It seemed like a good idea at the time...

[HowDidThisHappenDinesh]

TLDR; need advice on how to split money for large group holiday!

Long version:
We are arranging a big group holiday for a family member's milestone birthday. about 25 of us driving from the south of England to the middle of France. There's been the expected amount of umming and ahhing and dropping out/last minute additions, I accounted for this, and also expect some level of CFery based on the number of Mumsnet threads about holiday money split stress I've ready!
So far all is going well though and everyone seems a reasonable bunch - but to prevent as much of the financial awkwardness as possible I want to set some ground rules etc and get the general vibe of what's easiest/preferable for people.

1. So far most people seem amicable to pooling money into a kitty and paying for groceries from that. I have a Revolut account that only gets used for trips abroad that I can use for this purpose, and whoever does the shopping on whatever day can take the card, or I can reimburse costs back to people. Does this seem like the fairest approach, and how much per person per day should I ask for?
2. I've delegated meal prep between adults who enjoy cooking, and cleaning up to people who don't! Breakfast and dinner will be prepared each day, with lunch as a sort of do-it-yourself/eat leftovers vibe as some of us might be out in the day. Should I also plan to provide lunches or is half-board basis ok? (I've also planned one activity per day, opt in or out, so there is some structure to the holiday for the energetic types, but no obligation for those that want to lounge around!)
3. I already know this will come up, so, some meals are slightly fancier than others and the couple preparing it said they are prepared to pay for their food. I'd like to say ok and in that case reduce their contribution to the kitty/write it off completely (they are staying only a few days, not the whole time), does this seem fair or will people kick off?

Some other context so as not to drip feed:
There's no cost for accommodation, people have to pay for their own travel and food.
Alcohol is not included in the kitty, everyone who drinks is asked to bring a bottle of spirits and a couple of bottles of wine etc.
25 people in total are coming, most are adults, a couple of teenagers and one young adult who doesn't work. Thinking of only asking the working adults to contribute to the kitty calculated on a per person per day basis.
Anything left in the kitty will be reimbursed to people. If we go through it too fast I'm not sure what we'll do.
Also, I'm aware sorting meals for everyone and dealing with money is a thankless job. I volunteered to project manage the holiday as a sort of gift for this family member, who doesn't need any gifts other than the family being together.

What has been most successful for you in group holidays? How much is fair to ask people to contribute? Haven't been to France since pre-pandemic so not sure how much grocery budget is adequate. Thanks in advance for any advice or insight!

Thanks, I also think £10 is too little. Do you think £100 per person would be reasonable, at least to start (not including booze)?

I think this sounds brilliant! Do you have space for a small 26th guest? 😉 or at least help me organise my life?

Just remember that if there's any hiccups along the way, it's not your fault. You are very generous to spend so much time planning this for everyone. Well done!

When I last did a large family vacay to France, we did something similar but we didn’t do a lot of cooking. Food is expensive in France and it is often cheaper to eat out. The last time I was in a SuperU, I was surprised I paid ~25% more for raw produce, meats etc. I only really saved money on the wine.

I can’t fault the selection though. So much more varied, especially when it came to seafood!

Just do £100, if there's more needed ask for it.

Any left over gets distributed back evenly.

Well, actually probably consider a "daily" charge.

So charge (for example) £10 pp/pd. So the 3 day people pay £30 for their stay, and 7 day people £70.

Then you can give back remainder as per their stay at end. So if it averages at (say) £9 pp/pd in the end, give 3 day people £3 back and 7 day people £7.

Otherwise people staying 3 days are paying £100 for 3 days food, and others are getting 7 days of food.

£10 per person per day is ridiculously low.

£10 per person per day will be wiped out in no time.

Just say £100pp. The teenagers parents will have to pay for them because that's what happens when you're a kid. Bizarre that you'd give the unemployed adult a free ride too.

Do a huge shop, croissants and crumpets and ham and cheese and jam for breakfast. Big baguettes, charcuterie, olives, cheeses and stuff to make toasties. Lots and lots of big bags of crisps. Salad stuff.

Pizzas always pizzas in this situation. You'll need to buy around 20! But easy to have pizzas going steadily in and out of the oven with bowls of salad.

Bbq works too. Chicken skewers and nice pork steaks with corn on the cob and a couple of salads and baguettes.

We do annual villa holidays with the family of about 15-20 people. No cost for accommodation but people pay for their own flights.

We keep it very easy. Maybe decide in the morning what we want for dinner. We start the kitty at £50 each (adults only) and top up when needed. This includes some general alcohol but if people want say spirits or the like they buy that themselves. Usually we take it in turns to shop/cook but there’s no set schedule. We also eat out too.

Activities wise, personally we find everyone prefers to do their own thing. Well maybe arrange a tour one day, and a boat trip another which can accommodate everyone but usually it’s a case of people waking up and deciding what to do that day. Someone will say ‘I’m heading to the beach, anyone want to join me’. Some will, some just loves chilling around the pool reading. It’s a holiday so even though I’m a planner, I accept that the rest of the group prefer to not have everything organised.

Either way, these have been some of our best holidays so just enjoying the opportunity to all be together.

If all 25 people are there for 3 days that’s £750 for just those 3 days for a light breakfast and an evening meal. That’s more then enough considering it’s not covering any booze.

I doubt they are doing individual steaks each, more things like pizzas & salads etc that are cheap.

How would 100pp work out for the ones that are only there for 3 or 5 nights instead of the full 7?

"How would 100pp work out for the ones that are only there for 3 or 5 nights instead of the full 7?"

Half it for those staying 3. It's really not rocket science.

Well that’s not £100pp then is it. It’s really not rocket science.

Download the Intermarché app and you'll get a good feel for prices. It's much easier tonuse than thé Leclerc or carrefour ones. Most places are near tonone and you could shop by 'drive' where you collect your order in a Time slot.

"Well that’s not £100pp then is it. It’s really not rocket science."

Really? 🤣 they'll never get to France if they're that hard of thinking. Goodness me

Whatever you estimate ask for, add 25-50%. Better to give people money back on the last day or so than have to ask for more.

Bear in mind op, you're gonna be cooking/shopping/planning a lot whilst you're there.

I've been on tons of holidays like this and that is what takes the most time.

Do not be afraid to delegate

We’ve done similar - 5 couples, 1 baby - but she was mine and not weaned! DH likes to cook, but cooking for large couples is very different, didn’t have enough room in one pan etc etc, a learning curve.

I’m assuming you’ve worked out which supermarket is closer, the price of produce in France is higher, some things quite substantially. The organiser in me is itching to say… plan the dinners, you’re always bound to get one person who doesn’t “like” what someone is cooking, if they have a heads up, they could prepare an alternative for themselves. If we were to go again, I’d go to Costco, bulk buy something so there’s plenty of it.

I think I would do a very loose meal plan.

Breakfast. Cereal, fruit, yoghurt, tea and coffee, maybe fruit juice. Bread and cheese / jam.

Whoever gets up first sets this out (in my family this is me, I am incapable of sleeping past 6 am).

Teens job is to set table and clear up as they are not cooking. OK that's my assumption. If you have a teenage masterchef get them cooking.

Lunch.

Salads, pate, soup maybe, and some cooked meats / cheese. And bread.

Dinner.

Let the people cooking choose which day they are cooking so if day one is Chicken - they choose whether to roast whole chickens or make a casserole, or do 2 or 3 different things. They choose the veg and the pudding (which I would buy at a local place).

Day 2 might be mice so those cooking get to choose if it is burgers, cottage pie, lasagne etc. Again they choose veg and pudding.

Day 3 BBQ.

You get the idea.

I split my time between F and UK. Budget wise, my shop in the UK is now roughly equivalent to my shop in France. (UK used to be a lot cheaper.) There's really not much difference in cost anymore, although the quality in F is far superior.

I can recommend Picard https://www.picard.fr/ for frozen foods BTW if you want to get some staples in. Quiche, pizzas, tarts, ice cream etc especially the raspberry macaron, which makes a lovely celebratory pud!

Thank you this is so helpful, and they deliver! This will be useful

Incredibly helpful also! Thank you! There is an intermarché nearby, I’ll plan a big shop there on the first day

Yes, but they don’t drink (or shouldn’t!) So I find it evens out with the drinking adults.

An update for anyone who’s interested! We went and it was brilliant. Seriously so grateful to everyone who made it the best holiday for my DM. Everyone pitched in with either cooking or cleaning up so the load felt pretty fairly shared. I even got to put my feet up a couple of times and relax!
We all contributed £15 per person per night with teenagers/unemployed adults paying half of that (that worked for us but it’s obviously completely circumstantial) and that covered all our food comfortably. There was a bit left at the end which we used to cover some of the tolls for the drivers. Planning breakfast/brunch and dinner worked well, no picky eaters which really helped but there was the option to cook for themselves if they did want to opt out of what was planned.
We planned lunch to be self serve but found that people didn’t help themselves unless someone started it off with getting options out of the fridge etc… if I did it again I’d do breakfast and lunch ‘buffets’ at loosely set times.
We were quite far south in France and found the grocery prices comparable or cheaper than UK supermarkets (although saying that, I do live in London so it’s hard to shock me with prices these days 😂)
The property was amazing also, I highly recommend, someone asked me for the link which I’ll happily share via PM if anyone wants.

All in all, a formidable amount of work but I definitely did overthink a bit, 92% of people were happy with the food price I set and the others were easily pacified. We’re talking about doing it again!

Genuinely glad to hear it was such a success! Well done to all of you for making it work!

Would love the details, thank you 🙏🏻

OP I can't work out how to PM you but I would love a link to the property.