If you’ve vowed that 2012 is going to be the year to save more, you really need to start meal planning. It’s seriously been one of the biggest money savers for our family. The old saying “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” has been so true for us when it comes to meal planning. The weeks that I don’t plan tend to be stressful and usually result in totally throwing our budget out the window. The weeks that I do a good job of menu planning tend to be much less stressful and don’t require 9 million extra trips to the grocery store or an expedition through the drive thru!
Right now there is a new menu planning service available that is FREE and it works with what’s on sale at your local store! I signed up in November and was amazed at how easy it was. I chose my local Kroger, chose the types of food we like, and selected my regular grocery shopping day.
The service is extremely easy to use and it even considers what’s important to you on any given week (saving time, eating healthy, making familiar meals). It then gave me lots of items to choose from. Some of the items I chose were for things I already had around here (pork chops and chicken thighs). I then chose the recipes I wanted to make and when I was done, I had a grocery list available to me of everything I would need. I went through my pantry to see what we already had (and deleted those items from the list…so easy to do) and then I added a few items I needed to the list and I was done! They even have a free iPhone download so I can pull up my list at the store if I happen to forget it at home (something that happens to me on a regular basis!)
If you choose the free option of this service, you’ll get 3 meals a week. If you want more than that, you’ll need to pay the upgraded free of $5/month. The free plan works perfectly for me as we have family favorites that we regularly serve each week, so I don’t need a full week of menu plans. I just need a little extra inspiration!
This is a very easy way to do menu planning and I love that it takes advantage of local sales!
