A rotisserie chicken? Some cans of soup? A run through a fast food? What’s for dinner on these busy weeknights of the school year? I know, even those of us that like to cook- it can become this burden! We totally stress to find something new, yummy, kid approved, healthy and FAST!
A friend of mine introduced me to something life changing, time saving and AMAZING! This website changed the way I shop, the amount of $$$ we spend on food, we eat healthier AND it takes the burden out of feeding your family!
Changes how you shop!
For years I would go into the store with a sketchy list of what I was going to cook. Usually it would be for a couple days, maybe a week if I was really ambitious. I’d let impulse buys and new ideas take over. I would end up at home with about 90% of what I needed and about thirty items I didn’t. This website I’m going to introduce to you creates a grocery list for you based on the meals you put into your weekly plan. The list is organized by department in the store. You can take this list on your shopping trip OR even better… sit on your couch and place your online order directly from your list!
Save $$$
If it’s almost time to eat and I haven’t planned: it’s going to be takeout. Just being honest, DoorDash drivers know me. When you start to add up all the drive through, take out, delivery meals it really can be a lot. I want those things to be rare splurges because I want that money to go to other things!
Eat Healthier
With just a tiny bit of planning – (seriously it only takes about 15-20 minutes once a week once you have it set up) you can make choices that are healthy! We all want to build the healthy eating habits in our kids and we have to take some intentional steps in order for that to happen.
SO… What is it?
Click on the image to be redirected to their website.
Here is how it works. You copy and paste any recipes you want to use into the site and within about ten seconds it has a grocery list prepped for that recipe. If you want to enter family recipes manually you totally can… I pay my 13 year old to do that when she wants to make some extra cash.
Once you have a bunch of recipes loaded in, you go to the “plan” tab and schedule when you want to eat what. You can move things around, block out meals when you know you won’t be home- it’s super flexible and easy. For meals that are not a recipe for example, cereal. You just enter the items you need and click add to shopping list or not. Within about ten minutes you have a week of meals planed.
Then, just click on “shop” and it generates the list! I print my list and add stuff I need that is not a meal… like milk, juice, deodorant, etc… Then, I sit down with that list and put everything into my weekly online order. I go the next morning and pick everything up.
Extra Tips
- Plan some time to set up the site for your family- you need to get a good set of recipes in there to start from or you will have to slow down each week to do this.
- When you are up late scrolling Pinterest- use the tabs PlanToEat gives you to load those meals in RIGHT THEN!
- Do the tutorial at the beginning. It’s short but it shows you where everything is and tons of benefits I didn’t take time for here.
- You can share with friends and family! Check out that awesome feature.
- Click the “Challenges” tab to see all kinds of recipes and ideas!
