Meal Planning for Dummies

I'm not a good meal planner. In fact, I usually find myself looking like a deer in the headlights standing in front of my pantry. I have all this food and ingredients and no clue what to cook. I *think* I may have found a solution to my terrible meal planning. After doing some research online, I was lead to a website called, E-Mealz.

E-Mealz is a website you subscribe to that has 26 different menu plans to choose from, for example, family meals, meals for two, weight management, portion control, gluten free, low-carb, etc. After you choose which meal plan works for you, E-Mealz will plan an entire week of meals, as well as a shopping list (including sale items) to a store of your choosing.

Here are a few highlights taken off of their website:

• The dinner menu is concisely organized in a one-page chart (no long recipes or printing several pages - just one sheet to keep up with in your kitchen!)
• No wordy instructions - just to the point and easy to follow at-a-glance (for the harried Mom!)
• All the side dishes are included in the menu and grocery list
• Grocery list is concisely organized by grocery sections in a one-page chart
• Includes an extra column for you to add "Other Groceries I Need"
• The TOTAL COST of your grocery list is given at the bottom (except for the Any Store plans). We work to keep the grocery total at a $75 average.
• Necessary staples are listed and organized by meal #
• Want to eliminate a meal? Just cross out each grocery item on the grocery list with that corresponding meal # beside it. (Takes just a minute!)

This program is not free, but only runs you $5 a month or $1.25 per week. I truly believe it's a small price to pay, especially for someone like me who is a terrible meal planner and still a beginner cook. I'm definitely looking forward to starting this program, and you can definitely expect a full review once we've used it for a few weeks. Not only will E-Mealz save time and money (not eating out all the time), but it will help me to become a better cook.