Do You Budget Your Meals in Advance?
 

I never budget for meals -- I eat cheap sometimes, and splurge sometimes and do a lot of both on most trips. But food isn't something I 'budget' for.

The only meals I 'plan' ahead before going on a trip is when I want to dine a a special place that requires booking far in advance.

Well, I am one of the world's great "foodies" so I never give meal costs a second thought when traveling or even when not traveling for that matter. I try (and am almost always successful) to scope out restaurants with the best food regardless of price. Like janise, sometimes I eat at casual places, other times I dine more upscale and still other times I eat at Michelin Star restaurants. It all depends on my mood at the time. I have no idea, nor do I care, how much I spend for meals when I travel.

Do You Budget Your Meals in Advance?

Nope. We're pretty casual, value for money types. Never stepped foot inside a Michelin Star restaurant. Splash out meals just aren't our thing, so no need to budget for them.

I eat street fare AND Michelin stars -- still don't 'budget' for it.

Not really, we rent apartments often so have breakfast in and sometimes dinner if it has been a long day of touring. I got addicted to high-end gin the last trip and my drinks were costing almost 10 euro. We were eating 10 dollar pizzas at O'Connell's beer garden in Galway, The Dough brothers made wood fire pizzas and drinking ten dollar g&ts. I loved it and the atmosphere was great. We do early birds or fix prices meals often in Paris. We try and pick a nice place to eat in each city. We also love big lunches and lighter dinners.

No. We typically plan for one "big" dinner depending on the nature and place of the trip and otherwise wing it. I think being a couple, rather than a family, and neither of us being picky eaters or on special diets helps with that. We also like discovering places once we get there.

We don't budget for meal. We often plan in advance to eat at certain restaurants, but we don't budget for it.

Nope, depending on our destination, do lots of research on popular/new/touted spots from articles, guidebooks, across the spectrum from very casual to very fancy, see if they fit into our mode, and map them out. I know for Paris, I have a long list by arrondissment and metro stop with name/address that has been curated (there's that word again!) for our consideration. The fanciest in Paris was lunch at the Grand Vefour some years back which was so memorable and perfect that I wrote many pages in my journal about it! Another favorite bistro is Guy Savoy's Les Bouquinistes along left bank. But then there was a little out of way "dive" sort of place in Rome where we were the only tourists among the locals who all stared at us -- gotta love it! We like to mix it up.

Lol, this is an interesting question!

One time I forgot to budget for meals for a 2-week trip to Switzerland -- I ate a LOT of meals in grocery stores that trip!

Normally I budget $50 per day for my meals, but I've upped that to $75 so that I won't miss you on an especially good meal.

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No I don't budget for meals. But I like to eat casual, on the go, street foods, sidewalk cafes, bakeries, grocery stores... not in higher end places. So it isn't really an issue.

I'm not sure that "budget for" is exactly what we do, but I think my way of doing it falls more into the Yes category than the NO.

We don't drink alcohol so that saves a ton, and we will definitely eat outside my general budget rules, but we try to spend no more than 100 USD for dinner for two. This generally excludes Michelin stars or high end dining, but that's OK because we like big flavors more than we like fine dining.

If I'm researching restaurants, this is the money category I like to make my lists from. This all applies to travel only. We mostly eat at home when at home, but it's because we're saving for travel.

We don't have a budget for meals, much like the other posters, I'll plan and book a couple of high end restaurants, the rest of the time we will decide where to eat while we are there. It can be casual, cheap places or mid range, a mix of all price ranges. It's more a case of do we feel like spending $$$$ on a meal rather than can we afford to or have we budgeted for it.

Not really. I may have money set aside for eating out, but I don't strictly follow that budget.

We're pretty big on destination restaurants (i.e., michelin starred places) so we set aside budget for that. And to make up for it we try to eat frugally for our other meals. Depending on where you're traveling, you can usually eat quite well by hitting up street food places and the local grocery stores.

I make budget planning. For each country I go through, I find the average hostel cost per night, then multiply that by the approximate number of nights I'll be in the country.

Same for food. I look around for how much other backpackers were spending per day on food, then add a little because calories are the only thing keeping this beer belly intact.

I like to book an airbnb apartment with a kitchen instead of a hotel, so I can cook breakfasts (and sometimes dinners) using local ingredients bought in grocery store (and this way save some money and try more local food).
With saved money I recommend searching on google maps for 4.5+ stars restaurant with a price tag of $ or $$. And look at the photos, so you know if you would like to eat their menu or not.