Strategy for Food and budgeting

[princess aurora]

Has anyone pulled together a quick strategy for determining your food budget? Food is obviously our number one expense while at the park. We've decided to do without the dining plan and eat mostly at counter service this time and limit TS meals/character meals.

I tend to see the figure $100/day. Does that sound accurate? We are a family of 4, (DDs age 4 and 7).

What is your "frugal" budget for food?

 

[we-luv-mickey]

We usually stay in a studio at OKW so we have a refrigerator and microwave. We have cereal or instant oatmeal every morning. I always pick the parks that have EMH that night so we decide to stay at the resort and swim until lunchtime. After we swim everyone has a sandwich for lunch before heading to the park. This allows us to splurge more on Dinner if we chose. For a family of 4 at a full service restaurant we usually spend $100 a night. I have two children and sometimes I share a meal with my DD7. We split the main entree and she has one side and I get the other. Now thats frugal. Niether one of us can eat a full plate so sometimes it just makes sense.

 

[DannyDisneyFreak]

$25 a day per person... I don't see it working out. I would suggest you rethink the Dining Plan. Did you know it is around $39.00 per adult, per night, and $15.00 per child ages 3-9, with tax included, if your kids are 4 and seven then you are spending 39+39+15+15=$108 per day including tip also, I am not sure about the exact prices but I know these are pretty close and I think I'm figuring high, I think the kids may be ony like $11 or $12 per night.
You said yourself: "Food is obviously our number one expense while at the park" well then do your self a favor a do the dining plan, it is so worth it just for the fact that it is pre paid for and you don't have to worry about the bill at meals, not to mention there are tons of options.

 

[dixipixi]

We have managed to eat for around $125 per day (there are 5 of us). That was our first trip and we stayed offsite and mostly ate offsite.

Last year we were onsite and ate all our meals onsite. We had one TS meal per day, a couple of snacks, and one CS meal. We spent over $200 every day (we have 2 teen boys).

We could spend less, but we like to have one nice meal per day. The rest of the time we can get by with light meals and snacks. Everyone in our party is also considered "adult" now, so our expenses are higher.

This year I budgeted $300 per day (that includes spending money for pictures and miscellaneous items in the parks).

 

[Tinkerbellz]

DixiPixi--I LOVE your tag! I resemble that remark. I am definately a child of the 80's. Also, I am from Louisiana! One more...our vacations will overlap a weekend. We're headed to the world May 27-June 4. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

Back to the topic!

This trip we are doing the dining plan. On previous trips we budgeted $100/day for food...mostly counter service. It's doable, but it makes it harder to eat at some of the nice table service places.

Have a great trip!

 

[dawnball]

Lets see what the spreadsheet of doom says... if my computer ever manages to get the sucker open...it's trying,.. trying... ahhhh

Ok, nw if I twiddle it just right - it says that we budget $32.83/adult/day (I'm throwing the 2 yr olds in for free, because someone will eventually eat the food we ordr for them, even if it isn't them). That assumes a TS every day (apparently I was feeling flush when I wrote this version of the budget, since i Think it has a Citricos on there.), a CS every day, and some snacks. However - it also accounts for the way my family eats (there's no way we'd order an appetizer, entree, drink and dessert at every TS, the meals are mostly character meals, etc) and we order in ways that the meal plan doesn't cover (two appetizers instead of an entree is common, or an assortment of side dishes).

If we had 2 CS meals a day, and more snacks we'd be at $24.40/adult/day. Depending on how many character meals/TS you eat, $100/day might be pretty reasonable.

*ponder**ponder* ahhh, allearsnet.com to the rescue. Ok, a Chef Mickey's and a counter service (I used Cosmic Ray's lunch) can be had for $74 for your family, which leaves you $26 for misc. $26 buys you a lot of misc, even at Disney. Two meals at CS would be around $50, without any sharing or creative ordering. I'd call $100/day on the high side, but a reasonable budget figure, since there are days when you might want an extra meal, or everyone needs two bottles of gatorade to stave off heat exhaustion or whatever.

 

[Mike N Kathy]

If u are budgeting 100 $$ a day why wouldnt u do the dining plan? Do yourself a favor and get the dp u will thank me in the end.

 

[Bete]

As long as prices don't go up on the dining plan it's a good deal.

I find it very relaxing to have a table service meal each day. Also, I like the fixed price no matter what I take on the menu.

If you have a lot of wasted food with your children, I would perhaps say no to the dining plan. Another reason to say no is if you skip an appetizer, etc. and you don't enjoy the whole meal experience. In that case you are not getting your full monies worth.

 

[Amy&Dan]

We are a family of four, me, DH, and two kids (9 and 11). We can totally eat for an average of $100 a day when at WDW. Some days we eat for less than that, on the day we do Chef Mickey's we go way over! Generally for a 10 day trip we do 1 Character meal, Sci Fi, RFC once for lunch and the rest cs. We do a lot of meal sharing. Many of the portions at WDW are huge. At RFC for example, DH and I share the China Island Chicken Salad and the kids get kids meals. We also don't always order cokes at the cs places. We bring our own brita bottles to keep from buying water. Most CS places we can eat all four of us for $25. In any case, we only eat two meals out and eat breakfast in the room, usually cereal bars from home. I also love the food courts at the resorts, those are the best deal around in my opinion.

I had really thought we would do the dining plan once they offered it to DVC members. But when we went to WDW in January we ate ts every day since we were travelling with family members who like more upscale places than we do. I got so sick of rushing to ps', eating and not being able to be as spontaneous as usual, I decided for us the dining plan would not work. And it would put us over our normal food budge. But if you like ts and want that structure its a great deal.

 

[dixipixi]

DixiPixi--I LOVE your tag! I resemble that remark. I am definately a child of the 80's. Also, I am from Louisiana! One more...our vacations will overlap a weekend. We're headed to the world May 27-June 4. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

Nice to "meet" you!! I never knew when I responded to a thread with that statement that it would "label me for life" here on the Dis!!!

I see you're from Marksville. I'm on the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Yeah, we were supposed to be down there around the 24th of May, but the kids had to make up hurricane days, so we're late this year!!! Maybe we'll bump into each other!

 

[2angelsinheaven]

Go with the dining plan, it seems to be only a couple of dollars more and you won't have to scrimp and save to get through the day. You'll also get the chance to experience some nice places to eat in WDW this way, some of which are an attraction themself.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I'd take a look at some of the CS and TS menus and see what you'd like to eat to give you a general idea for your budget. We typically plan ahead of time where and what to eat at Epcot and at MGM, but at AK and MK we just eat wherever place we happen to be near when we're hungry, LOL.

That said, for us (my parents and I; I'm in my 20s), we eat breakfast in our rooms (danish, donuts, poptarts, etc. and juice from our cooler). If we eat CS for lunch and dinner, we'll typically be spending $70 a day max, including an ice cream or smoothie or something for each of us somewhere along the way. When it's CS for lunch and TS for dinner, we still only spend around $70 because we typically order the less expensive things for our meals (such as the onion soup at Chefs de France with a dessert to split; that's plenty for us) or my mom and I order say, a pizza at RFC and split it. It's ultimately going to come down to what you all eat and where you eat it at and how big your appetites are. And as others have warned, a lot of the CS places have HUGE portions. It took until the end of the last trip for us to finally realize my mom and I should split some CS meals in the future (like the huge turkey wraps at Cosmic Ray's, yikes!). We also split 2 drinks among the 3 of us since they're expensive as well. That helps cut down on costs... otherwise we'd be spending a minimum of $12 per day + tax in soda alone.

 

[Katy Belle]

We budgeted $200 a day for the 5 of us in 2004. The boys were 4,7,9. We spent well below that. We had lots of dinner reservations that we cancelled in order to spend more time in the parks. I think if you aren't big eaters and eat mostly CS then it is possible to spend under $100 a day.
Katy

 

[eliza61]

$100 might be a little tight for a family of 4. If you do 1 character dinner meal you could come real close to blowing your meal budget for the day. I tend to over budget for food while I'm on vacation because, well I'm on vacation and I hate to have to be restricted, especially since we only get to take a big vacation like disney every few years. for my family of 4 I budget $200-250 per day. My boys unfortunately are big eaters (even at 7 & 9) and easily finish a full TS meal so sharing is out of the question for me. I plan on 2 TS meals a day (breakfast & dinner).This year we are staying at a vacation club villa so we will have access to a kitchen but I still plan on budgeting that way. If we eat some meals in the room, that will say some money but I'd rather over budget than under

 

[rlovew]

It all depends on how much you and your family eat. I bring my own water in and we only purchase 1 drink a day per person to go with meals. We eat breakfast in our room, so we only have to worry about lunch and dinner. I budget $15.00 for 2 adults at counter service. We get 1 meal and one sandwich only(no fries takes $2.00 off most meals). With the wide variety of CS meals we generally only choose on TS per trip and we know what we are ordering from menus before(or at least have some idea) so I can budget about $10 more than it says and be fine there. I find that the kids meals of fish, chicken nuggets, or at chinese are enough for me and include a drink if I don't want water. That being said My husband and I eat cheap becuase we would rather do other thing (such as tours).

 

[Leota]

We couldn't do it on $100 a day for 3 of us! But, then again, we eat a TS everyday & don't really share unless DH & I go for an evening of sampling, then we split 4 or 5 courses. My DS is older (17) & eats more too... We've just never skrimped on dining at WDW. Dining is part of the vacation experience for us. I budget a minimum of $50 per person per day for us.

I'd really recommend the Dining Plan. It's a great deal & you know your budget ahead of time.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

We did the dining plan last trip and it did not work for us. We tend to eat TS more then CS but one of our DD's doesn't eat much and we left allot of food we never would have ordered behind. We usually bring our own water to the parks, so never order a beverage (we don't drink soda) at CS's.

Also, we never order snacks except two Mickey bars every other day for the kids and one of my DD's prefers a pretzel which isn't covered.

We ended up using the CS for breakfasts which is a waste, paying for some TS OOP, 10 snacks left over and buying pretzels for one DD.

 

[sanctus]

I don't know how quick this answer is, but I hit the menus at allearsnet.com for a handful of counter service restaurants, figured out what or cheapest and most expensive meals there would be, then ran the menus for the table service meals we wanted and did the same. It's time consuming, and you have to know what your family is likely to want, but it gave me a pretty clear picture what my family would need for a food budget.

 

[tkd lisa]

Absolutely this number varies.

When we did the full up family trip, I budgeted $100 a day for a family of four. We aren't big eaters, and usually drink water from Brita bottles. Any place that has fountain drinks will give you ice water for free. That allowed a table service or character meal each day, and we usually split 2 adult meals plus a kids meal at the TS restaurants.

As to why not to do the dining plan? Because even with a budget of $100 a day, I NEVER spent that much. So I had the extra money for other things (or to bring home )

This trip, where I'm on more of a budget, I'm planning on $50 to $60 a day for food for 3 of us (in the process of a divorce). We'll eat breakfast in the room, have a snack followed by a late lunch ADR (mostly table service), and probably split some CS for dinner. Again, we are not big eaters. Even at the table services, we'll get two meals and share.

I have looked at the menus (and prices) for the ADR locations, and have a good idea how much we'll spend. And we booked lunch because the prices are almost always cheaper for that.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We never use the dining plan, we like to eat where the spirit moves us at the time and place and jumping to run to an ADR doesn't fit us. We also split most meals, Disneys portions are huge and we divide it equally and both of us are just right. Nothing worse than being stuffed, in the Florida sun, and tons of walking to do, to make the day miserable. I've seen too many families order a meal for each adult and each child, no matter what age, and leave more than half. Could never figure why spend all that money on individual meals to throw it away.

We share, rarely eat lunch, have room for ice cream during the day and have a nice dinner. We're not cheap, just caucious is our eating habits and not wasting food, brought up with, take all you want, but eat all you take, rules.