Keeping the costs down

[sprocketrocket]

Festivals are infamously expensive for food and drink. What are your top tips for keeping the cost of Glastonbury down, without restricting too much fun? 

We'll be travelling with three (hungry) kids so top food tips are very welcome as well as the other stuff. 

[Skip997]

Food - Hare Krishna tent does free food or bring your own if you have cooking facilities. 

Booze - bring your own

[Neil]

19 minutes ago, sprocketrocket said:

Festivals are infamously expensive for food and drink. What are your top tips for keeping the cost of Glastonbury down, without restricting too much fun? 

We'll be travelling with three (hungry) kids so top food tips are very welcome as well as the other stuff. 

take as much dry food for the kids  as you can carry - granola bars, etc. light to carry, and will fill a hole in the kids bellies. if you can take a kettle and stove Pot Noodles are ideal, as they're light, warming, and reasonably filling,  but cheap enough to bin if you don't use and don't want to carry back.

realise in advance that you'll need to spend money at expensive stalls to feed the kids to stop them from whining.

good luck, enjoy......

[Peter_Quaife]

Now bare in mind I'm only going for the 1st time, but we've been planning our group strategy re supping and eating, some great tips and tricks in here, a real source of great info. We've a campervan and are bringing blue ice blocks that'll chill during the night in the wee freezer part of the fridge. I've a large square collapsible cool bag (from Lidl) that will be brought, stores about 30 cans. 

We're planning to bring in some cans in small backpacks and leave the large cool bag in the lockups filled with beer and ice blocks, possibly ice from the co-op. Travel back to lockup to stock up with oldish beer / cider in the evening time. 

In saying that we're definitely doing a pub crawl around the site too! Can't wait 

[StoneCircle]

There is a Co-op where you can get sandwiches in a meal deal along with a drink + other snacks or bacon. bread, eggs if you plan to cook your own breakfast.Sells everything you might need apart from alcohol! 😀

[sunnyshoes]

I was gonna mention the Co-op. This helped with lunch as just got sandwiches and crisps. I can't remember how much extra they were compared to a normal Co-op but did think it was a cheaper option than the food stalls. My son is obsessed with the Hippy Chippy (cheesy chips) stalls so was happy enough with them for a meal too. (Healthy eating goes out of the window at Glasto I think). Not sure if it was there last year or not but think the bakery near to the main entrance to the kids field did pizza slices too which was another decent option. 

I don't bother taking my own foody bits as just don't want to carry stuff around but obvs that would save tons of cash. 

[Mich1268]

Camp reasonably near to the coop onsite. Take a camping stove for bacon/vegan sarnies and noodle pots. Get them into those lentil packs you can just heat. Fills the stomach. 

[Crazyfool01]

there were some stalls that sold £5 meals last time ..... although im sure the cost will have risen for this year 

[Cleoclaptrap]

You want a ready supply of things to hand out. The obvious ones are, crisps, nut bars, individual soreen bars, made up bags/pots of sweet mix ups etc. 

Frozen capri sun and similar keep your stuff cool while camping and are refreshing when its hot.

Make cake tray bakes or flap jack, customise to your kids taste.

Have different coloured pots/bags for each child.

Take small toys for when they just need a bit of time to themselves in the throng.

Wraps. Hot dogs. Bags of rice. Quick cook pasta. Make and freeze sauces. 

If you can afford it give them all a budget for the day for ice cream, cake, brightly coloured eye catching stuff etc

[guypjfreak]

Your at glasto.. Expect to go home skint... If your looking at it and going ahh money your not enjoying it... ... But all advice above is great 

[carlosj]

On 4/26/2023 at 11:09 AM, sprocketrocket said:

Festivals are infamously expensive for food and drink. What are your top tips for keeping the cost of Glastonbury down, without restricting too much fun? 

We'll be travelling with three (hungry) kids so top food tips are very welcome as well as the other stuff. 

How old are your kids?

Chocolate, soft drinks, snacks etc. are expensive so taking them (and leaving in lockups for storage?) will save you money, maybe something for breakfast at the tent, leaving onsite options for the rest. Or, reusable water bottles for each of them?

There has been a £5 scheme on many stalls to keep some food cheaper, but the green/healing fields and up the hill towards the tipis will have veggie/vegan cheaper options. Others are across the site, another thread gives details on general food. I think the tea tent is over there too, 50p a cup.

People rave over the mac & cheese stall in the Acoustic field, there'll be other variants around which should be cheaper.

Can you buy the larger portions and divide them out?

As a cheaper memento, are the Guardian newspaper fabric bags still being sold? Maybe get one each for carrying stuff and a souvenir unless you're buying shirts.

If these are teens, then phone charger packs are all they need 😁

[Another eforum account]

Also worth asking at stalls if they do half portions - green field more owner-run stalls more likely to do so. The cafe in the permaculture garden is great value.

[lillypip]

We found our kids (then aged 4 and under) became really fussy eaters at Glastonbury.  They’re normally good eaters, so i think perhaps just being really over stimulated, meant that they wanted pretty boring comfort food.  We learned quickly to order one meal for us, let them try it, and then only order more if they liked it, as we were throwing away so much food before that.  We also ended up relying on the same thing a couple of times; choc and banana crepes were always a hit, as was the roast chicken stall which sold heavenly potatoes, cooked in the chicken fat!

 

We tried to buy one meal a day, and then feed from our own supplies the rest of the time, but without going back to then van,  so we needed portable and lightweight but filling food.  We found small tins of baked beans, macaroni cheese, sweetcorn etc were relatively lightweight, could be eaten cold, were filling, and you just needed to pack a spoon.  We took individually wrapped choc croissants/brioche and soreen/banana loaf.  Dried fruits like apricots/raisins.  Breadsticks/crackers and biscuits, biscuits and more biscuits.  We also took a bag of those ‘natural’ jelly sweet snakes for each day.  We called them “power snakes” and gave them to the kids/adults when they were lagging.  The combination of the magic of the name and sugar always worked for the kids as a good pick-me-up.  Pack way more snacks than you think you’ll need, as the adults will tear in to them too.

 

Then be prepared to sell your soul if the kids like ice creams.  I cant remember what we paid at West Holts last year, but I swear it was over a fiver per lolly.  And of course the kids want those at least twice a day!!

[Neil]

If you can keep out of the bars you can do glasto fairly cheap.