Food is usually the 3rd highest cost of a holiday so if you're wanting to be careful with your spending in this area you should set yourself a total amount you want to spend and break it down to an each day cost.
We set our food budget to $400 per person on our recent trip to Rarotonga. Being the tropics, we tend to eat only fruit for breakfast so only the cost of lunch and dinner was needed to be covered each day and we thought a maximum of $20 per meal would be a good average.
Our visit was a total of 9 days so I allowed $40per person per day + a little for the times spent at airports if needed. Hoping we didn’t need that much we thought we might afford a few cocktails during our stay with this amount each set aside.
Not wanting to be too frugal this trip we decided to source some cheaper eating places as research for the blog ;) as well as a couple of restaurant meals to see if it was still possible to spend less than our allocated $40 per person, per day.
On return from our visit, I added up our food costs and was shocked to find we only spent $265 each on eating out. This did afford us a few cocktails while here and with our duty free bottle of bourbon when arrived kept alcohol costs down. Food wasn’t needed at airports in transit as Virgin provided food during all flights and we only spent a total of $20 buying fruit and UHT milk for coffee in our accommodation.
FOOD COSTS FROM OUR 2019 TRIP
Total amount spent was $600 for 2 people over 9 days.
MONDAY
REEFSIDE RAROTONGA
2 x Coffee $10
THE MOORING FISH CAFE
2 x Fish Sandwich $30
1 x Fruit smoothie $7.50
CHARLIE’S CAFE
Vegetable Panini shared $18
TOTAL COST $65.50nz
TUESDAY
LBV
2 x Coffee $10
DELI-LICIOUS CAFÉ
2 x Breakfast special $20
1 x OJ shared $5
(dinner at Island dancing show)
TOTAL COST$35.00nz
WEDNESDAY
DELI-LICIOUS CAFÉ
2 x Breakfast special $20
1 x Coffee $5
ROADSIDE STALL
Coconut water (Nu) $5
MURI NIGHT MARKET
1 x Lamb curry & rice $16
1 x Chicken & rice $16
TOTAL COST $62.00nz
THURSDAY
Fruit for breakfast
REEFSIDE RAROTONGA
2 x Coffee $10
CHARLIE’S CAFÉ
1 x Fish sandwich shared $14
PALACE TAKEAWAY
2 x Chicken Burger $16
TOTAL COST $40.00nz
FRIDAY
Fruit for breakfast
REEFSIDE RAROTONGA
2 x Coffee $10
THE MOORING FISH CAFÉ
1 x Fish sandwich shared $15
SPAGHETTI HOUSE
2 x Chicken Fettuccini $46
TOTAL COST $71.00nz
SATURDAY
PUNANGA NUI MARKET
2 x Egg & Bacon Roll $14
2 x Smoothie $10
COCONUT CRAB CAFÉ
1 x Tuna Sammie $6
1 x Chicken Roti Wrap $6
2 x Coffee $10
Made own tea in accom.
TOTAL COST $46.00nz
SUNDAY
REEFSIDE RAROTONGA
2 x Coffee $10
THE MOORING FISH CAFÉ
2 x Fish sandwich $30
MURI NIGHT MARKET
1 x Pizza shared $20
TOTAL COST $60.00nz
MONDAY
Breakfast provided at Club Raro
THE MOORING FISH CAFÉ
2 x Fish sandwich $30
SPAGHETTI HOUSE
1 x Vegetable Fettuccini $17.50
1 x Chicken Calzone $18
TOTAL COST $65.50nz
TUESDAY
Breakfast provided at Club Raro
REEFSIDE RAROTONGA
2 x Coffee $10
THE MOORING
FISH CAFÉ
2 x Fish Sandwich $30
VAIANA’S
1 x Chicken skewers w/salad $15
1 x Fish & Chips $15
TOTAL COST $70.00nz
+
DUTY FREE
Alcohol $25
GROCERIES
Fruit & UHT milk $20
DRINKS PURCHASED
4 Cocktails $40
TOTAL COST EXTRAS $85.00nz
TOTAL HOLIDAY FOOD COSTS
$600 nzd
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