Average spend on eating out for a family of 4 (UK / US)
In the UK, ONS Family Spending (FYE 2025) shows households of two adults and two children spending £56.40 a week on restaurants and hotels: about £244 a month, or £2,933 a year. Households of two adults on the lowest incomes spend around 42% less on it than the average, and those on the highest incomes around 63% more.
In the US, the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys put food away from home at $4,044 a year for the average household of 2.4 people (2024 and 2025 averaged). Scaled to four people that is about $562 a month.
How much do households spend on takeaways and eating out a year?
ONS restaurants and hotels spending for each household type, FYE 2025. The category also includes hotel stays, so read it as an upper bound for eating out.
| Household (ONS) | Per week | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-retired: one person | £27.10 | £117 | £1,409 |
| Non-retired: two adults | £70.10 | £304 | £3,645 |
| One adult with one child | £21.70 | £94 | £1,128 |
| One adult with two or more children | £22.90 | £99 | £1,191 |
| Two adults with one child | £49.90 | £216 | £2,595 |
| Two adults with two children | £56.40 | £244 | £2,933 |
| Two adults with three or more children | £43.40 | £188 | £2,257 |
| Three or more adults without children | £72.30 | £313 | £3,760 |
| Three or more adults with children | £75.80 | £328 | £3,942 |
BLS food away from home by US Census region, 2024 and 2025 averaged.
| Region (BLS) | Per household / year | Per person / year |
|---|---|---|
| United States | $4,044 | $1,685 |
| Northeast | $4,318 | $1,799 |
| Midwest | $3,928 | $1,636 |
| South | $3,547 | $1,448 |
| West | $4,816 | $1,888 |
Takeaway vs cooking at home
There is no official price comparison of a takeaway against the same meal cooked at home, so we don’t quote one. What ONS does show is how the money splits: two adults with two children spend £98.30 a week on food and drink at home and £56.40 on restaurants and hotels. In the US, food away from home is 4.9% of disposable income against 4.8% for food at home (USDA ERS, 2025).
For your own household, the honest comparison is your bills: enter a typical week above, then put the grocery budget next to it in the grocery budget calculator.
Cap it rather than cut it
Most households don’t want to stop eating out; they want to stop being surprised by it. A monthly cap that the whole household can see does that: the Friday takeaway is a choice made against what is left, not a line discovered on the bank statement. If you budget as a couple, the budgeting app for couples page explains how a shared cap works.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does the average household spend on takeaways a year?
- In the UK, the average household spends £44.70 a week on restaurants and hotels (ONS, three-year average to FYE 2025), about £2,324 a year; the category includes hotel stays, so takeaways and meals out are somewhat less. In the US, the average household spends $4,044 a year on food away from home (BLS).
- What is the average spend on eating out for a family of 4 in the UK?
- Two adults with two children spend £56.40 a week on restaurants and hotels, about £244 a month (ONS Family Spending, FYE 2025).
- What is the average spend on eating out for a family of 4 in the US?
- BLS puts food away from home at about $1,685 a year per person. For four people that is about $6,739 a year, or $562 a month. This scaling by household size is our estimate; BLS publishes the household average.
- How much should I budget for eating out?
- Start from what households like yours spend: about $140 a month for one person in the US, £117 for one adult in the UK. Then set the cap a little under what you spend now, so it changes a habit without feeling like a diet. US households spend 4.9% of disposable income on food away from home on average (USDA ERS); UK households put 7% of their total spending into restaurants and hotels (ONS).
- Do delivery fees and tips make a big difference?
- They can. Add the percentage you usually pay on top of the food in the calculator and it shows the fees alone as a yearly figure. We don’t assume a percentage for you: it depends on the app, the restaurant and how you tip.
- Is it cheaper to cook at home than to get a takeaway?
- Almost always for the same meal, but there is no official per-meal comparison to quote. The useful number is your own: enter your typical week in the calculator and compare the yearly total with the grocery budget for your household.
How we calculate this
“What do you spend?” multiplies how often you eat out by your typical bill, adds any delivery fees you enter, and turns the week into a month (× 52 ÷ 12) and a year (× 52). The comparison and “What should we budget?” use what households like yours spend: ONS restaurants and hotels in the UK (FYE 2025), BLS food away from home in the US. Anything we derive is marked “CapKin estimate”.
Full methodology and sources
Your spending. Each row is times a week × the typical bill. Delivery fees and tips are a percentage you enter, applied to the takeaway row only. A month is 52 ÷ 12 weeks. None of these amounts leave your browser unless you tick “include my amounts” in the email form.
United Kingdom. We use ONS Family Spending, FYE 2025 (April 2024 - March 2025), Table A23: average weekly spending on restaurants and hotels (COICOP 11) for the closest of the ONS household types. COICOP 11 includes hotels and other accommodation, so it is an upper bound for eating out. The tight and comfortable levels scale that figure by the restaurants and hotels spend of the lowest and highest income fifth against all households of the same size (Tables A26 for one adult, A29 for two or more), a ratio we derive. A region scales it by restaurants and hotels per person in the region against the UK (Table A33, three-year average).
United States. We use BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys: food away from home per consumer unit divided by the people in it, 2024 and 2025 averaged, times your household size. A region uses the same figure for its Census region. Scaling per person is our estimate: BLS publishes household averages, and children usually eat out for less than adults.
Share of income. If you enter take-home pay, we show what share eating out takes. The US comparison is USDA ERS food away from home as a share of disposable personal income (4.9%, 2025). ONS publishes no income share, so the UK comparison is restaurants and hotels as a share of total spending for your household type, which is our arithmetic on Table A23.
What this leaves out. Prices have moved since the survey periods. The tight / comfortable ratio for UK households with children uses the two-adult figures, because ONS does not publish income fifths for households with children. Levels use ratios of 0.58 (tight) and 1.63 (comfortable) for two adults.