Vacation food budget help

[writermommy6]

I am budgeting $1300 for 9 days for my family of 6. We have 2 character meals and one dinner at TRex restaurant. We are staying in a condo. Plan on cooking breakfast and packing a lunch and taking snacks to the park. Dinners will most likely be offsite or counter service type restaurants.

Am I budgeting too little? What's your experiences? TIA

 

[Disneycrazymom]

I think you'll be ok. Your kids are little and you are only eating i or 2 meals out per day.

 

[jenharring]

I would think you would be ok. Have you thought about taking a crockpot for meals at night. You can throw them something in it in the am and when you get back from a tired day at the park dinner is ready and waiting.

 

[shortbun]

Share meals. Cut sandwiches in half. Order a side salad and share fries with the kids. I have a friend who travels with her two sons, 12 and 9. She orders two meals and a side salad then takes a little from each boy's plate. The reason she does this is to avoid waste, not necessarily save money but that happens too. I think it's brilliant.

 

[Darcy03231]

You should be fine. We had 9 in our group and spent about $400 at the grocery store and about another $600.00 in the parks and we were there for 16 days. We ate most of our meals in. I 2nd the crockpot suggestion. I also made several casseroles our first day there in the throw away foil pans and froze them. I'd take one out in the morning and it was ready to just throw in the oven that night. Bagged salad is also your friend. Made dinners quick and easy.

 

[dougsmom98]

I think you will be fine. We are a family of 6 and we had $800 cash for our trip and used if for everything including food and souvenirs. We did not have any character meals. We ate every breakfast at the villa. We brought drinks in a small soft sided cooler to the park with a few snacks, but we also bought a few drinks in the park. We ate counter service lunches and bought additional snacks (popcorn, mickey bars...) at the parks. The two nights that we did late nights at the park, we also had counter service for dinner. For dinner off site, we got take out most nights (pizza and chinese), we also ate at Golden Corral and Applebees. Since you are doing character meals and the T-rex meal, you will probably need more than we needed, but you should be fine with the $1300 for the trip.

 

[writermommy6]

Thank you everyone for your input. I was actually hoping I had overbudgeted so that I wouldn't be nickel and diming on vacation. I'm going to bring my crockpot and pick up some disposable cooking trays. Of course a dishwasher is still vacation to me as we don't have one.

I'll keep browsing disboards for more food ideas. I think we're going to come back for a late lunch at the condo and then head back to the parks in the evening hours. I do think with it being hot that we're not going to pig out at the parks.

 

[Disney4nonah]

Great tips, love them... was wondering about money to budget for food Thanks