What your takeaway habit is trying to tell you
If MONA had a pound for every time someone said "I don't know where my money goes" while their Deliveroo history told a very clear story, she'd have a lot of pounds. But this isn't about judging the takeaways. It's about what they actually represent.
It's almost never about hunger
The Tuesday night Uber Eats order rarely happens because there's genuinely nothing in the house. It happens because you're tired, you've had a stressful day, and the idea of making a decision about food feels like one too many decisions. Takeaways are convenience purchases, not food purchases. And there's nothing wrong with that — as long as you know what you're actually paying for.
The cost of convenience
A £14 curry at 8pm on a Wednesday seems reasonable in the moment. Over a month, four of those is £56. Over a year, that's £672 — and that's before you add the service charges, tips, and the random things you add to the basket to hit the minimum order. That's not a character flaw. That's just maths you weren't tracking.
The smarter fix isn't a meal plan
You don't need to start batch cooking on Sundays and colour-coding your fridge. The fix is simpler: decide in advance how much you want to spend on convenience food each month, and treat that as a real budget category — not a shameful hidden spend. When it's conscious and planned, it shrinks naturally. Most people spend less on something once they can see exactly how much it costs them.
MONA says
Don't ban takeaways — budget for them. When it's a planned expense you've decided on, it stops feeling like a guilty secret and starts feeling like a normal adult choice.
Ready to make money less painful?
Start chatting with MONA and get your spending under control without becoming boring about it.