"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 love picnics and always did.

However!!! I think the point here is that the cost of living crisis is so bad that people who used to be able to afford a lunch out with kids no longer can.

We no longer can afford lunch out and it’s due to salary not keeping pace with the higher bills and prices.

Cancer has been a huge financial setback for me and I know many others in the same boat.

Lucky for me I retain my love of picnics 😎

But do you think part of the expectation is two people doing professional jobs earning more than the average household income might have thought they'd get something more than a family who was average or a bit below with one person in a very part time low paid role?

These people are saying they cant afford to do this and will stick with thier normal cheaper options which are the same as your childhood

So what working more hours in more stressful roles achieved (im thinking a merchandising manger sounds more hours and more stressful than lunchtime supervisor - I've been a lunchtime supervisor so not trying to be dismissive of it)

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

Another crucial skill of ordering as family to get as much food as everyone can eat. No family will order an entire table of food because they "fancied it" and then leave 60% uneaten. That's unacceptable food waste as well. The BBC needs to state whether that family at Pizza Express actually ate all the food they ordered or if it was just a fake setup for the article.

You can obviously take leftovers home, but this is usually 1/4 of a leftover pizza or maybe a few dough balls. The amount of food that second family ordered (6 sides, 2 salads, 3 pizzas, pasta, 4 desserts) for two adults and two small children seems completely outlandish for any family going to PE. Even if your 8 year old insists on having an entire pizza, polenta fries, dough balls and a chocolate cake for himself...you simply tell him his eyes are too big for his stomach and not order it!

It sounds like an interesting tv show.
I think a lot comes back to your own childhood.
I’m 50s, mum 80s and we always would take packed lunch and flask/drinks. I can remember literally a couple of meals out in childhood.
I always took food when dc was young, but maybe would buy a coffee. We would eat out sometimes but usually with an offer like Tesco vouchers or Groupon or a lunch special.
I took a group of tweens out on Saturday and we had a meal at end of day in chain restaurant they individually paid for. Was interesting the differences. Some had kids meal. Some no drink (they just had a free fizzy drink from an advertising stall and had water bottles with them) others ordered expensive dishes and drinks. I was stood with them to make sure everyone ordered ok and could hear my mum in my head. If it had been my dc a few years ago id have expected her to pick kids menu not £25 a head.
Likewise things like photos at attractions it just wouldn’t occur to me to entertain it it’s an overpriced scam in my mind.
But attractions and restaurants do need to make money to survive.
My halfway house would be to go but limit what I buy. We also try and use smaller restaurants not chains.

But could they? We on a higher salary certainly couldn’t. It’s not possible to pay mortgages, pensions and other expenses with zero debt whilst frittering money on crap necessary food and days out. Days out have always been expensive. If we didn’t go via Tesco vouchers we didn’t go. Ditto Pizza Express and as for Costa my kids never went. Any cafe trips were a cheap juice box/ squash and a shared cake.

I think people have missed the point of the show.

We are classed as middle/ish earners public sector wages but household income 90k ish. On a day out we would eat out as part of the treat day out - i would take drinks and snacks for throughout the day but lunch would be out and maybe an icecream on the afternoon.

Now we would either have lunch out and i would take sweets etc or take lunch and get an icecream because as a family of 4 icecream is often £20-30 now.

We would also nip to a coffee shop once a week and have a takeaway or pub meal once a week. We probably do a coffee shop once a fortnight and eat out/ takeaway once a month (maybe an extra if its a birthday or something) so drastically cut back because of COL on what has been our norm for a number of years.

The same applies across my friendship
group. So it will have a massive knock on effect for businesses.

I don't get the phrase "can't justify" I mean surely its either "can't afford" "can afford but choose not to"

It's partly the impact of Reeves jobs tax. Some now can't afford to pay the increased cost of paying someone to cook for them and paying someone else to serve them. It's also then partly the impact of Reeves massive business rates increases.

When VAT, Employee taxes, corporates taxes, business rates , wine duties, etc etc are included 50% of the cost of a meal is tax.

Just like with petrol where 50% is tax. We don't have a cost of living crisis - we have tax crisis.

It's just journalism.
They were used as case studies and given the money /vouchers.

The point is that eating out and entertainment is expensive.

We're relatively well off but we don't eat in pubs etc any more.
I begrudge paying £30+ for a simple main course (no pudding) and a coffee.

Pubs won't survive this. The prices are so high for very ordinary food that most people will choose a £15 'dine in' from Tesco etc.

And yes, it's been made worse by Labour- upping the minimum wage, NI, and a general decline in eating out that started with Covid etc.

I can't imagine why anybody would spend over £170 on a pizza lunch for 4, even with the extras! For that amount of money, they could go and do a family activity and then come home to fillet steaks all round with all the trimmings, a lovely pudding and a couple of bottles of wine!

I think you’d have to try quite hard to
spend £170 at pizza express. We used to go a lot and there’s an app with discounts etc. it was always under £100 for 4.

Yep, we went out for the afternoon yesterday, 4 bog standard ice creams cost £20, so not a cheap treat by any means. There’s a time when we would have had lunch out but it becomes unmanageable to spend £100 doing nothing special.

But things were getting out of control. Nobody needs to be eating out, going to cafes and having expensive days out so much. We didn’t I. The 70s,80s or 90s.It’s all unnecessary crap. Debt is out of control and people aren’t preparing for retirement. You can’t have it all.

I’d also rather workers were paid a descent wage too.

As others said. People are pissed off because two working parents used to get you a decent standard of living where you could afford to do nice things like eat out with your kids, rather than carry a heavy rucksack of food and drink for four, then try to find a bench is not damp from rain, and does not have dog shit next to it or bird shit on it, to eat said sandwiches, whilst sipping flask tea to fend off the cold.

People, quite rightly, feel that working hard should bring rewards, such as doing nice things like eating out on a day out. It used to. It doesn't now for many families. More people feel that doing the right thing is not rewarded and feel society is not working for them, despite them doing the right things.

People are pissed off. That is what the article is about.

It’s become an expectation to do an outing and have food too. When I was little and when my DDs were young we always took a pack up to a theme park, play area, museum etc . Partly due to cost and partly because the food is rubbish, personally I wouldn’t eat at Costa it’s awful (though the coffee is good) and pizza express has always been over priced for what it is.

I do agree prices are ridiculous though but so are the costs to run a business. Dh and I went to a local cafe recently for lunch. He had a slice of quiche I had soup and we each had a coffee. It was £30!! Which seemed ridiculous to me but seems to be the norm.

Agree with others the point of the article is a few years ago a family might just pop into pizza express for an impromptu lunch whilst shopping. That has now become unaffordable, even using vouchers etc. We can afford to eat but don’t now, too expensive but more importantly just not great quality or service. I can cook most things better at home. We occasionally go to the pub but at 25-30 a round it’s ridiculous unless there’s some other entertainment, again esp when drinking wine which is normally crap.

It’s the middle classes that we need to see spending and most are cutting back. It might not be obvious but having 1 drink in the pub not 2, only a main and not a starter/pudding extrapolated is a big problem.

We are getting poorer and poorer as a nation and some people cheerlead it, yes, get a cheap loaf of bread and eat it in the park FFS.

We had taken away fish and chips last week, 4 people , £60. This used to be our lunch most Saturdays, now it's 2 or 3 times a year.

No it isn’t. These places are crap. I would much rather go on a nice walk and eat at home. When you’re not constantly wasting money on crap ice creams are perfectly affordable. Descent quality scoop ice cream for a treat which you value more is affordable if you haven’t burnt a fortune in crappy Costa and other outlets en route.

I wouldn't go to Costa for lunch but sometimes there's little choice, and local independents aren't much cheaper - the difference is the quality of the food.

Pizza Express used to be affordable as an easy meal out with the kids, but we don't go anymore - just not worth the quality.

I think it's easier looking at chains as the prices are pretty much the same all over the UK (unless it's an airport etc). Their approach was obviously order whatever you want, whereas usually with a meal out you have restrictions / agreement - eg kids have one soft drink each, starter or pudding, not both.

I could afford to eat out on a day out but I choose to spend my money on organic and ethically sourced meat and veg instead.

You never know what you are getting in a restaurant, especially a chain. It's got to be the most cheaply sourced chemical ridden crap available.

It's not the norm for eg Italians either, they still
like to eat in a civilised manner 😂

@PropitiousJump The article has some value in showing how easy it is to piss away your money in the current economic climate.

I agree that most of us would/should see this and cut our costs accordingly. But there is a point to be made about the insane cost of everything - ten pounds for a glass of plonk is extortionate.

I think expectations have changed. When my kids were young we never ate out - it just wouldn't have been on our radar. We would have taken sandwiches for lunch and come home in time for dinner. We just didn't have disposable income for things like that and neither did most of our friends. Now it's considered an entitlement
When our first grandchild was born my OH and I took her to the local wildlife park. My OH couldn't believe that I'd never been there with my own children when they were young as it was on our doorstep. But there was no way we could have afforded the equivalent of £100 for a day out. We went to the park or to friends. We weren't bitter or resentful about not being able to have expensive days out - we just got on with it 🤷‍♀️

Yes this.

Add to that garden centres cafe are rammed, trades people are charging a fortune in day rates and are booked for months in advance, cleaners and gardeners all seem to be doing a roaring trade around here, driving around I rarely see a car older than 5 or 6 years old. I live about 30 mins outside of Bristol so might just be the area I live in.

We have never had weekly take aways. Never did as a child either. Nobody needs that. For the vast majority of the world as a country we live like kings. We have forgotten what is necessary to enjoy life- crap, over manufactured identikit chain food is not it and I think we as a nation are seeing how crap and over priced it has always been- and how unnecessary it is.