I don't think there's a right answer here since it depends on your family's eating style, enthusiasm for characters, and attraction priorities in addition to your budget.
We are a family of vegetarians who find that the character meal buffets are our best meals. We tend offset the cost of that by eating breakfast in our room, packing in a bunch of healthy snacks (veggies and proteins), and only sit down to one meal a day (usually in the middlish of the day, so could be late breakfast, lunch, or early dinner).
We supplement our sit down meal with whatever we are carrying and purchase snacks that strike us throughout the day (which could include popping into a quick service spot and then splitting an entree). Disney does offer vegetarians more choices the average theme park, but the fact that most quick service and even many table service menus tend to have 1 vegetarian entree and maybe a couple of sides is part of our decision here. At home, we don't typically eat places where we all have to order the same meal.
Another consideration is how you want to use your time. Character meals mean you don't have to stand in line to meet those characters. Depending on crowd levels, that can be considerable. If you visit once or only every few years and you have to eat anyway, the additional cost factors differently.
We are going to be annual pass holders for the first time Sept 2019-2020, so the deal with my daughter for cutting cots is one character meal per trip, so we'll see how that goes.