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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What's For Dinner?



"What's for dinner?"

I hear that phrase everyday. It haunts me in my dreams.

Cooking a hearty meal everyday for three guys is a daunting task at best. Add to the recipe homeschooling, work, busy schedules, aged sick parents, house cleaning, laundry, and a barking dog; it can get ugly quick in my world. Finding the time it takes to sit down and write a meal plan is more than I can accomplish some weeks. It is an abominable task for me and should be against the law. Alas, it is not against the law and keeping my hungry guys fed and happy is something that falls into my lap on a daily basis.

Boy Howdy! One day I found the site http://www.e-mealz.com/ and my life became easier overnight. First let me say that I am in no way associated with this site. I do not know the women who host this site or as far as I am aware, anyone remotely associated with them. I will not receive one red cent for promoting this site. It is just something that works for me and I want to pass it along to other busy families who want to save money, sanity and time. Someone posted this site on a homeschool digest that I subscribe to and POOF, my world improved for the better.

You can explore the site and decide for yourself it is worth $5.00 per month to have someone else provide a weekly menu, write your grocery list and list sale prices at the local Super Wal-Mart or other major grocery chains. You can choose a menu plan for two people or up to six people. (If you have more than six people in your family, you have my undying respect.) You can choose from low fat or low carb plans, points system and even vegetarian plans. Alternatively, you can do like myself and choose the basic “any store” plan.

I have been using this site since March 2008, and most of the recipes I have tried my guys have eaten without complaint. Occasionally, I will find a recipe we do not enjoy; but when that happens, I cross it off the list, replace it with something of my choice, and add the new items to my grocery list. Since I do major grocery shopping every two weeks, I print off two weeks worth of meals. I then highlight the ones I will use, cross out the meal number of the ones I will not use on the grocery-shopping list, add my other items and, shazam, I am ready to hit the grocery store aisles.

My plan is to subscribe to this system for one year. I download the weekly meal plan into a file on my desktop. Near the end of February 2009, I will cancel the plan, have saved 52 weeks worth of menus and shopping lists, be wiser, and much better looking because of decreased stress lines.

This really works for me. Sure hope it works for you as well. You can find more great "Works For Me" tips at RocksInMyDryer.net.

Thanks for reading, Rosie

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