Group holiday - cost of food.

[PandaOrLion]

Six adults away for a week in a fairly rural area, self catering. Roughly 7 breakfasts, 4 lunches and five dinners, plus snacks like crisps and chocolate. No alcohol.

How much would you expect to pay per person?

Per person I'd say:
Breakfast 7×£3
Lunch 4×£4
Dinner 5×£5
Snacks £10
= £72

Don't ask for your useless friends' opinions. TELL them it's going to be £30, 40 or 50 p.p., and to inform you by [date, time] if that is beyond their budget.

Ask the mst price sensitive person if £40 is ok then

Is there even a menu plan or are you expected to think it all up too?

Maybe you just need to tell them all to help.

@MaverickGooseGoose your are right I stand corrected.

Nice pastries, filter coffee, fresh proper orange juice PROPER BUTTER IN A BLACK WRAPPER and of course nice cheese for lunch and so on... I think I £5 lunch £5 breakfast and £ 10 for dinner -and then naice dinner is about right.

Why aren't the other people just bringing their own food? Why are you having to buy for everyone and co-ordinate and work out costs??? I assume the others are all adults?

Could each couple bring along a main meal, or the ingredients to make one? Then the rest is shared?

Give everyone a list of the basics you are buying for everyone- eg 12 eggs, 2 loaves bread, 2 bottles of milk etc and then anything extra they bring themselves? Or couple 1- bring eggs, bread, milk, couple 2 bring ketchup, X, Y, Z.

I'm not sure how you can predict a cost ahead of time- without knowing what they will eat/want to eat? You might well end up out of pocket or blamed for lack of food/wrong foods.

Whatever happens, I'd make it VERY clear who is paying what BEFOREHAND and how its being organised. I have bitter experience of going on a self catering then being sent a bill afterwards for things I would have easily taking along if I'd know my 'friend' would charge me afterwards!

🤪

£100 pp

It’s not couples that we’re going with. I’m sure you can all appreciate that within a friendship group some people will be straightforward and easy growing, plan and cook meals, participate easily. Other people don’t have the capacity for that, either currently or permanently.

Its DH and I then one friend who is having chemo, one friend who has an acquired brain injury, his brother who I don’t know, and a friend who will only be there for part of the week and really, really needs a break! I’m currently on May leave so have time to organise things like this and that way I know things like me not eating gluten or someone else’s fish allergy won’t be forgotten.

I appreciate the comments, thanks everyone. It’s given a good ballpark figure.

£50pp minimum

For a week probably around £50 per person with some nicer dinners. I think we were £30 per person on a camping trip in France!

£8 per adult per 24 hour period in my group catering role. Factoring in it looks like you aren't doing every lunch and dinner, and assuming cooked breakfast each day 5 x 8=£40. Could be done for £6pp/pd if you really wanted :-)

My first thought was about £100pp which seems like a lot but not if you want treats, nice snacks etc.

If its not including alcohol I'd say £50 pp that's a £300 shop. You should be able to get some nice bits in that

OP- the updated info on who is going makes it easier to understand why you are organising it all. Are you going to be expected to cook for everyone, every meal also or can others help?

To work out a closer costing, could you make a rough meal plan and check everyone eats/would eat that?
Breakfast 1- XYZ and ABC, breakfast 2 full english
Lunch 1- spaghetti bolognese etc

Then work out- 2kg mince, 1kg onions etc etc and divide up? That would be far closer to the actual cost than us on MN making random guesses to costings on what you and group would be eating.

I think everyone needs input into this as you are all so different . £40 spend in Tesco is not the same as £40 spend in Waitrose.
I would ask people for the money up front too. Money seems less upfront than after a cheeky fucker eats all the ham/ crisps/wine by the end of the week.

I think I'd expect to be paying £40 at minimum.

£35 = £15 for dinners
£2.504 = £10 for lunches
£10 for breakfasts
£5 for snacks.

I'd probably be making my decision based on what I know about my friends. I think they'd kill me, or at the very least look at me as if I had two heads if I turned up with value cheddar on the online shop. If you're walking or cycling every day you're likely to need vast amounts of food.
I think the problem with holiday food is it's not like a dinner party where it you have 6 people you probably only need to cater for 5, because everyone is there for ages and is usually quite active or grazing.

Just thinking about breakfast alone:

Let's say you decide to do cereal 3 days, croissants 2 days and full English twice.

Say 60g cereal pp pd - 360 X 3 = over a kilo of cereal.
Plus 24 croissants/pain au chocolat
Plus 24 rashers of bacon plus 18 (?) Sausages, plus 18 (?) Eggs plus hash browns and baked beans and a loaf of bread.

And then one day someone will decide they want toast as well because they're hungry. Or someone will want yogurt and fruit as a second course. Or someone will wake up early and have cereal in a full English day and then a full English. Or it turns out someone actually eats 100g a day of cereal because let's face it 60g doesn't go far if you're out all day. Or someone wants poached eggs on toast instead of cereal one day but suddenly that means everyone does and you actually needed 30 eggs.

And then bread wise, most people are going to want 3 slices worth of sandwiches if it's an active holiday, so at 14 slices a loaf that's 1.3 loaves a day so 5.2 loafs plus breakfast on top. And say each person's sandwiches use 1.5 slices of ham, that's still 9 slices a day which is 2 full packs so potentially 8 packs of ham.

I just find the volume of food I end up buying for 6 adults (especially active ones on an active holiday) is enormous!

I've done bargain catering before but it's only possible if you meal plan and don't allow deviation from the plan which my friends were gone with when we were all skint and which they would be horrified by now.

Yes, we have a meal plan that everyone can help cook and eat.

It’s more a case now of thinking about how much of the extra stuff to make it nice. So I’ve got it to the cheapest it can be, and I don’t know how much extra to add in and still be affordable when no one will commit when they can afford. I needed a ballpark from people here of what was a good amount.

For example- we’re eating curry. I’ve factored in naan and rice. Do I add in samosas too, and poppadoms and mango chutney or just some of them etc

It’s amazing how differently people eat so it’s worth asking in advance what sort of things they like. I’ve been away with people who will only have specific brands of everything and eat multiple snacks per day (all bought on the group budget but kept in a cupboard with their surname on!!), people who choose to eat out every lunchtime “because we’ll only have sandwiches in the evening” then decide that whatever you’re cooking looks nice and they’ll have some of that instead. People who decide that they have food intolerances but can miraculously eat those items when they choose to (obv not people with actual allergies who do need to be catered for). Then there’s the booze when some drink like fish and some don’t. Minefield!! Some sort of meal plan or at least plan that you’ll rotate the cooking between the adults is helpful. And hopefully an awareness of others circumstances if they differ (we’ve been the poor relations and it isn’t funny to get a huge bill at the end from people with vastly higher means).

If OP is gluten free the snacks will be much more expensive than bobby basic prices and if you are wanting bread for lunch the bread will also be much more expensive and you will need two different types of bread and likely need at least two choices of cereal etc etc.

Personally when we go away for a week I order for the first half of the week, and plan another online delivery during the stay. Then you can see what has gone down well, what is not being eaten, and ask people to help you meal plan the rest of the week

I would go for £50 pp . I personally cannot imagine having a holiday where people worry about the pennies..too stressful!

I'd expect £30 each if it was a weekend!

Minimum £50 each, more likely £70 - that's only £10 day

Are you all bringing alcohol or is that a separate budget?

You can really see in this thread who hasn't been keeping an eye on the price of things!

I think you will send yourself mad trying to cover all bases.

People will have to bring stuff. Get everyone to bring things and order a simple main food shop.

Tell everyone to bring their own breakfast faves.

Get people to bring the tea and coffee / drinks they like.

One person sort the household stuff so you don't have tonnes of foil, washing liquid, soap, kitchen roll etc. Dont need tk buy it all afresh for a week.

Keep breakfast simple. Maybe 1 of 2 fry ups but mainly cereals/ toast/ jam.

Lunches simple too.

Lots of sarnie stuff.

youll need loads of bread and milk

Cooking all those meals is a bind.

Make one of your meals really easy like pizza.

Another meal of soup with part baked rolls and nice dessert.

Curry and chilli are good calls. Rice naan mango chutney samosa or onion bahjiis all great with the curry, with the chilli lots of cheese (pre grated) and sour cream, do nachos with guacamole.

Tell people to bring some food they like for lunches and treats (not everyone will,).

Make one meal a using everything up leftovers meal

An a couple of pub meals or takeaway. Done!

There’s an app called split wise which is really good, everyone puts in what they have spent and it calculates who owes who what, that might help in this situation if you end up all buying extra bits and bobs. It’s like the electronic version of labelling reciepts and adding it up at the end. Plus the app works it out for you who owes who what.
it’s a bit corporate looking but I’ve also used it for nights out with big groups etc. makes sure no one gets stung unintentionally