food budget for a 9 days holiday ?

[IsaFrench]

Hello, I'll be in Sussex/by the beach for 9 days in July.
Totally lost touch with cost of living in the UK.

there's 5 of us (children are 10, 8 and 2)
so how much per day should I estimate our food budget ?
we'll be in a caravan park so I suppose we'll mix convenience for some meals (eat out/take away) with "home" preparations ...

if some of you could give me a rough estimate
it would very much help
thanks in advance

[flapjack]

£40 for a meal out (no puddings) for 6 of us, generally, and I spend £80 a week on groceries but I'm a cheapskate and you aren't going to have a store cupboard to rely upon. Generally, a takeaway for our lot comes to between £15-20- but, all but one of mine are big eaters.

[dachshundqueen]

One of the best tricks I have for traveling and being away from home is to make "mixes" ahead of time that way I don't have to buy convenience food. If you google homemade pancake mix or make a spice mix that you would ordinarily buy it allows you to make much tastier meals and avoid carry out. Bringing jarred pasta sauce also saved us!

I'm in the US so I am no help with food costs.

Liz

[Helen_A]

Where abouts in Sussex are you going to be - the COL varies hugely across that chunk of the south coast... If you are going to be on a holiday park then it will be high as generally their onsite places are expensive (unless you are happy with chips everyday...).

For 5 of us a meal out costs between 30 and 60 usually (high street places) and most places a portion of chips from a 'proper' chip shop will be around £1 to £1.50 a head. Fish generally at least £2 a portion in chip shops in southern UK atm. *however* a portion of fish or chips may well do more than one child.

If you will have transport and be near one of the IKEA stores whilst you are 'on holiday' (although that's more likely to be on the way there or home, lol) I'd strongly suggest eating there (decent and fairly cheap). Supermarket cafes are usually quite reasonable price wise as well (and morrisons particularly so!). Baked potatoes are usually the most reasonable supermarket cafe food of all :-)

For the purposes of self-catering, its going to be worth allowing yourself between £3 and £5 a head a day depending on how much you are going to take with you, and whether you are going to 'do' meat/fish or stay veggie (about 50p to £1 a head a day for veg/fruit would be plenty if you shopped daily and some of the veg was frozen, as a small bag of frozen veg is generally around 5-6 portions).


Probably no real help at all, lol. But as I said, let us know where you are going to be and we can possibly suggest places to go to eat.

[IsaFrench]

THANKS a lot for your suggestions !