The limited allowance of replicator use issued to each member of Voyager's crew to save energy, which quickly became the ship's unofficial currency.
Replicator rations are the fixed allowance of replicator use given to everyone aboard USS Voyager. Stranded in the Delta Quadrant with no starbase to resupply her, Janeway restricts the energy-hungry replicators almost at once, and the crew eat most of their meals in the mess hall, where Neelix cooks with food grown and gathered along the way.
The scheme shapes daily life in the early seasons. In The Cloud Janeway goes without her coffee rather than spend a ration, and crew members save their credits for gifts and small luxuries.
Rations also serve as money. They are the usual stake in wagers, and in Meld Tom Paris runs a betting pool paid in rations until Chakotay shuts it down. The related practice of hoarding and trading holodeck time is mentioned in the same way.