Do you spend more on food (nonDisney vaca)?

[la79al]

It seems like every year when we head to the beach or wherever for a week, I go out and end up spending a ton of money on 'special treat' food. We tend to do a lot of generic at home and drink milk or water. I will spend weeks before vacation watching for coupons and sales on stuff like Pringles and Oreos and I will buy a few cases of soda and juice boxes. Once we get on vacation the kids (5 and 3) don't seem to care either way. Am I the only one who stresses myself out like this for no reason?

 

[Marionnette]

It seems like every year when we head to the beach or wherever for a week, I go out and end up spending a ton of money on 'special treat' food. We tend to do a lot of generic at home and drink milk or water. I will spend weeks before vacation watching for coupons and sales on stuff like Pringles and Oreos and I will buy a few cases of soda and juice boxes. Once we get on vacation the kids (5 and 3) don't seem to care either way. Am I the only one who stresses myself out like this for no reason?

I always spend more on vacation food than at home. Part of it is because we work up an appetite with all of the activities. Part is because I end up shopping at stores I'm unfamiliar with, in a resort community where prices tend to be higher and without the benefit of being able to wait for the sales.

That being said, I don't stress out over it. It's all part of the vacation budget and I just roll with it. Isn't there enough IRL to stress over without getting your panties in a wad over the price of cookies and chips?

 

[worm761]

While we do spend more on food on vacation, I don't stress about it. It is part of the budget and I over budget for food on purpose.

 

[InMemory]

I too go over the top! We buy special snacks for everyone including ourselves. It's our time to buy those pricey snacks we would never buy. I have noticed half the time we don't touch a lot of it because we are sooo busy. I am thankful we have them in the car though when everyone is just plain crabby. My kid look forward to it because its a no limits trip to the store. It's all part of the fun of trip prep for us.

 

[mombrontrent]

I always spend more on vacation food than at home. Part of it is because we work up an appetite with all of the activities. Part is because I end up shopping at stores I'm unfamiliar with, in a resort community where prices tend to be higher and without the benefit of being able to wait for the sales.

That being said, I don't stress out over it. It's all part of the vacation budget and I just roll with it. Isn't there enough IRL to stress over without getting your panties in a wad over the price of cookies and chips?

Yes to all of this. Plus when on vacation and staying in a condo with the ability to make meals I buy stuff I wouldn't buy at home for treats or convenience. At home I would never buy those little boxes of cereal that the kids love or the bagged salad. I wouldn't buy a ready to eat tray of veggies and dip or fruit tray. But on vacation I will buy those things as well as snack and drinks that we can't find at home. It's all part of the vacation experience.

 

[tina.tina]

Your kids probably are too young to really care.

When my DS was 3, he liked to eat a LOT. He was never overweight but he ate very slowly and really enjoyed it. He also would eat anything. He hated peanut butter and my sister, who was watching him, forgot and gave him PB&J. She said he was sitting there, chewing with an awful look on his face. She asked him what was wrong and he said he didn't like the peanut butter. Yet, he was eating it anyway because it was there.

My kids are older now and want to know why we can't have special snacks all the time.

 

[usnuzuloose]

We actually spend less. We are so busy doing things we forget to really eat. If I get real hungry I may find an energy bar or peanuts and a drink. So not much money there. I am trying to stay away from snacking at home or away.

 

[purpledisneyprncess]

I find that we bring/eat more snacky type foods on vacation than in a typical day at home. But I buy ahead of time (Can pack whatever we want because we drive) and get great deals on the snacks. They are still all relatively healthy things we get, but we snack more on vacation cause the kids get more hungry as they are really on the go.

 

[supergoofy]

On vacation we let our kids eat more junk type foods that they don't get at home. Like said we also get more of the easy to prepare foods like snack trays.

 

[mrodgers]

Our weekly grocery budget is $250 and spend less than $100 when on vacation. That's of course because we eat out for dinner every night, so there is no real groceries for meals. Also, that $100 wouldn't be any laundry soap and such. Lunch is just sandwich stuff we have in the room. All else is snack stuff and if we spent more than a week's grocery budget on snacks, that would be a LOT of snacks! Far more than we would eat!

 

[MSSANDRA]

We make frequent trips to a beach condo and while we do tend to buy some special foods we don't at home, it's still MUCH cheaper than eating out on vacation. WDW is about eating at all the fun places and we only do breakfast in the room most times, but at the beach or the occasional mountain cabin trip, we eat in or cook all but maybe one meal. We never have time to cook breakfast at home so we do on vacation. More expensive than cereal, but much cheaper than breakfast out. A container of ice cream is only a fraction of the cost of 4 dishes of ice cream eaten out. Steak on the grill might be more than the chicken at home, but again....much cheaper than eating a steak dinner out. I do watch for coupon and sales and as we drive to both of these locations, I buy ahead and freeze or store the foods.