A few things we do to stay in budget and still have great food:
Do a grocery stop if you are driving or renting a car. We stock up on breakfast foods for the room, snacks and drinks esp water bottles for the parks. We also bring a few granola bars and snacks to the parks for us and the kids. If its a longer trip we also do sandwich fixings for pool afternoon lunches or late night sandwiches if someone is hungry.
If you are using ME then you can try a grocery delivery service, the one I used has gone out of business but check the DVC board for recommendations. Or have one member of the party take a cab for groceries. Honestly, cold cereal, bagels and fruit in the am gets us up and going quick. Plus we make healthier choices at the grocery then we would at the foodcourt!
Consider having your 'big meal" or table service meal as a late breakfast or late lunch. You can get great food, often the same or very similar to a dinner at lunch prices. Plus our family loves the later afternoon break to cool and plan the rest of the day. The exception of course is a character meal or two!!
So that leaves counter service for dinner, for us we are often in Epcot at night and since many of the countries have great CS we often split a few things. We have also found great counter service at MK and AK but so far no luck in MGM. If anyone is still hungry when we get back to the resort we still have the munchies and sandwich fixings at the resort.
This works for us as we start the day off right and fast, splurge on one meal a day, usually lunch and still get to snack withouth feeling like we are breaking the budget.
HTH
TJ
