4 People, 9 Days, $800 Food Budget

[FayeW]

We are staying at Windsor Hills for 9 days, 2 adults, DD14 and DS12. We are planning 3 WDW days, 3 US/IOA days, 2 resort days and Disney Quest. We are only doing one TS meal, 'Ohanas, which should cost about $140 including tax and tip. I am planning on spending about $110. for groceries for the 9days (breakfast stuff, water, beer, juice, milk, snacks and enough stuff for 3 lunches and 1 dinner at the condo). I expect I will actually spend less, but anything left over from the grocery budget will go for snack in the parks.

Including travel days, we have 10 breakfasts, 10 lunches, and 9 dinners. All breakfasts but our first travel day will be in the condo, so I only need to pay for one breakfast at our hotel before flying to Orlando. Probably $30. unless we just have the free continental that the hotel offers.

10 Lunches, planning on 3 at the condo, so paying for 7. Budgeting $30 per counterservice lunch so $210.

9 Dinners, one of which is 'ohanas and at least one at the condo, so paying for 7 either counterservice or offsite dinners (Golden Corral, Cici's Pizza, etc).Budgeting $40 per dinner so $280.

My total is:
140. ('ohanas)
110. (groceries)
30. (hotel breakfast)
210. (lunches)
280. (dinners)
$770.

Sound reasonable?

 

[dioxide45]

YOu may have underestimated your grocery needs. We found groceries at the Publix to be more than we would pay in Ohio. A little bit can add up quickly. Two of us spent about $150 for 7 days on groceries.

 

[dougsmom98]

I was going to also say that groceries might cost a little more. Food prices have gotten very expensive lately and they will likely be higher in this area anyway. For us things like paper towels, toilet paper, dish soap, laundry detergent, reusable ice packs... added up and increased our grocery bill too. You villa may have some of those things though.

 

[Anc96]

Yes.. I think the groceries will be more too. You might want to find out what they include in your condo stay.
Even if you don't purchase paper plates/napkins/utencils (like I did ), your condo may not have dishwashing detergent. Ours didn't, but we didn't use the dishwasher so it didn't matter. We also purchased things like, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent, fabric softener, bath mats... things you don't think too much of like butter, salt, pepper, sugar, creamer, coffee, filters, paper towels, dishwasher liquid for the sink, trash bags... ect. It's not just food you have to purchase, and it adds up.

Also, budgeting $30 for counterservice for 4 people seems pretty low too. I would say $10 per person should be more do-able. And when my daughter and I ate dinner out together (she's 11), with tax and tip it usually ran close to $40. That was at Olive Garden, Maccaroni Grill.. etc. Pizza hut was a great saver. Cracker Barrell was really reasonable and good food. We could both eat dinner there for about $25 with tax and tip. Breakfast was less than $20.


We ate often in the townhome we rented at Windsor Hills, but I know it cost us over $250 for groceries and necessities for 2 weeks, just for 2 of us.

Windsor Hills is great.. you'll love it there!

 

[tinkwdw47]

there are walmarts everywhere in orlando

 

[FayeW]

We will bring some things with us from home, like dishwasher tabs, powder laundry detergent, coffee and maybe a box of cereal if we have room. I expect the drinks will be the biggest expense.

We like to shop at the Winn Dixie on Apopka Vineland, but that is too far away from Windsor Hills to be convenient for us. Last time I shopped at the Publix on 192. It was okay, but I thought Winn Dixie had better prices. How does Walmart's price and selection compare? Basically, we will need bread, milk, margarine, cereal, eggs, bacon, cheese, some lunch meat and maybe a rotisserie chicken or frozen pasta meal for lunch/dinner.

 

[Anc96]

You're right, I think Winn Dixie's prices are better. I think it was just more convenient for us to go to the Publix since it was so close.

I should have taken some things from home, but I really didn't think about most of the things I needed. I did think of coffee.. but I have a Keurig at home and it takes little cups so I figured I might as well buy it when I got there. Our townhouse had filters though.. good thing too because I'm sure I wouldn't have though of them until I was actually making the coffee.
Our townhouse also had garbage bags and cleaning stuff, like lysol wipes and clorox. Maybe previous renters left them. I am partial to lysol spray, which I left with the cleaning things. I also left the laundry detergent and fabric softener in case the next renters might need it.

We didn't shop for food at Walmart.. just the bath mats. But where I live here, Walmart's prices are always better than our supermarkets (shoprite & Mr. Z's).

 

[FayeW]

Hey, I just thought of something! We are arriving at 10:15 am, but don't plan on going to a park. We can't check in until 3:00 so we are thinking about going to Disney Quest for the afternoon. It would be really easy to scoot to Winn Dixie from Downtown Disney, get what we need and head to Windsor Hills for check in.

 

[dioxide45]

I would have to agree that you should budget $40 for counter service meals. You children are to old for kids meals and when you get a meal and add a drink, it is more like $10 /person. When we went as three adults, counter service generally ran $30. If you plan to share then you might be able budget for $30 total, but everyone will want something different and the meals are not that big.

 

[dioxide45]

We will bring some things with us from home, like dishwasher tabs, powder laundry detergent, coffee and maybe a box of cereal if we have room. I expect the drinks will be the biggest expense.

We like to shop at the Winn Dixie on Apopka Vineland, but that is too far away from Windsor Hills to be convenient for us. Last time I shopped at the Publix on 192. It was okay, but I thought Winn Dixie had better prices. How does Walmart's price and selection compare? Basically, we will need bread, milk, margarine, cereal, eggs, bacon, cheese, some lunch meat and maybe a rotisserie chicken or frozen pasta meal for lunch/dinner.

We found Wal-mart prices to be far lower than Publix. We didn't shop at Winn Dixie, but from looking at their sale papers they appeared to be in between the Wal-mart and Publix.

 

[FayeW]

We found Wal-mart prices to be far lower than Publix. We didn't shop at Winn Dixie, but from looking at their sale papers they appeared to be in between the Wal-mart and Publix.

Thanks!

As for the counter service, we will definitely be sharing some things. We usually buy 2 double burger/extra buns and an extra order of fries. We bring our own drinks in anyway. We will probably have 1 lunch at Caseys, and at Universal we always share a large pizza from Louie's. We might have a dinner of sharing (2) 1/2 chicken/mashed potato meals at Cosmic Rays.

Casey's should be about $25.
Burgers and fries would be about $22. (If we share and buy the extra buns) Another option is to buy the kids each the kids hamburger combo, while we order our own burgers or sandwich.
Pizza at Louie's would be $20.
Cosmic Rays (2) 1/2 chicken dinners would come in around $25.

I am sure that there would be a couple of late lunch/early dinners at CiCi's and Golden Corral, so I am expecting that once we average it all out, we would be in around $30 for lunch and $40 for dinner (not including 'Ohanas, of course)

 

[tarheelmjfan]

For grocery items:
1)Walmart -cheapest, less selection
2)Winn Dixie - more selection & more expensive than Walmart, less selection & less expensive than Publix
3)Publix - best selection of everything (including baked goods & deli), most expensive

Both Publix & Winn-Dixie often run Buy One Get One free deals. To see what's on sale try www.winndixie.com & www.publix.com . Enter the zip code of the rental to find the closest location & sale circular. Naturally, they're only listed for that particular week. Winn Dixie's sales run from Tues. to Tues. & Publix's run from Wed. to Wed.

 

[swilphil]

Did you look at the menus on AllEars? Some of the counterservice prices are pretty high. Plus there's snacks in the park. I know it's easy to say you'll bring your own snacks or forgo snacks, but will it really happen? I'm planning on buying micro popcorn at the store and then putting it in one of the WDW popcorn containers to take in the park with me. That will save some money.

 

[FayeW]

Yes, I looked at allearsnet.com. Most of what we would choose would be in the $5-$8. range. Some of the meals would be $22-$25 total, and some in the $30-$35 range, so that would average out pretty close to the $30. per meal that I am budgeting.

Also, we may have hotdogs watching Fantasmic one night, which means we didn't spend $40. on dinner, and that would bring our lunch budget up to say, $45 which would just about cover a TS lunch at Sci-Fi or something, or pay for some Mickey bars.

We don't eat very many snacks in the park. We might have 2 Mickey bars and a popcorn the whole time we are there. We can spend more if we need to, I just wanted to have a ballpark figure of what we should budget.

 

[FayeW]

For grocery items:
1)Walmart -cheapest, less selection
2)Winn Dixie - more selection & more expensive than Walmart, less selection & less expensive than Publix
3)Publix - best selection of everything (including baked goods & deli), most expensive

Both Publix & Winn-Dixie often run Buy One Get One free deals. To see what's on sale try www.winndixie.com & www.publix.com . Enter the zip code of the rental to find the closest location & sale circular. Naturally, they're only listed for that particular week. Winn Dixie's sales run from Tues. to Tues. & Publix's run from Wed. to Wed.

Thank you for the websites for the grocery stores. I will add them to my favourites and check the online coupons occasionally to see if there is anything I might use. Does Wal-Mart have their own coupons or will they accept those from other stores?

 

[tarheelmjfan]

Thank you for the websites for the grocery stores. I will add them to my favourites and check the online coupons occasionally to see if there is anything I might use. Does Wal-Mart have their own coupons or will they accept those from other stores?

Sorry, I don't know about coupons. For Winn-Dixie & Publix's BOGO offers, coupons aren't necessary to get the discount. You could use them for an additional discount though.

 

[LovinPooh]

There is a super walmart on Turkey Lake Rd. This road runs right along I4 and is super easy to find and get to from WDW. We found it with one of those maps that you can get anywhere. It is actually right between WDW and US/IOA. That supercenter had everything we needed and more and was cheap.