Realistic budget ideas please

[jndt]

With ds1 off to university we didn't think we'd be able to afford to go back to Florida (and Disney) for a few years.

DS3 wants to save his money to take us all (he's 10 and has autism so money isn't his strong suit!).

We are thinking of staying off site next August if we can get affordable flights. We stayed off site when I was a child and dh and I stayed off site twice 20 years ago before children came along. It was obviously cheaper to eat out back then.

What would a realistic meal budget be for 5 for a 2 week holiday - 4 adult meals and a child but sometimes 5 adults depending where we eat as ds3 will be 11?

[johnmcmaster]

Hire a villa and cook for yourself to ease pressure on the budget. Take a picnic to the parks, eat breakfast in the villa and then only need one meal out now and then. Think like you are still at home. Plenty of cheaper chains to eat at if you don’t want to cook.

[Procrastinator]

Sorry to be a bit unhelpful here, but how long is a piece of string?

If you eat at places like cici's, steak and shake or cook at the villa, take rolls etc to the parks and have cereal etc for breakfast you could keep it down easily below $100 a day.

If you are planning on sit down meals at Disney you could spend $400 + on 1 meal.

Do you have a budget in mind?

[clwil02]

We've noticed that the cost of groceries has risen in the supermarkets over there so we've saved money by visiting the £ shop in the months before we go and putting together a stash to take with us. Not just tea & coffee but things like washing tablets, softener, squash, cereal & snacks for the kids in our cases. Cash flowing it through over a number of months is easier and it makes a difference to the cash I need to take.

Meal budget is tricky as it depends on the kinds of things you like to eat? For example, we love Bahama Breeze but tend to go between 4pm and 6pm when appetisers are half price - they're huge & we share a few different things. Also, sign up for every mailing list and you'll be sent through so many vouchers by email - there's details on a sticky on the Dining forum.

I agree with John above - loads of cheap chains and portions are so big it's easy to split meals too

[jndt]

We don't do long drawn out table service as our autistic son can't sit that long. Fast food and places like Denny's are our limit!

[ClaireNJ]

Well places like these their portions are huge
So you could share, sign up for coupons 20% off Denny's & birthdays at IHOP too, free pancakes.
Realistically I think maybe $10 each for breakfast, $10 snack in park, take your own water & snacks if wanted then maybe you could get a dinner $15 each, look for deals, Perkins on Wednesday BOGOF
Good luck

[ladyofleisure]

For the 5 of us for this summer we are budgeting 250 dollars per day. That’s for a villa stay a few nice meals out Bahamas breeze and the like and ihop/Denny’s for bfast on later start days.

Some days we will be over, some days we will eat at the villa and come in less than the target (I hope) - I also have 3 teenagers and youngest has aspergers and gets fed up waiting too long over meals if that helps. But boy can he eat when he is in the mood!

[Procrastinator]

The sort of thing we do...

Breakfast in the villa. Fruit and cereal. Yes groceries are a.bot more over there, but some fruit, cereal and milk is still less than $10 a day for a family of 4/5.

We have at times taken rolls etc to the parks, $20 a day would cover off lunch for a number of the days.

Dinner - make use of offers and like noted above turn up 5 mins before the buffet price increases, and 5 should eat for an average of $75. Before we went last time i wrote out a list of days of the week and noted where had offers - not to plan our meals, but just so that if say it was a thursday i could look at the list see where had the offer that day and then probably go there.

So I still think you could do it for sub $100 a day. But if you have more and want to spend it there are plenty of ways to do it!

[toonarmani]

If eating offsite sign up for restaurants you like to eat at as you’ll get discounts and vouchers through and check local groupon for vouchers / offers. Some have coupon booklets at the exit you can pick up for use at various places.

I disagree with part of an earlier post (taking washing tablets etc), can think of nothing worse than having to clean on holiday

[Sandraoh40]

We were there in October for 15 nights in a villa. There were 8 of us, 5 adults and 3 kids. We had a kitty if £3000 we put in to cover food, parking and fuel. There was one weekend that 5 were away at friends so didn’t eat together for 1 day.
We had breakfast in the villa and took a packed lunch in most days. We ate at ihop 4 mornings. Had snacks in the parks if we wanted. Had various dinners, kids wanted McDonald’s , some takeaways, a brunch at chef mickeys ( very expensive for 8 people but in the budget), some lunches in the parks as well, some meals outside the parks. Drinks in Ogas Cantina, Pre paid for the Hoop Dee Doo so that wasn’t in the budget. Really we all had what we wanted. We shared as well when we could as the kids weren’t huge eaters. We took our water bottles in and filled up in the parks as well as little cans of drinks for the kids.
We went over our budget by £60 due to a last day splurge at the Cheesecake Factory.
We probably did substitute some snacks and drinks with our ‘own’ spending but not much.
We didn’t miss out and had a ball. Oh and we had 2 cars so parking was double the amount.