It's pretty common knowledge that planning your meals in advance can save you money at the grocery store. The theory is that you have all your meals planned, and have a list of what to buy at the grocery store, so you can coordinate with the current sales and you only buy what you need and therefore spend less money. I remember when I was little, my mom would pull out 10 different store ads and she would sit for hours planning that week's shopping list and all of our meals based on what was on sale and which coupons she had on hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have time for all that mess. I work a job and have a household to attend to. I don't have the leisure to just sit down and plan a menu and shopping list.
So, I set out to find some quick internet assistance on my time and meal planning dilemma.
I discovered a few sites, and I am passing them to you, along with my thoughts on each.
The first site I discovered in my internet travels was: MealsMatter.org.
After registering, I finally got settled into working with the site. I decided to start my planning immediately and jumped into what I would have for breakfast tomorrow. I clicked on "Add Recipe" and found myself jumping for joy. They have hundreds of recipes, which are sorted into every category you could imagine. They even have holiday recipes. You can add items to your "pantry" so you can be sure to use things you already have on hand. You can also add your own recipes to the "My Cookbook" section for quick reference. Planning a week's worth of different and delicious meals took me about 30 minutes, but I still had to check the grocery store ad to see what was on sale. I do recommend checking it out.
The next site I checked out was Monthly Meal Planner. Honestly, this site was much more difficult to navigate than the aforementioned site, and it really wasn't much help to me. It might be better for those families who buy in bulk, but it wasn't for me.
The last site on my internet conquest for meal planning domination was: Food on the table.
As soon as I signed in, I was directed to choose my grocery store. I chose the Kroger that I frequent, and the nearest HEB. The site then pulled sale prices from those stores...I didn't have to do anything except select the sorts of things I enjoy eating (like poultry, beef, veggies, etc.). I found they had a wide variety of recipes, and you can select recipes based on what is on sale at your local market, you can then import those recipes into a shopping list and print out the list or have it sent to your mobile phone.
I started out by adding two ingredients that were on sale (shrimp & catfish), and then selected recipes to use to prepare them. It imported all the ingredients I needed to prepare the recipes and I had to remove the items that I already had in my pantry. I could have also added personal care items if I needed to the list as well. There are pros and cons to this site, to access all the recipes, you have to fork out some $$. Not interested in doing that. Also, this isn't a "meal planner" as it is more of a grocery list generator. It saved me some time, but I still had to go back through my pantry and see what I already had on hand. It is very user friendly, and will find the sale items for you, which is a big time saver.
I do recommend you look at all of them and see which site suits your needs.
Happy Planning!
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