Originally Posted by
undisputed83
I think I can spend as little as $10 a day sometimes. I could buy a box of granola bars and eat most of those in the morning. Have a sandwich for lunch and dinner. As long as I have supermarkets handy, I can eat for cheap. I could find hotdog stands and such in other towns and spend a few bucks on that meal. Somedays I might slurge a little. I know somedays I'll probably spend more like $20. But I will try to be a minimalist as much as possible.
Here again your inexperience is showing. You plan to ride 100 miles a day (or 10 hours a day ... which is actually probably more like 100 km a day) on a box of granola bars, and a couple sandwiches a day.
I've been fine eating that little on really short tours, but on my 90 day tour, about 2 weeks into the tour I had very little energy and was desparately craving meat. Two nights in a row we happened to be in a situation where we were given large servings of meat by other campers who were horrified how little food we had. What a difference!! From then on we ate ... A LOT! I was eating anywhere between about half again as much and twice as much as I do when I'm not on tour. And I was losing weight.
So whatever your normal daily food budget is ... double it.
And double it not only because you may eat twice as much, but also because your food sources are likely going to be small grocery stores out in the middle of nowhere who charge 25% to 50% more than what you might find in your supermarket in the city. If you get into a touristy area, you may be paying twice as much for your can of beans and loaf of bread.
If you have the time to shop around a bit, you may get some good deals ... but you're planning to spend all day long cycling, so you'll end up shopping wherever there's a food source.