Budgeting for food

[Ricky P]

Hi all you budgeting experts, Could someone give me an estimate for a food budget. Here are the details. 2 adults and 3 teenagers. 2 boys and 1 girl. Breakfasts at moderate food court. Lunch and dinner at counter service at parks or food court at resort. Maybe 1 or 2 table service meals, not expensive ones. Also, would get refillable mugs for resort. Can I have your best estimates. Thanks

 

[Shanti]

Hi all you budgeting experts, Could someone give me an estimate for a food budget. Here are the details. 2 adults and 3 teenagers. 2 boys and 1 girl. Breakfasts at moderate food court. Lunch and dinner at counter service at parks or food court at resort. Maybe 1 or 2 table service meals, not expensive ones. Also, would get refillable mugs for resort. Can I have your best estimates. Thanks

Look at menus online for each meal you plan, and add it up. It isn't really possible for us to give you an estimate because eating habits and prices vary widely. This link will give you price estimates for the different restaurants:

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningmain.cfm

 

[gottalovepluto]

Hi all you budgeting experts, Could someone give me an estimate for a food budget. Here are the details. 2 adults and 3 teenagers. 2 boys and 1 girl. Breakfasts at moderate food court. Lunch and dinner at counter service at parks or food court at resort. Maybe 1 or 2 table service meals, not expensive ones. Also, would get refillable mugs for resort. Can I have your best estimates. Thanks

Agree with PP, take a look at the menus. You'll be able to tell what your family would order and get the most accurate guess from that. Works great for me! TS prices vary wildly so you'll have to narrow what restaurant you'd like to go to in order to get a decent price estimate on that.

 

[tasha99]

Agree with PP, but wanted to add: have some snacks available. Hungry kids between meals can be real budget busters--my boys (now grown) eat a lot, and being able to say make yourself a sandwich, dinner is in 3 hours helps. We stay in a room with a kitchen, but you could do the same without one (bread, peanut butter and jelly, pouches of tuna salad, veggies, fruit, chips etc).

 

[kymom99]

If your family will share sides and drink water you could save yourself some real "bank" as my son would say. You can buy many sandwiches minus the fries and maybe have several people split one order. Also some of the kids meals are decent. Not all, but some.

As suggested, check out the menus and you could get an idea for whst things cost. If you do it up big, you will spend about $75 at a cs for 5 meals. But there are ways to cut that back. It just depends on what you all are willing to do. On vacation my husband wants what he wants. I figure he works for a living so I don't object much. I tend to cut back for myself and let's just say I'm in no danger of starving to death.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Hi all you budgeting experts, Could someone give me an estimate for a food budget. Here are the details. 2 adults and 3 teenagers. 2 boys and 1 girl. Breakfasts at moderate food court. Lunch and dinner at counter service at parks or food court at resort. Maybe 1 or 2 table service meals, not expensive ones. Also, would get refillable mugs for resort. Can I have your best estimates. Thanks

CS breakfasts $10/each
CS lunches/dinners $15/each
Snacks $5/each
TS $150 each (for the cheaper ones - tax/tip included)
Mugs $20/each (tax included) or $100 for trip

So, per day, if you stay all CS for 3 meals each and each have 1 snack, I'd probably say $225/day gives you plenty of wiggle room for 5 effective adults. On the days you do cheap TS, $300/day would be a good number for your group. You don't say number of days, so just use these as per day numbers, add $100 for the mugs, and budget from there...

 

[scrapquitler]

Hi all you budgeting experts, Could someone give me an estimate for a food budget. Here are the details. 2 adults and 3 teenagers. 2 boys and 1 girl. Breakfasts at moderate food court. Lunch and dinner at counter service at parks or food court at resort. Maybe 1 or 2 table service meals, not expensive ones. Also, would get refillable mugs for resort. Can I have your best estimates. Thanks

Start with bringing stuff for breakfast to eat in the room. That will save you a ton of money right there. Bring some fruit, bagels, pop tarts, crackers, etc. and have those in the room with coffee/tea in the refillable mugs. That will save you potentially $50/day.

Plan to drink cups of water at counter service lunches and dinners instead of ordering sodas or ice tea, etc. That will save you $3/per person per meal.

If your family loves popcorn as a snack, buy a refillable popcorn bucket in the park for about $12, and get $1.50 refills during your entire visit.

My family spends approx. $150/day in the park, that's 2 adults and a 14 year old boy. But it also includes alcohol for Mom and Dad, and a couple souvenirs during the trip. We tend to share snacks. Rather than buying three ice creams when we want ice cream, we buy one and share it, then later get a pretzel or something else and share it. So we snack throughout the day, get to have a variety of snacks and still don't spend a ton of money on the snacks. And sometimes We'll have a couple snacks instead of a meal.

 

[stsomewhere]

My 16yr daughter and I went in April. We did 5 park days- 2-MK, 2-Epcot, 1-DS. We spent about $1000 on food. We did dinner at BOG- $160, Brown Derby Fanasmic Package-$160, Mama Melrose- $75, Norway Princess dinner-$100. We did a lot of snacks and counters services. We got someting about every two hours. Some tings we shared, others we did not. We love the pastry shops, nachos, etc.

We are going back in April and planning on $100 pp per day.

 

[AquamarineSteph]

We saved so much money on our first WDW trip by bringing stuff with us for breakfast/snacks. Of course, we also drove on that trip, but I think there are more nearby grocery store options now for things like that.