Meal Planners

I used E-Mealz for almost a year and thought it was great. I think I paid $12 or $15 every 3 months. I finally ended my subscription because I have so many weeks of meals and shopping lists printed out.

I have been using emealz.com. It is $15 for three months. There are lots of options to choose from. Some of the menus try to take into account what is on sale that week.

http://e-mealz.com/amember/go.php?r=128856&i=l0

I messaged MomOfMultiples after I saw her response and she told me about makedinnereasy.com. OMG!!! I am so excited to try it! Its free and it lists 5 dinners with pictures, recipes and shopping list! And its NORMAL food! I don't like to cook and I'm not good at it and I think I can even do these. So check it out! Good luck! =)

Do a bi-weekly menu and that way you know in advance what to buy and what to have on hand all the time.

In several foster homes I know of the moms work full time and they have developed good home planning tools.

One has a bi-weekly menu and since she has been at this a long time she has about 10 of them she can switch out. It goes from her hubby's payday to his next payday so she can buy the groceries she needs to make the meals.

The other one has several month long menus and she shops on their paydays the first. She does do some shopping during the month too but the bulk of her shopping is on the first of the month.

You can find sample menus on any child care center site, menu planning sites, etc...there are tons of resources out there where you can just copy off what someone else is having. The newspaper has the kids school lunches in it on Sunday. Go to the library and go through some back editions and copy their menus. That way you are sure you are getting a good main dish and serving good sides with them.

A friend of mine and I just started a cooking co-op of sorts. We take turns planning the weekly menus and shopping lists. We also plan to shop together sometimes (if feasible) or even batch cook some. But so far we've just exchanged the recipes. It's a fun way to get some new ideas and you only have to plan every-other week.
It's not a meal service, but its free and so far pretty fun!

I have tried things like this a few times. I didn't like it too much because my husband is kinda picky about the quality of his food and we have certain things we like and don't like. I do better with a menu I make myself from the things we like to eat (there are lots of them -- like I can make a 7 week menu without many repeats). I tried entering all my stuff in and having it work that way, but it really just didn't. Now I just keep certain things on hand and make sure my husband cooks in bulk (he's the better cook between us) so I can freeze what he makes to have quick meals most of the time.

We got the suggestion of the Daily Scramble from this site, and so far have been pretty happy. thescramble.com, I think. Every week there's a new menu of 5 recipes, you can then swap in and out recipes to make your own menu. When you are done, you print a shopping list, sorted by type of food, and the recipes. Most of the recipes are easy and well documented enough that my formerly non-cooking husband now considers himself the chef of the family, and they are both tasty and healthy. one warning - they sometimes underestimate the prep time once you factor in the suggested sides.

Nope. My system is free.

Rotate these main dishes each week in a month: beef, pork, fish 2x, chicken, 3S (soup salad sandwhich), leftovers/junk food, and write a dish for each day of the week on the calendar.

Then grab 3 or 4 of your basic cookbooks. I use Betty Crocker, 6 Ingredients or Less, and Easy Crockpot Recipes. Turn to the first main dish recipe for each day and mark the cookbook and page number. For each of my cookbooks I started at the beginning and put a date next to each recipe I haven't tried. If my family liked it, I put a smiley face next to it.

You can also make up a grocery list as you go along, before putting up your cookbooks. Then each night when its time to start dinner, all you ahve to do is check your calendar, pull out that days cookbook, turn to the page your wrote down and you are set to start dinner.

hth

I currently subscribe to one called Six o'clock scramble, and I really like it. I don't necessarily follow it to the letter--sometimes I just want to make an old family favorite, sometimes I don't like a certain dish the meal plan presents. But you can customize it, there's a search feature for recipes and you can save favorites in a recipe box. I also got the subscription for cheap--I think it was a Mamapedia offer a few months back. Definitely a quick solution to "what's for dinner?"