Meal planning – you know you should do it, you know that it will save your family hundreds of dollars on your grocery bill but, let us get real folks, meal planning is no fun. It is time consuming and sometimes we just do not do it out of shear resentment.
Last year, when I was pregnant with our second child and chasing around an eighteen month old, I was desperate to get our grocery budget under control as we were making the switch to clean eating. I would spend hours upon hours on Pinterest looking up recipes and meal ideas.
I was over it.
In Become a Frugalista – Money-Saving Secrets for the Frugal Family Manager *, Susan Heid mentions how eMeals * helped her get her family of seven’s (including teenagers) grocery budget under control. I desperately wanted that heck I needed that! So, I made the difficult decision, one I thought I would never make, I purchased a three month clean eating meal plan from eMeals.
I have not looked back since.
It saved not only my grocery budget, but my sanity as well. Now, as a mom to two boys under two years old, who you would swear are secretly teenagers by the amount of food they consume, eMeals is a necessity.
I truly hated spending the money because of the free options of Pinterest and Google but I knew they were not working out for me. I no longer spend countless hours on my laptop trying to figure out heathy, clean recipes for my family to consume every week. I simply print off my meal plan and my grocery list (eMeals GIVES you the grocery list), and add anything that we may be in need of like toilet paper, or other personal hygiene products.
I am finished meal planning in about ten minutes and can then return to my normally scheduled life and go snuggle my hubs on the couch.
Wondering what kind of recipes you can expect from eMeals – these are all from the clean eating plan and I can attest to their deliciousness!
Baked Ziti with Italian Turkey Sausage
Chicken and Corn Chowder (a personal fav for the winter and fall months – perfect for tailgating!)
You can find more of my family’s favorite recipes here or check out what eMeals has to offer on their blog here.
Interested in trying eMeals for yourself? Use the code SCHOOL to receive 20% off any dinner subscription plan! That is awesome because when I originally signed up, I only received 15%!
Oh, but that is not all y’all….
I love to help my readers out in any way that I can, so the good folks over at eMeals are letting me give away a three-month dinner subscription to ANY dinner plan to one of my readers. How awesome is that? 🙂
All you have to do is enter below and good luck!!!
***Product will be supplied by eMeals. The Budget Mama is not responsible for product fulfillment.
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Money controlling you? I know the feeling. My family has been living this real life on a budget for a long time and I can tell you that there's never a perfect season, but with a few changes you can start to reign in your money issues.
Join the 5-Day Challenge today and start getting your money life in order this week!
Personally, I am so terrible at meal planning! I will come home from work and think, ehhh I don’t really feel like eating that etc. Having someone else make the decisions of what to make for me would probably help lol.
Hahahaha! Stacie it definitely does help! 🙂
I have looked into eMeals several times and I have no clue why I haven’t signed up! I need to just give it a try and see if it works as well for us as it does y’all!
KayKay, it’s awesome! You definitely should try it – worth every penny! 🙂
I always get on pinterest to look for meal planning ideas but that is a complete FAIL! They all seem a little unrealistic and way to EXPENSIVE. I love your blog and thank you for posting!
Thank you Patti! Pinterest can be so overwhelming when it comes to meal planning.
I would love to try Meal Planning to get my family dinners in tip top shape. I am especially interested in the clean eating edition.
Clean eating is awesome and eMeals makes it super easy!
I have always been intrigued by this but we have so many different eating styles in my home it seems impossible! I’m a gluten free vegetarian trying to be vegan, my teen daughter is gluten free, and the boys … well, they love gluten and meat;0) Such a dilemma!
I have tried several different methods for planning our meals, but the one I am using right now has worked out the best. I basically keep track of everything we eat (even snacks!) and just copy and paste on my excel spreadsheet. So now we are eating a lot of the same things, but it is a whole lot easier for me to plan and we don’t spend as much as we used to. I will have to check out emeals and see if it could help us out!
That’s an awesome and easy way to meal plan (and it’s free)! 🙂
I meal plan, but I’m awful at it. I try to be creative with my meals, but find that I keep making the same things over and over again. This would make life much easier!
I freeze family-size portions of chicken breasts and cooked ground beef to make meal-planning easier.
Sometimes I try to alternate the meats we eat. Chicken one week, beef the next. Sometimes its easier to buy two huge packages of chicken and use it all up than to buy two different things. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s a nice thought 🙂
Would love to win this sub…I’m terrible at meal planning because I work 10 hour days and have two little kids and a husband who really isn’t a cook. SO, its usually a couple trips to the store each week and I wind up spending more than I should! Thanks for posting all your great frugal tips!
I try to keep a running list of meals that my family likes and just pick from them each week. I’ve always wanted to try emeals!
I hate meal planning, and always end up forgetting something on the list. This would be interesting to try!
Thank you for sharing these useful tips on meal planning at Inspire Me Mondays. Please be sure to come back and link up with us again next week!
I may have to give that a try! I just moved in with my man (from living alone) and two kids. I became an instant mom and its exhausting! Having someone else plan my meals would help tremendously! I will have to check out the pricing, tight budget the next few months!
This is great! I love reading other blogs about meal planning and that give ideas! I am new to blogging about these things so thanks for the inspiration! I will keep following you! Great recipes! Thanks