food money

[basketlover]

I'm well aware everyone has many differnt eating styles and price ranges. But can anyone who is budget consious try to tell me how much do you spend on food in a day with snacks at the park. We plan to eat breakfast at the hotel. And proably supper out of the park on the way home to the hotel. But if you have a budget for the day to share??? Thanks in advance.

 

[ciera321]

You're right, everyone has their own style, but I'll share what we do...
My group includes me, DH and DS15. We always eat breakfast in our room so we can head out ready for the day. I plan $125 per day for lunch, snacks and dinner. We always do CS for lunch and mostly TS for dinner, but a few CS like Wolfgang Puck Express. We don't seem to ever go over $20 at lunch since my DH and I usually share lunch, so that leaves $105 for dinner and snacks. We use the DDE card so that saves us 20%. We have Garden Grocers deliver lots of water and a few breakfast items...The water really saves over buying it in the park. Works for us...

 

[dbarker]

Since everyone is different, and you know your group best, go to www.allearsnet.com and look over the different menus w/ prices to get a better feel about how much to budget for food.

I love this site for planning. Not only can I nail down my food budget, but I also get a feel for where we want to eat (especially the CS restaurants).

Good luck planning.

 

[centurythree]

You can eat very, very well on less than $50 per person per day. I'm assuming a cheap or free breakfast at your hotel, table service lunch, cheap dinner and snack. Realistically, you'll spend even less than that if a few of those lunches are at counter service places.

 

[pat fan]

We plan for around $100 a day for our family of 4. We do try and plan beforehand for special things, like a character meal so that it doesn't kill our budget. I totaly agree with going to www.allearsnet.com and checking out the menu's. This is how we plan each trip and make sure we're not nuts with our budget.

We also eat breakfast in our room (cereal or bagels from home and only have to purchase milk/fruit from the food court) so brkfst. is less than $5 for everyone.

Lunch can be our big meal of the day (same food but cheaper than dinner prices) somewhere special or just food court when we go back to the hotel for our swim break. Food court prices are pretty good and some things are indeed big enugh to share.

Dinner is usually CS somewhere in a park. I don't think we've ever had our big meal as dinner in all of our trips. To me it's a waste of money. You get the same food at lunch for less $$. Ok, one exception is last summer our first night we went to R&C in Epcot, but that was a special occasion.

Snacks are pretty much ice cream or popcorn. Frankly, we go in JUly and it's just too hot to stuff yourself all day long. Maybe that's the secret to a low food budget , go when it's too hot to eat!!!

BTW, we also used Garden Grocer this year for the first time. It was good service, but I think it's still cheaper to pack a suitcase full of food from home and bring it. On sale at the local foor mart is still a better bargain, to me anyway. Also, you HAVE to stop and get water somewhere. That is the #1 budget tip I can give. Buying water/soda all day in WDW will absolutely kill any budget you have.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

I remember one of our earlier trips to WDW (living in the NE then). We were very budget constricted! LOL.

We had breakfast at our hotel (in the room) and carried our lunch to the parks. We had sandwiches, little cheese bits, fruit, and other snacks.

Our dinners were off property on the way back to the hotel.

Our hotel room was a suite that we were able to book for a ridiculously low price and it had a refrigerator and stove in it, so that helped loads.

Even with just a small refrigerator and microwave (those early DVC days) we were able to control our food budget.

It was fun and never detracted from our WDW experience! I kind of miss those days.

 

[basketlover]

thanks for the advice.

 

[ObsessedwiththeMouse]

I also wanted to add that the Budget Board probably has some great tips!

 

[dawz1026]

We bring 1800.00 for food for the week.

 

[Pumbaa_]

Food money is such a variable. It all depends on your eating habits.

Here is a link to the menus here on the DIS

DIS Menus

You can look at the different menus and see what the costs are for different types of places.

How many people are going? On our first, very budget trip, we did $50 per day total. And we had money left over.

Lots of CS, but we didn't really know better our first time.

Have fun planning!