I’ve long been a proponent of meal planning. It’s one of the easiest ways I know to save yourself some serious money. And it doesn’t hurt that it also keeps the family from harping at you at the end of the day asking, “What’s for dinner?”
I’ve always been the type to do my own meal planning. It’s not something that takes me a long time (partly because I’ve been doing it for so long), and it totally takes away that wondering each night what to cook for dinner.
However, a few months ago I needed to take meal planning off my plate and let someone else handle it for a while.
I knew that I hadn’t been feeling well and that household tasks had been falling through the cracks. Turns out I was sick and didn’t realize it yet. But needing to see that we were fed didn’t go away simply because I wasn’t meal planning. It just became a bigger pain because I hadn’t been proactive.
So I turned to one of my favorites and joined her $5 Meal plan.
The $5 Meal Plan was convenient
It was so simple and convenient. Each week I would get an email telling me that my new meal plan for the week was ready. The email included a link so that I could download the weekly plan so I would click over to that, download and save it to my computer, and go from there.
I’d look over the recipes to make for the week and check the grocery shopping list that was part of each weekly meal plan. Often I would find that I didn’t need to purchase everything needed to cook the recipes (I keep a well stocked pantry so that’s where I pull from first). I’d then make my grocery list based on what was missing from my own pantry stockpile and what was on sale that week.
Then each night I’d simply follow her recipe (or hand it to hubby to do the cooking) and we were happily well fed.
It was cheap
The $5 Meal Plan truly is just $5 a month. Divide that by four weeks and for $1.25 per week someone else was planning the menu and creating the shopping list for me. Honestly, it was the best $5 I spent each month because I just didn’t have the energy to do the planning myself.
I only wish I’d discovered the $5 Meal Plan when my kids were still home and I was working full time!
There were dietary choices to make when choosing a plan
When I selected the $5 Meal plan I chose to go with I selected the gluten-free plan. But it wasn’t the only option available. They have a classic meal plan as well for those who don’t have allergies or food sensitivities.
I used the meal planning service for several months and I was very happy with the variety of recipes that I’d get each week. It definitely wasn’t a case of getting the same recipes over and over again to the point where your family would get tired of eating the same old thing. The variety was perfect and the recipes weren’t difficult to make or the kind that used ingredients that were super exotic and expensive.
Just good recipes to get everyone fed.
You can save and keep your meal plans to reuse again and again
You certainly don’t have to save the meal plans and recipes, but I did. This means that after several months if you decide that you don’t need the service any longer you can go back and pull out old meal plans and use them again.
I’m definitely doing that!
The customer service was AWESOME!
Now, when I found out what I was suffering from, I emailed their customer support and cancelled my subscription (I had cancer and we knew that my diet was going to seriously change for a bit so we no longer needed the meal plan). I was astounded to find an email reply to my situation the very same day! Not only was the email timely, but they were so nice about my situation that I truly felt like I’d just told a friend what was wrong. They really were that nice and supportive!
Reasons you might need a meal plan
Like I’ve said, meal planning isn’t hard. And I encourage everyone who wants to save time and money to create a weekly meal plan if for no other reason than it makes things easier at the end of the day.
However, there are seasons of life when you might need someone else to do the planning for you. Perhaps you’re in an especially busy time. You may have little kids running around who require your attention and you hardly get a moment to even think about sitting down to make a meal plan. Or maybe you’ve got a new baby in the house.
Or you might have elderly parents that you’re taking care of and you have no free time to think about what’s for dinner at your own house.
Or perhaps you’re like I was and you’ve just been diagnosed with a health crisis or you’ve been dealing with the effects of one for a while and your energy is low.
Whatever the situation that’s preventing you from doing your own meal planning, the $5 Meal Plan is a great option at a super price.
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