Weekly habits yearly calculations.. shocking!

[Pheebs2021]

Well, I didn't really know how to title this.

But I've just had a reality check with my finances, calculating all of the £8 coffee and cake each weekend the odd takeaway that I can afford but the eye opening calculation that I spend approximately £600 a year on coffee to take to work, £1000 a year just on a Friday night can't be bothered to cook.

Anybody else had this light bulb moment?

It depends how you balance things thought doesn't it ? We have never bought expensive coffees or lunches at work during the week but we always have a take-away on a friday and that is our weekly treat. You have to have some treats in life and a take away is ours.

Yes, worked out we were spending £18k a year on food not including eat in restaurants! Crazy amount. This was with exh and I'm nowhere near as bad now

A grand for a whole year of Friday night meals sorted. Sounds fine to me!

@StrongerOrWeaker

A grand for a whole year of Friday night meals sorted. Sounds fine to me!

Yeah but then I'd think, "so if I only have a takeaway every other week and a frozen pizza/supermarket curry the other Fridays, I'd save nearly £500 a year!"

@StrongerOrWeaker

A grand for a whole year of Friday night meals sorted. Sounds fine to me!

I’m with you! And is it £1K? Have you already deducted the money not spent on home cooking?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for be really aware of what something is costing you. But I also think you can make the decision that you’re OK with that.

For me, £600 on coffee when you can make “fancy” coffee easily at home to take into work (so it’s not that you’re even getting a “sit in coffee shop experience” is eye watering.

But £1K for a night off cooking each week and feeling like I’m having a treat? Fine!

I think it's more important to think about this as a %age of earnings. There's no way I spend anything like that amount on this but then my income is probably lower.

I think it’s a useful exercise. It’s especially useful if you’re looking to do something like save for a hosue deposit, because it shows you where some decent savings can be made, without making yourself starve.

Sometimes we can afford to have all the luxuries we want and also to get together a hosue deposit or save for a new car and sometimes it more if an either/or thing.

If I’d already bought my house, was having a decent holiday and had a sum of savings set aside for if my boiler needed replacing, I might feel happy to see £1k went on takeaway or £800 on takeaway coffee. But if I hadn’t sorted those things, I might decide to reduce that takeaway budget to £200 per year and the coffees to £100 so I could improve my broader financial future.

I think these apps can be useful. Sometimes they spthrow up direct debits going on magazines or gyms that aren’t being used, or eating out or a hobby which has somehow spiralled beyond what anyone was really aware of. For people who are tight budgeters already, they probably already know this stuff, but people who are reasonably comfortable, it’s easy to spend large sums in ways that can easily be adjusted without ruining their lives.

Yep
We did this exercise it shocked my DH.

Coffees are made at home with niace coffee and we take thermal cups to work. We never buy water. Ever.
When feeling lazy... Pizza and thai are now always "fake-aways". £5 for 2 vs £25
Sushi is the only thing we actually get as take out.

We prefer to spend all our £££ on hols

The interesting thing, is how entitled people feel to a treat, especially something like a weekly takeaway. It seems to have become a cultural norm.

Perhaps it’s £25-30 for a couple, perhaps £40 for a family. Lovely to have a night off cooking. I fully get it.
The question is whether it’s affordable. That £25-40 might be very affordable for the family with a yearly income of £80k, but less so for the family with £30k. But often the family with a low income also thinks takeaway coffeee or regular takeaway is a norm and to not have it some kind of deprivation.

I guess my point is, you can only have what you can afford . It’s a basic point, but doesn’t always seem to factor in people’s thinking about these numbers. £1k is a vast proportion of some people’s yearly post tax income and not sustainable. For others, they’d barely notice it. So there is no ever a one-size fits all answer is there. £1k on takeaway can’t be said to be too much or too little.

Lots of people though simply don’t realise and haven’t calculated what £40 weekly across a year amounts to, or thought about what impact that might have in them getting on the housing ladder, or feeling more financially secure so they don’t live in fear of a major household expense.

It's a useful exercise to calculate where your money goes and decide if you are spending wisely, given we all have to make choices. Only you can say if £600 on take out coffees and £1,000 on Friday takeaways is reasonable in your circumstances - financial situation, what else you could use the money for, and how much you enjoy the coffees / Friday takeaways.

Consider what else you could do with the money if you cut out or cut back on the coffees and Friday takeaways, and decide from there.

I’m staggered by the amount of coffee shops. Lots of people must spend this, and more.

Once I worked out that shopping at Aldi saved me £40 a WEEK, £2k a year, or a bloody holiday. I was sold.

To be honest, we're already on the housing market with reasonable resources etc its definitely not effecting us as such but wow its eye opening seeing how much it all adds up!
We're definitely going to cut it back even just to once a fortnight and a Monday morning coffee trip would save approximately £900 ... £900 is two cheap city breaks in my world. Wow!

A takeaway would cost the average family more than £1000 a year because that's only £20 per week.

I did this exercise about 20 years ago with smoking, work breakfasts and lunches and newspapers and at the time, I was struggling to pay for a holiday and driving lessons. Had certain costs that I couldn’t do much to reduce, but calculating my extras was a wake up call.

I think even if you can afford the excess spending, it is still important to review so that you do know what you are spending and whether it’s a good use (in your opinion) of that money.

This doesn't sound bad to me! Everything sounds like a lot when you add it up over a year but that's only 20 a week on takeaways. Some money should go to enjoying life. I don't even want to know my figures but I'm sure the restaurant bill for my husband and me would be extortionate. I don't drink coffee though so that's something!

@HollowTalk

A takeaway would cost the average family more than £1000 a year because that's only £20 per week.

Well it depends how much your takeaways cost. £20 pw would buy more than enough food food for 4 from many takeaways here. We normally spend under £15 for two, and there's leftovers, so you'd only need to add another dish and there's more than enough for a family.

Your point is right OP, but I don't understand how people don't realise this. It's only basic maths after all. If you have a daily coffee or a weekly takeaway, then £3 x 5 x 50 is obviously hundreds of pounds a year and £20 x 52 even more.

We all have certain non-negotiable costs like housing and basic bills, which we can't do much about without moving somewhere cheaper or making a point of using less, but most of us have a certain amount of spare money that we have to prioritise between our various wants, as most people can't spend what they want on coffees, lunches, takeaways, clothes, holidays, nights out etc etc

I mean if you were looking to save money , this would be the first and easiest thing to reduce or eliminate. Even if you were very comfortably off you could put this in investments and grow your money. No brainer to me, but then I have never got many takeaways / coffees out etc .

I've not bought coffees for years, but when I was younger I'd buy coffee and a bagel every morning and then something for lunch. At the time it seemed like a treat and not many people brought in their coffee etc. , but now I'm surprised that so many people still spend £2+ per day on a hot drink.

There is only the 2 of us hence the £20 - its probably closer closer £25 most Fridays but I reduced to £20 to allow for buying for the supermarket.

I obviously knew it would add up over the year but I think it's an absolute reality check. Easier to justify a £3 75 latte much harder to justify a £600 a year habbit! And that's only 3 times a week it's been known to be more!
The idea that I work for around a week and a half a year for a cup of coffee has just occurred to me however!
Not to mention the calories I'm having (somewhat) unnecessarily! Maybe it's not the washing machine after all ;-)