London - Food Budget?
 

I've read in Fodor's and Rick Steves that if you plan to "budget eat" you can get by on 7 GBP per person per meal, excluding drinks & service, if you stick to Fodor's lower price places and Pub Grub, Daily Specials, Ethnic Restaurants, Cafeterias, Fish & Chips, Bakeries, & Sandwich Shops.

Does 7 GBP per person per meal (without drink or service) sound correct, if we don't plan on any top-end meals?

Can a child eat at a pub?

If we plan to have a beer with dinner, should we budget about 3 GBP per beer?

£7 will be a little tight. yes it can be done but you are better off budgeting £10. even a normal curry will cost about £10 when you add the extras.

beer in a pub is no more than £2.70/pint. beer in a cheap restaurant, budget £3.

most london pubs are not child friendly. some do allow but generally not in central london.

We discovered that very often take-away food is a lot less expensive than eating in the restaurant. If the weather is nice, you could always have a picnic. In the evenings you could bring your take-away food to the hotel. I'm not suggesting you should do this for every meal, but it's fun once in a while, and it could save you some money.

10 - 12 pounds sounds a bit more accurate.

You have to factor that an average take away sandwich is about 2.50 pounds to 3.50 pounds, a sound can be 70p-1.50 pounds, and a pastie can be around 1.50-2.00 pounds.

Since you will be walking alot, you will probably work up an appetite and with a child, you will no doubtedly have those little ice cream and sweets excursions.

You can have a cheap breakfast and lunch for 5 pounds each, and a very, very decent 10 pound meal.

So I would say maybe 12-20 pounds per person per day.

Also, there are those water and candy incedentals as well!

birthdaygirlstrip,
What's a sound? And what does it taste like?
Anyway as it is £7 per person per meal then that is more than enough for lunch from a bakery or sandwich shop. I'd pay something in the region of £3.50 to £5. In fact, if you went to Benjy's or Greggs, (both commonplace around London) and you didn't pick anything too fancy, then less than £3 would do it.

Sounds is used as slang in grammar----ie "That sounds about right."

I forgot to break down the price per meal, but I still feel that 20 pounds per person per day is very adequate and that the breakfast and lunch could be 5 pounds or less and the dinner a reasonable 10 pounds.

Of course, all drinks with meals, all drinks outside of meals, could make things higher.

I have a great MLA book--- it is used, but you are welcome to it. I know I was not using standard English, but I often speak in slang in non-formal forums.

7GBP per meal sounds fine. If you want to spend more on one meal each day, you can economise on the other. Boots, Marks and Spencers and Tescos all have a good selection of sandwiches etc. for quick snack meals. Pub meals are pretty cheap as well.
Carolena

Ps---Keep a lookout for the unique and tasty sandwiches!!

The US does not have the market covered on premade tasty and fresh sandwiches. There were thanksgiving sandwiches, curry sandwiches, bacon and eggs sandwiches! The selection was out of this world! And the bread was great!

Have a great time foodwise!

Also, if you get the chance, try a pastie! They are great!

i agree with the others that you can eat for £7 not including service or drinks. however, unless you want to go to a sandwish shop, this is not easy to do.

a meal where you can actually relax and enjoy yourself, this is very difficult to do. you can eat in a low end pub for £7 but in most cases you are getting poor value for money. if you figure £10-12, you have many more options and will get better value.

here are some very cheap favourites where you won't feel like you are slumming it:

-Au Lac (vietnamese - kingsland road, shoreditch)
-le mercury (french - islington)
-kandoo (persian - edgware road)

as i said, even the cheapest curry joints exceed £7 per meal (Ex drinks) unless you order very carefully and go without bread or rice.

I would rather splurge a little more for better meals and cut out the expensive snacks. We were in London once with a group and several would balk at going to a decent pub or inexpensive restaurant as they didn't want to spend that kind of money. But through the day they were stopping for ice cream bars, cokes, and constantly picking up candy and other snacks. If they had combined all the money they spend on "food" in one day, they could have had two decent meals!

Thanks for everyone's input!

I only expect we will be eating lunch, snack, & dinner. We generally are quite light eaters, even when we spend a day walking.

It appears the high end of the recommendations, thus far, is about 20 GBP per day per person. Doing the currency conversion to dollars...20GBP comes out to about $35. If I budget $35 per person per day, with 3 people (2 adults and a child), it comes to over $100 a day for food. For 6 days in London, that's a $600 food budget.

That's way beyond what my food budget thoughts were! I am bringing all the budget food tips from this website and all the travel books that I can find at the library with me (I'll take notes on them all & not take the actual books with me)!

Although, it looks like many of you are indicating 10 GBP for dinner, and quite a bit less for lunch and a snack. So, if I go with about 14 GBP per day per person and do the conversion, at today's exchange rate, it looks like I'd be coming in at about $24 per day person. For 3 of us, that would put us at about $75 a day. For 6 days that would be closer to a $450 food budget.

Let's say we ordered 2 curries with rice and bread for dinner, would that be about 10 GBP per person? We've done that at home several times and found that there's enough for us to each share with our 7 year old. So we end up only buying 2 complete meals that we share with him, instead of getting him his own separate meal. Maybe I should factor in a bit less for my son??

Since walkinaround indicated that most pubs aren't child friendly and we will have our 7 year old with us, we might skip the pub grub. Although I really want to try a sheperd's pie and some bangers and mash!

We don't always do relaxing sit down dinners, especially when travelling. Are sandwich, pastie, and fish & chip places open in the evenings.

I'm noting down all your recommendations on where to eat good for less. Any additional recommendations or thoughts on food budgeting will be greatly appreciated!!

One more thought. A light snack for us, even our child, is a protein with complex carb and not a sugary snack(for example, cheese w/bread or crackers, small sandwich, in NYC we grab a hotdog from a street vendor, etc).

We do plan to do afternoon tea as special treat one day, with a scone. We might try some shortbread biscuits. However, as a general rule, we stay away from the sweeties!

My 7 year old, can be a complete, well behaved, polite little boy, until you put more than 5 grams of sugar in him. Then he becomes a completely different boy. We stay away from juice, candy, ice cream, etc. Even a cup of regular cow's milk has 12 grams of sugar. We are extremely careful about sugary snacks. So we won't be doing like Neopolitan's friends which sound like they snacked themselves through the day on sugary snacks.

We usually just have a nice protein/carb snack between lunch and dinner. The sandwiches you all described sound amazing! I could see us getting one for lunch and then another one for a snack later.

I also think it will be very difficult to eat on 7 pounds per day/per person. Sandwiches (the pre-made/packaged kind) start at about 2.50 but if you want something more filling it will be more like 3.50. Now that is just a sandwich - when you have been sightseeing and walking it is usually not enough to full you up. If you add a bag of chips or some cookies and a drink of some sort you are over 7 pounds in the blink of an eye.

Snacks can be a budget killer as they add up quickly,i.e. Ice cream in the park, a piece of cake/drink to hold you to dinner - that sort of thing adds up real fast. With a child it is hard to say no to ice cream (it's hard for me to say no to ice cream :-) ).

If you are staying in an apartment (we do) you can save a considerable amount on breakfast (we do). While I love eating out we do mix our meals to include eating in and eating out. Actually at the end of a long day it is sometimes nice to just stop at Tesco/Sainsbury's/Marks&Spencer and pick up some food and eat in. You might want to consider an apartment because not only is it great to have more room you can fix some simple meals and snacks.

Forgot to mention - most museums have cafeterias/cafe's and you can get full meals or just snacks/sandwiches/etc. Also major department stores have restuarants and/or cafe's for quick snacks.

There is a chain called Garfunkal's (think Denny's) with many locations. Not exactly gourmet food but prices are on the lower end of the restuarant price range.

Sorry, for mis-understandings, but my original inquiry was 7 GBP per person "PER MEAL", excluding drinks & service. It was not 7 GBP per person for an entire day, but PER MEAL for each person. Taking into account 2 meals while touring a day (excluding snacks and drinks), I was really asking about 14 GBP per person, per day for meals.

I think based on most responses...12 to 20 GBP "PER DAY", looks like what most people are advising. So my original 7 times 2 equals 14...looks like it might be in the right ballpark.

London is expensive! I was there for the first time last May and tried to keep my dining expenses down. Here's a list of restaurants where I ate: http://www.luvtotravel.homestead.com/Londondining.html

Monica ((F))

Thanks Monica

Monica. I like those places on your list, and have eaten at all but one of them, but most seem to be nearly double the budget being discussed.

By the way, Rock and Sole Plaice is the first place I ever encountered that charging in US dollars deal. I argued for a bit, they insisted it was done through their American Bank and there was no charge. I didn't feel like arguing about such a small amount. Guess what? When I returned I saw it was at the exact same rate that I got on my Citibank card at all other restaurants. So I was actually NOT ripped off.

Yes, I know the places I went to were more expensive than the discussion here, but I thought it would help someone.

The argument I had with the waitress turned my great lunch into a disappointment. I'd go back again but would definitely pay in cash.

Monica ((F))

>>>>I think based on most responses...12 to 20 GBP "PER DAY", looks like what most people are advising. So my original 7 times 2 equals 14...looks like it might be in the right ballpark.<<<

Chocolate, This isn't what most people are saying. Most people are saying that unless you're eating sandwiches all day everyday, that 7 GBP per meal is going to be very difficult.

Are you not planning of having drinks of any kind with any meal?

And I know I'm going to regret saying this, but I think it's inappropriate to go into a sit down restaurant, even a low end one, and order two meals for a pair of adults and a 7 YO. Maybe if he were a toddler. At the very least, ask ahead, or you may find yourselves socked with an "extra plate" charge.

I appreciate budget travel requires careful planning and that London is a very expensive city. Perhaps you would consider skipping afternoon tea at Browns or Harrods and giving your food budget a little breathing room? A traditional tea at one of the big hotels or Harrods is going to cost you well over $100 for three (and you will be expected to pay for 3). Besides it's a sugar intense experience and that seems to be an issue for your boy.

Good luck!