AKICILJ: Food costs

[telophase]

I'm constructing a rough (very rough!) budget for the October trip myrialux, and am not sure what to budget for food per day. Obviously, it'll probably be a bit higher in London than in the hinterlands. We're not interested in maxing out on cheap food - I for one find that eating really good food is one of the purposes of a trip - but we're not going to be eating dinner in places that require coat and tie, either. The idea is to budget enough so that we can drop into pretty much any sort of restaurant short of coat-and-tie and not worry about the money. (That being said, we both have fond memories of sandwich shops, so will end up eating a lot, I expect! I am already jonesing for egg-and-cress.)

So ... any ideas? I'm currently *over*estimating on my budget because I always like having more money than I really need. :)

For those who are curious, it's looking more an more like this trip will be confined to the south of England and Wales, as I want to go back over my old Carmarthen stomping grounds and Toby wants to go to Cardiff and back to Brighton for more than the two hours he got to spend wandering around last time he was there. (We're both interested in a later trip that focuses on Scotland, so never fear, we will eventually get there although we don't know what year that may be!)

Comments

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to see what people say. I don't know what costs are like in London, but I'll make a guesstimate for comparison when more knowledgeable people reply.

Breakfast: $5 - $10
Lunch: $10 - $20
Dinner: $15 - $25 on average

So I'd say maybe budget $50 (or even $55) per person per day. Hopefully you'd often run under budget, allowing you to splurge at fancier places now and then.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Made slightly more (or less?) complicated by some of the hotels/B&Bs we'll be staying at serving breakfast as part of the tariff. :D

Right now, I've thrown in a wild-ass-guesstimate of $50/person/day, with $75/person/day for the days in London.

(If London is anything like other large cities I've been to, I'd actually project more like $25-35 for dinner...)

[weirdquark]

Last time I was in London (a few years ago) prices for most things in pounds were about what you'd expect for a similar thing in the US in dollars. (So a sandwich might be around 7 pounds instead of 7 dollars.) Which was all well and good, except that the exchange rate was about 2 dollars to a pound, so everything was twice as expensive as it looked.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

They were like that when I was in London back in 1991! (And the exchange rate was the same, also. I always travel whenever the exchange rate is awful for me.)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

The exchange rate is more like $1.60 to the pound at the moment, fortunately.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Just you wait - I predict it'll be back up to close to $2 in October!

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

It was that way when I went (about five years ago).

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

Even in my "barely even qualifies as London" part of the city I'd expect to budget between £7-15 per person($10-$22 according to xe.com today) for an average eating experience (Wetherspoons for example, quite nice but nowhere near high class) depending on what it is you're ordering. Obviously Central London hike their prices because they can get away with it, but there are some nice restaurants near Leicester Square that I'd budget £20-£30 for and a lot of pubs tend to do some sort of menu from about 12-6pm if you end up just needing food right now (and they tend to be cheaper too).

But yeah, over-estimating is a good idea. I live here and I still end up doing that just in case. XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! If I assume we'll eat at £20-£30 restaurants every night, it'll feel like we're saving so much money on the days we're too beat to do anything but grab a sandwich from some shop. XD

[weirdquark]

When I was there we'd sometimes grab Cornish Pasties for quick meals because they were pretty filling and "only" cost 5 pounds. I tried not to think about the fact that this meant they were $10 because man, that's depressing. ::g::

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

I second (third?) these numbers, with the added reminder that even when the service charge is not included in the bill a tip is entirely service-dependent, really only expected - though not required - in actual restaurants (I'd be highly unlikely to tip in a pub restaurant or cafe unless I wanted to acknowledge some particularly good service) and the standard is 10-15%.

Allow £40 a day for each of you and you should be able to enjoy an excellent breakfast, lunch and dinner, even in London. The cheaper sandwich shops will balance out the meals at £30 restaurants, which won't be often unless you have wine with your meal; I wouldn't expect to pay more than £20-25 for a fancy dinner, and good £15-20 places are pretty common.

My town is in the south of England, so while London has some particularly pricey areas and restaurants that you may want to visit I think the numbers I mention here are representative of non-London southern towns and cities.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Having just returned from London, I think that sounds reasonable.

Breakfast is going to depend heavily on your definition of the meal. If you can get by on a cup of coffee or tea and a croissant or something similar, you can easily get it for $5 or less if you are careful (i.e., eat at Pret a Manger, which is apparently the only place in London that sells a cup of coffee for a pound).

If you tend to lunch at sandwich places you can probably get by with $10 or so, maybe even less, although I should note I didn't try some of the trendier places like EAT. We averaged more than that for lunch but we didn't stick to sandwiches (two visits to Gourmet Burger Kitchen, for example, which is OK but skippable).

In theory that gives $60 for dinner, which is probably rather more than you need, but that just means there's plenty of slack for pricier lunches, snacks, etc.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Good, thanks. If we end up staying at the London Elizabeth Hotel, which Mom and I stayed at a few years back and liked, it looks like their continental breakfast is £5 (I think it was included back then, but they seem to have added a full-service restaurant in the intervening time), and ISTR there were lots of close-by places that we could eat at.

ETA: I knew I'd get mixed up between hotels! The Elizabeth on Eccleston Square is the one I mean, which has a free basic continental breakfast, but charges 7.50GBP for a full breakfast. *makes sure to bookmark proper hotel*

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

more like $25-35 for dinner

Yeah, I think you're right.

Aside 1: On the plus side, you don't need to worry about tipping, right?

Aside 2: Oh yeah, are you planning to use cash or credit card or what? The new credit laws apparently have led many credit card companies to charge higher fees for foreign transactions (including transactions paid in dollars!).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

1: Yup! :D

2: I'll check what USAA's credit card is going to be doing for international transactions, but I usually use it because it seems that USAA tends to hold on to transactions until the exchange rate is slightly more in their favor before putting it on the card. XD

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Tipping is actually pretty variable, at least in London. A lot of places added a service charge automatically, but some did not, requiring a separate tip. And I don't think we ate anywhere that included it in the listed prices, as is the norm in France (for example).

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Another thought: I also like to enjoy tasty food as part of travel.

But I think when I was in elementary school and we were on sabbatical and traveling in Europe, sometimes for meals we made do with bread, lunch meat, fruit, and salad bought from a supermarket. I guess my mother brought a few seasonings (e.g. for salad dressing: salt, pepper, oil, ketchup, soy, vinegar). So if you knew ahead of time you were going to a pricey dinner, you could try to balance it out at lunch.

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

I stayed at two different bed & breakfasts in London; at both of them I disliked the included breakfast enough that I ended up eating out a few times. It wasn't really bad, but it wasn't good, either, and I dislike consuming food that I don't enjoy.

On the plus side, there were a lot of little convenience-store-sized mini-supermarkets with very nice prepared foods. I don't remember how much anything cost, though it didn't strike me as being too expensive.

Remember to call your credit card companies before you go to alert them that you'll be making charges abroad, and when you do that, you can ask them what rate they'll be charging you for foreign transactions.

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

Totally by the by, could you not just make egg and cress sandwiches yourself? They'd probably taste better than the pre-packaged ones too...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Can't get cress here! Not in any of the stores, at least - I'd have to grow it myself and I have no idea if they sell seeds or seedlings here. :D


(As an aside, I think part of my fascination with the sandwiches is tied up with memories of gathering watercress, the related plant, in Africa when I lived there - we visited a researcher couple staying in the Ngorongoro Crater, and I remember going out with the wife to gather watercress from the pond nearby for lunch. :D)

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

That is actually the best reason EVER for liking cress. :D

Why not pick up some seeds while you're here? It'd probably be cheaper, as cress isn't exactly a speciality item here, and as I understand it cress is ridiculously easy to grow. It'd be an unusual souvenir for yourself, but probably more appreciated!

[puppleball.livejournal.com]

have you looked in the asian markets? I swear I've seen it on occasion, but then again, all the green stuff looks about the same to me.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Cress is watercress, and isn't sold in the supermarkets in your area? Weird, if so.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cress is not watercress, but related to it and is not sold in the supermarkets here. I have to go to Central Markup to get watercress, but it doesn't have cress.