How much do you budget?

[broncobill]

I plan on $250 a day. There are four of us, 2 adults and 2 teenagers. I usually have money left over after we get home. This is 4-5 Character buffets, breakfast in the room, and mostly qs.

 

[AliceNDinah]

I first want to say I am NOT picking on anyone...rather tongue in cheek joking how cheap I am. When I read these and think about spending that kind of money, I nearly . I can't even fathom. We pack all of our food...which is why I came to this section of DIS, I posted a thread earlier about finding a restaurant in WDW to take our family for a treat...so I was looking for any updated responses. We're also a family of 5. We just completed a 17 day trip. I don't have the exact receipts, but I have a good ballpark of what we spent. It was something like:

Target/Publix - $400
Ice cream, popcorn etc...in the parks - $100
2 dinners offsite - $150

So our total food spend for the entire trip, for our entire family, was $650. If I want to stretch it and say my numbers were a bit conservative, I'm positive it was no more than $725 total. If my math is right, that would be roughly $8.40/person/day.

Like I said, I'm cheap. Our kids are addicted to , so we bought a refillable bucket in the park. We got our moneys' worth out of that thing, and will continue to do so. We'd stop at pretty much every popcorn station and refill for $1.50. We had large ziplock bags with us, so we could easily carry extra popcorn.[/QUOT

Hi Klayfish! This doesn't have to do with dining per say, I was just commenting to say that I really enjoy your posts, advice and your writing style, I like whenever you pop up!

 

[NYCgrrl]

We are a family of four, all Disney adults now. We eat breakfast in the room and mostly QS with one or two TS thrown in for the week. We PREFER water to drink with our meals, so that helps a lot. Only two of us eat dessert, and we can easily share. DH and I aren't snackers, but the boys can be. I'm budgeting $150/day for our 5-day trip.

Same here as far as water and dessert. Once the man and I broke the sugar habit most commercially prepped drinks and desserts seem too sweet.

 

[steg]

We run through the menus and try and pick out stuff we'd actually get which has helped we usually have about 1k/pp per week this includes 1 alcoholic drink at lunch or in between lunch and dinner and alcohol at dinner.

This usually is for QS Breakfast, TS Lunch, Signature TS Dinner. We will from now on have at least one brunch scheduled in place of one of those breakfasts/lunches after we had such awesome times at Cali Grill and STK for brunch this past trip.

We use Garden Grocer for Water, Pepsi, Gatorade, and Chips/Trail Mix etc

 

[ulcards99]

The last two trips we have clocked in at $35-$40 per person per day for food. That's eating at QS and TS restaurants and having snacks throughout the day. We have an AP so we get some dining discounts. We have eaten at Boma, the Wave, Pecos Bills, Via Napoli, Rose and crown, just to name a few. That's averaged out per day so some days are more (like when we ate at Boma). We are never hungry at the end of the day! We get plenty of food, so it's definitely do-able on a budget.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I first want to say I am NOT picking on anyone...rather tongue in cheek joking how cheap I am. When I read these and think about spending that kind of money, I nearly . I can't even fathom. We pack all of our food...which is why I came to this section of DIS, I posted a thread earlier about finding a restaurant in WDW to take our family for a treat...so I was looking for any updated responses. We're also a family of 5. We just completed a 17 day trip. I don't have the exact receipts, but I have a good ballpark of what we spent. It was something like:

Target/Publix - $400
Ice cream, popcorn etc...in the parks - $100
2 dinners offsite - $150

So our total food spend for the entire trip, for our entire family, was $650. If I want to stretch it and say my numbers were a bit conservative, I'm positive it was no more than $725 total. If my math is right, that would be roughly $8.40/person/day.

Like I said, I'm cheap. Our kids are addicted to , so we bought a refillable bucket in the park. We got our moneys' worth out of that thing, and will continue to do so. We'd stop at pretty much every popcorn station and refill for $1.50. We had large ziplock bags with us, so we could easily carry extra popcorn.

Bravo for you and yours! This is how I camp which would have happened earlier this month but decided to go to Disney for a change of pace. Now that I better know what to expect I've decided that for our December trip, I'm bringing a pre-seasoned prime rib roast and de-boned hotel turkey breast (all on hand since they were meant to go camping) and have a holiday meal same as at home. Win/win and more dining credits available for other days.

 

[Shellyb84]

We don't budget, but I've compared what I think we will eat OOP with the DDP the last two years to see if it would be worth it, and with meals and snacks, it typically comes to about $20 less per day on average paying OOP. So maybe $150 for food for 2 adults, one child. Add on a few alcoholic drinks each for DH and I, then I would say $200. We typically eat one character breakfast per trip and then eat yogurt or breakfast bar in the room the other mornings. Other than that, we don't really have a pattern. Sometimes we'll eat 2 QS per day, or 2 TS, or one of each, or maybe just apps for dinner.

 

[Klayfish]

Thanks!

 

[disney144]

We are a family of four, all Disney adults now. We eat breakfast in the room and mostly QS with one or two TS thrown in for the week. We PREFER water to drink with our meals, so that helps a lot. Only two of us eat dessert, and we can easily share. DH and I aren't snackers, but the boys can be. I'm budgeting $150/day for our 5-day trip.

This is very similar to how we eat, and similar to how we are budgeting. Good to know we are on track!

 

[disney144]

The last two trips we have clocked in at $35-$40 per person per day for food. That's eating at QS and TS restaurants and having snacks throughout the day. We have an AP so we get some dining discounts. We have eaten at Boma, the Wave, Pecos Bills, Via Napoli, Rose and crown, just to name a few. That's averaged out per day so some days are more (like when we ate at Boma). We are never hungry at the end of the day! We get plenty of food, so it's definitely do-able on a budget.

This seems a bit low (although in line with what we are hoping to spend). How many meals do you usually eat each day? I'm assuming most are CS. How often are you having TS?

 

[sharonabe]

This seems a bit low (although in line with what we are hoping to spend). How many meals do you usually eat each day? I'm assuming most are CS. How often are you having TS?

It wasn't my post you quoted, but I think I can do the math.

Let's budget $15 for a QS meal. If you're drinking water, that's high, but still...$15. Then plan for two TS during a 5-day stay which would require 10 meals total. So 8 meals at $15 = $120. With $40 over 5 days, you would then have $80 for those two TS meals. Now I'm not sure how they also got snacks in there, but my guess is their QS meals are more in the $10-12 range which leaves $$ for snacks. I'm assuming breakfast is eaten in the room.

 

[Minnesota!]

I anticipate $1000 - $1200. Breakfast in room most days, counter service lunch, table service dinner some days.

 

[hmcater]

If you know where you're going to eat, this calculator can give you a pretty good idea what your going to spend. They even have an option on both breakfast and lunch for "an average qs" instead of knowing exactly where your going to eat everyday.

https://www.distripplanner.com/

 

[rg35]

We don't really budget, we tend to just eat where we want (I realize not everyone is in a situation to be able to do that). On park days we usually do TS lunch and dinner but we eat breakfast in our room. With two adults and three children we probably spend something like $250 ish per day on meals, more if we're going somewhere like Tiffins for dinner. On non park days we tend to do a lot of breakfasts (1900 park fare, boma, bon voyage), but we snack at the pool so that saves a bit there. For our next trip though I do want to cut down a bit on dining, just because it's just a lot (too much) eating. Our kids will also be "Disney adults" when our next trip rolls around, so that's also going to drive up our costs.

 

[AliceNDinah]

Oh gosh, sorry! Klayfish, I was going to say that it's not really connected to food, but I just enjoy your fun writing style and posts...I don't think my post went through before.

 

[JoanneDisFan]

I've done the ddp previous trips but this trip I'm doing oop. I've budgeted the same amount as I would pay for the ddp and hope we save money. So $233/day for 3 adults and 1 child.

 

[Hopefully]

If you know where you're going to eat, this calculator can give you a pretty good idea what your going to spend. They even have an option on both breakfast and lunch for "an average qs" instead of knowing exactly where your going to eat everyday.

https://www.distripplanner.com/

I disagree. I find this site inaccurate, at least for us.

 

[stinkpickle]

What is this "budget" thing you speak of?

 

[primalJ]

we don't, it's vacation so we eat where we like and what we like.

 

[Simba's Girl]

5 of us. 2 teens and one tween. Picky eaters. Most days one TS but not every day. Breakfast, some snacks/apps and some drinks in CL. Budgeting about $300 per day for a 7night trip. I'm betting that the teens/tween will snack more than eat meals but I'm budgeting them $25-30 per day for QS/snacks.