Daily budget

Just wondering how much we (my husband and I) should budget per day for eating. From what I have researched its pretty expensive to eat in Las Vegas. What would you recommend?

 

For food my daily budget is actually around 20 or 30 $. If you're not going for fancy steakhouses or famous chef restaurants that is enough.

If you want to eat high class (and this is not expensive compared to other high class Restaurants in any other big city) you should plan on 50-100$ a meal. So you can spend 300$ day/person if you feel like it. But if you go for a brunch buffet and regular stuff for dinner you dont need that much..

 

It's really your call. You can eat at any level you want in Vegas, and the options grow immensely if you have a car and get out and explore.

 

+1. I know some people who just eat two meals a day instead of the normal three... breakfast/brunch buffet around 10am then dinner at a nice restaurant in the evening.

 

The great thing is....so many options in LV. We do the buffet of buffets once each trip and eat for almost 2 days (24 hour pass). We also buy some Restaurant.com certificates to slash the cost at some really nice restaurants. Plus we print online coupons for Nathan's, etc. We use our TR comps for most meals but that aside, we could both eat for under $50 a day using discounts...

 

We usually are cheap eaters - brother and I.

We can eat for $30 per person per day. We skip breakfast and enjoy places like Chipotle and will eat at other cheap places like Denny's ect.

If I'm with my wife...we spend more - but not tons more.

She like places like Mon Ami Gabi and the restaurant in the VP/ Plazzo.

This time around my brother and I will use My Vegas for 4 supers:

We may also go to Gilleys at TI, where we can both have supper for $50'with drinks.

If you are looking to eat cheaper try the restaurants . Com or groupon.

Make a budget for meals, do a bit of searching...and you CAN eat for whatever among you desire.

 

you can eat for a dollars or 500$ , its all depends on what your looking for and u can mix and match.

some people dont blink at spending 500$ a person for a meal some would never be cuaght dead at mcdonalds, theres a price point in vegas for all so you will be fine at what ever budget u choose. and theres always grand lux at ventian probaly one off the best bang for ur buxs really big plates for not that much in my opinion with qualty food,dont worry u wont go hungry

 

There is definitely a pretty broad range of dining options in Las Vegas that it works with just about every budget.

A few thoughts:

Fast Food:
McDonald's is still cheap in Las Vegas. They still have their dollar menu (though for locations on The Strip its a little more than a dollar per item) and they are all open 24 hours.
Most other food court/fast food options will be in the $7-9 range per person for the average places and some food courts have higher end versions (IE: Johnny Rocket's instead of McDonalds, Bonano's instead of Sbarro's, LA Subs instead of Subway, Pan Asian Express instead of Panda Express) where its typically $10-15 per person

Cafes & Coffee Shops:
Almost every hotel has one and you can typically expect to spend around $8-12 per person on food, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.
A few of these will have late night specials (after midnight and until some time in the morning, usually 6 or 7AM) where you can get some limited menu choices for a few dollars.

The "typical" hotel restaurant:
These can be a burger place or sandwich shop/deli to Asian cuisine. They will usually run around $15-25 per person.

Buffets:
The lower end buffets are still going to be around $20 per person for dinner, around $24-27 per person for middle of the road buffets and $35 for the higher end buffets.


Thats just a quick look at the typical fare out there for lower end dining options. There are plenty of choices for higher end where its pretty easy to spend hundreds (or more) on dinner for two or to find buffets that are cheaper or more expensive.

And note that the above prices are assuming you are looking at the lower end menu choices... like $8-12 at the coffee shop is the typical price for a standard breakfast (eggs, sausage or bacon, hashbrowns, toast), lunch (sandwich and fries), or dinner (a meat choice with veggies on the side) but they do have higher end choices like if you want to plunk down $25 for steak and eggs for breakfast or go for a nice dinner that can run you $30-40.

For drinks at most sit down restaurants its usually $3.50 for a soft drink with unlimited refills and $5-7 for something with alcohol. If you are drinking in the casino you can always save a bit there by not ordering drinks in the restaurant.

 

Maybe we're weird, but we usually don't do breakfast in order to sleep in. We usually stay up pretty late, and frankly prefer the extra snooze time over getting up for breakfast. So that basically leaves 2 meals.

Our biggest trick to saving money on food, (along with some great gaming vouchers too) is to purchase the LVA coupon book. We then, pig out/eat one lunch buffet per day. One way we rationalize the pig out, is by reminding ourselves we did skip breakfast, lol. We find the LVA coupons to be very helpful in saving tons of money on the buffets--most times a 50% discount.

But we do spend the extra money to have a car. This gives us the freedom to go everywhere around town, and use most of the coupons in the book. Hence, we find the car expense offset by those numerous offers. We prefer to avoid the whole taxi cab scene, with the long hauling, the worrying about how much to tip, etc. We've also on more than one occasion had extremely rude drivers, who were unhappy if the fare/length of the ride didn't satisfy them. I can't say that I blame them. They sometimes wait a long time for that fare opportunity. But we can't dictate where we want to go based on their fare needs. So we just gave up on that aspect, we now get our own car.

If we eat a 2nd meal, it's usually the smaller variety. Most times it's a fast food joint or coffee shop type place--hopefully again using a coupon.

We also like to go to the grocery store, in order get a few snack items for the room. This also allows us to avoid paying $3.00 for a 16 oz bottle of soda in the hotel hallways. It's the warehouse type grocery place on Flamingo & Decatur--Food for Less I think it's called.

Overall, we don't feel we spend that much more on food in Vegas vs. at home. And heck, you're entitled to spend a little more on vacation anyway, right?

 

How about working this backwards. Tell us what you would like to budget daily and then we can make better recommendations based on your budget?

There's a wealth of knowledge from the members here as far as eating options, from the very expensive to value plays to downright dirt cheap.

There's a lot of places in Vegas where you can eat well and not break the bank.

 

Where have you eaten on your previous trips?

 

Eating is my least favorite thing to do. I usually only eat twice a day and never spend more than $25 a day.

 

Where would I get one of these LVA coupon books?

Thank you!

 

Here
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/membership.cfm

 

You can realistically get by on $100 total per day.
Hell, even less if you opt for McDonalds and sandwiches from WalGreens.

How much do you gamble?
We charge all meals to our room and have them comped by the end of the trip.
Total expenses per trip (4 days/3 nights) is only about $250. Maybe $300 max and that is everything.
A portion of that is due to not always eating at a place that we can charge to the room.

 

u can eat real cheap or real expensive ,
u can do a breakfast fuffet for 7$ that will cover breafast and luch so all u need is dinner

theres plenty pizza fior 4$

all u can eat dinner for 15$

then dinners for 150$ per person

vegas is no differnt than any other city , theres all price points to float everybodys boat

u can go off strip theres free shuttle

cupons in magazines

a great magazine is called sunday amazing cupons for everything from drinks to food to gambling

 

OK, we generally eat pretty cheap, maybe one nice meal/trip. The nice meals are the deal breakers.
We bring breakfast/protein bars for breakfast.
We don't do buffets (unless they are free through a promotion)--why? On the strip, they are all overpriced. The lowest priced ones are "typical" buffets--bland, boring food, imo. Mediocre at best. The upper end buffets are better food--both in flavor & inventiveness, as well as selection--but are so expensive we cannot recommend. For $40-50/pp you can get a high quality sit down meal.
Check menus before going into a restaurant to avoid sticker shock as they are usually posted.
We will do chains that we don't have at home. (PF Changs, Cheesecake Factory, Hash a Go Go, etc.) as we know we will get reliable meals at a reasonable price.
We nearly always split an entree as portions are often much too large.
We also hit happy hours for bargain appetizers--loved Comme Ca at Cosmo 5:30-7.
Here is the happy hour thread: my comprehensive list is post #32. Things do change frequently, yet having maintained this list for several years, the majority have NOT changed.
https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?103585-2014-Drink-Specials-Happy-Hour-List/page4
As far as budget? I'd say we usually spend around $20-30 for lunch. Dinner can vary. $100 for decent meal, $30 for happy hour appetizers, $50 possibly at midrange.
Watch for coupon booklets, scour web for las vegas discounts, check out groupon & living social deals. I am surprised how many are at pretty good places!

 

My wife and I try to stay fairly cheap but always have one splurge meal.

We usually do a 3 day 2 night trip when we go to keep things fresh and fun.

The first night we are there we will hit one of the big buffets. Seems like PH's spice market is always running a bogo on Groupon so $35

Usually the first morning we are they we eat at Hash House A Go Go in the Quad for around $30

We don't normally eat lunch the second day as breakfast is so filling, but if we do we try to grab something quick and easy so maybe a hot dog from Nathans or something easy $10

Dinner the second night we tend to splurge. My wife and I while not foodies love to try the restaurants from the big name chefs like Bobby Flay and Gordon Ramsay. $150

The second morning we slum it and hit McDonald's, or drive down the strip a bit to the Denny's $10-$15

For lunch the last day we like to find something not heavy on the stomach or the wallet so at most $30

So our total for two people with one high end restaurant runs around $270 for 3 days 2 nights. If we drop the one big name we could get that down to say $150ish. But we got to Vegas to relax and enjoy things so we stopped worrying about cost of food.

 

We usually do a wrap each out by the pool (usually $15 each) and wash it down with about 3 or 4 buckets of beer ($120 or so), and then do a nice fancy meal for supper cause we don't eat out much at home (Usually try to stay less than $100-150 pp though)

 

If we have a day where we end up eating on the cheap, it'll probably go something like:
(not including taxes, tips or beverages)

Breakfast at McDonald's - $10 for 2
Ah the good ol' McMuffins and hashbrowns off the dollar menu

Lunch - $10 for 2
Usually I don't eat lunch at home, in Las Vegas I do most of the time and its usually something light-ish, so we will go to Subway or a cafe or something and split a sandwich.

Dinner - $25 for 2
Nothing specific, usually whatever restaurant catches our fancy and is close by... this is usually enough for 2 dinner items and an appetizer.


But even on days when we are going for better meals and nicer dining its usually still McDonald's for breakfast and something small, if anything, for lunch. After that if its a buffet thats usually $25-30 per person or a better restaurant is going to be around $20-35 per person (at least "better" than the coffee shop, I mean).