Meal Planning

I was looking at our budget the other day and realized that we were spending a ton of money on groceries...at least what I would consider to be a ton on groceries.  My friend that has five kids...I'm not spending as much as she is, so maybe I'm still ok.  However, I would really like to decrease my grocery budget. 

I spend a lot of time planning out our menus.  I usually do two weeks of meal plans, make a grocery list and go shopping every payday for the next two weeks of groceries.  I don't think it's my planning that's lacking though, I think it's the meals I'm making.  I think our meal choices are too expensive.

I have little control over my husband's meals.  He's on a strict eating regiment during the day because of a health plan he's on and he also has celiac so everything has to be gluten free. 

I've been looking for a way to take the stress out of planning dinners though.  As you know, I homeschool and am in school myself, so by the end of the day, I really want dinner to be a non-stress thing.  I just found a website that I'm hoping will help me with that and I'd urge you to check it out to see if it would work for you.  It's Dave Ramsey approved which I found really exciting because you know there's something money-saving about it.

So, the site is called E-mealz.  They do the meal planning for you and have a pre-made grocery list.  It comes out to $1.25/week which I found pretty cheap for all the time that they're saving you.  I just subscribed and downloaded my first two weeks of menus.  They look really good and the stuff looks like stuff my kids will actually eat.  I'll keep you updated on how it goes, but until then, check out the site and see if it's something you'd like to use too.