid regardless, we'd rather spend 80 or 100 and go somewhere where it feels like 80 or 100. We'll go slightly less often, but we'll have a better experience. I can't bring myself to spend too much money on mediocre food and surroundings.

I'm particularly horrified at how much it costs for a coffee and a sandwich in somewhere like Costa or Starbucks now, or even McDonalds. I'd rather spend a bit more and sit down with a knife and fork. And if I'm going to sit down with a knife and fork, why spend 50 quid on some pre-cooked chain pub rubbish when you could spend 70 on somewhere independent, interesting and lovely?

I was thinking this op. My kids are in their 20s and we had a slightly higher income and rarely ate out with our kids. It was a holiday treat. On the rare occasions we went to a cafe they’d have a cheap drink or snack and would sometimes share, we’d just have a coffee and shared a cake if we splashed out. Pizza express was kids meals and a pizza for us( a shared starter or dessert ).

When I was a child in the 70s/80s we rarely ate out. Eating expensive meals out is not necessary , most is crap chain food. Soft play is hell.You can’t have it all. We’ve nearly paid off our mortgage and are debt free because we didn’t think eating out and expensive days trips were a necessity or a right. They’re not. We ate well at home, took picnics and did as much free stuff as we could.

Exactly, and the impact of their not being able to afford the days out and lunches (and so deciding to play Monopoly and eat sandwiches at home) on the economy. We need families earning decent salaries to spend money on goods and services, otherwise there will be closures and job losses in those industries.

I can afford to pay it. But I won't pay extortionate prices. I'd rather go without or as others on here have said, take my own food.

I love eating out. It's my favourite thing. But if quality is down and prices are up, I won't return to that place again.

The problem though is that the service industry is MASSIVELY overextended. To be frank, we have too many coffee shops and restaurants and not enough people to fill them.

This economic contraction has been inevitable for a while.

You’ve completely missed the point. It’s not that they don’t know how to economise, it’s that things like a cookie or a glass of wine shouldn’t have to be a dealbreaker for families with 2 professional working parents.

You’re like the boomers saying millennials and Gen Z would be able to afford houses if they bought fewer coffees and avocados, ignoring the fact that house prices cost an average of 4.1x household income when they bought a house, and now are an average of 9.8x household income. Nobody is buying that many lattes.

Agree. Having an ice cream or a small bag of chips was a real treat for us on a family day out and if we had both we were beside ourselves with excitement. It was sandwiches crisps and apple and squash to drink on days out with Mr Kipling cakes being the highlight of the picnic 😁

I think people's expectations about what they should be able to afford on an average income have massively increased. I grew up in a solidly middle class family, my parents were happy to spend money on a decent meal out for a celebration or on a holiday abroad once a year but the rest of the time it was sandwiches at the beach or on bike rides or monopoly after a Sunday roast. The relatively recent expectation that weekends need to be packed with expensive activities and meals out at chain restaurants is not achievable for most people and shouldn't be something that an average income family expects to afford.

We always had picnics when I was a kid. It was always fun and we really enjoyed it. I imagine most kids would prefer that to a microwaved, bulk catering lasagne or processed chicken nuggets and it's bound to be better for them. I don't think lasting childhood memories are made in Costa Coffee or Pizza Hut (or whatever). Like @Fairyliz I'm a child of the 60's and only really comfortably off people went to restaurants back then. And of course there weren't any chain restaurants, only hotels and fancy French ones. Table manners and how to behave at the dinner table were instilled at home.

I think there are two separate issues really:

Is it a great hardship if people have to think about days out a bit more carefully and maybe use vouchers, take a packed lunch and perhaps cut back on additional extras etc? To me no. I've not been used to lots of extras and myself and DD enjoyed days out cheaply taking sandwiches etc.

Does it impact the economy when eating out is more expensive? Yes. People eating out less reduces the money going into the economy and therefore rax revenue. However, there aren't easy answers. Lower minimum wages lead to the poorest working families struggling more. Cutting taxes means (in the short term at least) struggling public services become even more cash strapped. Energy and food costs are impacted by international economic factors and events. There levers to improve things aren't simple.

I don't understand this either. If we go for a meal out in our nearest city around 5pm - teatime rather than busy meal out time it can be hard to find somewhere with space for two.
I wonder if they have less staff on, so some tables are not available.