I would be very cautious with the advice of those who reflexively reach for the
DDP. The Dining Plan is not about saving money. It is about pre-paid convenience. Yes, you can manipulate your meals the way "extreme couponers" manipulate coupons and make the system work to your financial benefit. But the question becomes: Is this really about saving $10 per day, or is it about eating the way your family wants to eat. If you really love the appetizer offerings on a menu and would be happy making a meal out of those, you will save money over the DDP. But more importantly, on the DDP, those doors are shut to you unless you add on OOP costs, which blows the whole DDP savings concept out the window. If you are dreading the thought of yet another slice of cheese cake for dessert, but are lamenting the fact that you couldn't get the goat cheese ravioli appetizer, then the DDP savings are irrelevant. If the three of you could split an order of ribs and an order of chicken at Flame Tree and be perfectly content, then you save money over the DDP which requires you to pay for a CS meal for each person in the family. Yes, if your family eats every morsel of food provided by the DDP, and you maximize your selections by opting for the priciest snacks and entrees, you will save on the DDP. But if you surrender just once during the week and think to yourself..."all I want right now is a green salad and some water", then the DDP will cost you extra money. This is why you have to look at things from an individual standpoint. Familes that dismember and share Mickey Waffles do better off the Plan. People who eat everything offered on the Plan do better on it. No way for us to know which camp you fall into. You have to do that math.
As far as guideline for OOP costs, figure on the following:
We always buy groceries at Publix and eat breakfast in our room as we get ready for the day. I can't tell you the last time I paid Disney prices for breakfast, so I can't help you here. For us, we spend around $60 in groceries for a full week. So we figure around $10 per day.
A typical CS lunch (combo meal) will run around $16 per person. We are also a family of three, and we usually get two meals to split among three people, and an extra straw. We find the large drink size to be more than enough such that three people can drink from two cups. So our lunches for three people run around $32-$34 per day.
So far, we have spent around $42 or so per day. (We rarely buy snacks, but for the sake of argument, I will subtract out $5 per day on average just in case the kid wants popcorn.) A budget of $150 per day would leave us with roughly $103 for dinner. Two appetizers split among three people will cost around $25. At TS restaurants, we will typically get a single dessert to share. That will cost around $7. That leaves $71 for three people to order main courses. In many circumstances, this is just about right. At higher end places, this is not enough. Add in tax, tip and wine, and it isn't nearly enough.
But here's the rub. We don't do a TS every single day. There are days when we double up on CS meals (such as MK days) when there aren't any TS restaurants that interest us. So here is where the math gets tricky. The average daily cost would come to $150 per day, even though not one single day came close to that precise number. And this is where the DDP fails us. On days when we eat light, we don't get the most value out of the DDP. And on days when we "go big", there isn't enough flexibility or credits in the DDP to account for our three course meals. For example, imagine a two day trip on the DDP where you have 2 CS and 2 TS credits. On day one, you go to the MK and eat at Columbia Harbor House and Pecos Bill's as your two meals. Your two CS credits are gone. On day two, you go to dinner at the California Grill and you add some appetizers to your dinner. Your two TS credits are now gone, and lunch that day as well as the appetizers has to be paid OOP. So you spent over $300 for the meal plan, ($50 per person per day for 3 people x 2 days), plus around $34 for an OOP lunch and $25 for appetizers for a total of $359. If you bought everything OOP as described above, your three CS meals would come to around $102. Your appetizers and dessert at CG would run you $32 ($25+$7) for a running total of an even $134. Even if everyone bought a $40 entree at the CG for dinner, your grand total would still only be $254. And before people jump all over this, I could just as easily concoct a two-day scenario where the DDP pays dividends.
Which is why EVERY PERSON HAS TO DO THE MATH BASED ON A REALISTIC PREDICTION OF WHAT THEY MIGHT EAT. That statement will always be true.