Alright. After one full month of using Goodbudget, following a Grown Up 2017 budget, and keeping track of everything we spent, we found that we overspent on our estimate of food $$ by almost 200%. Planned on about $250, spent over $500. NOPE. THAT has gotta stop. Meal planning, here I come.
I spent a full afternoon trying out 7-8 different sites before landing on Plan to Eat. I was a little leery because it's only free for 30 days and then it's $5/month, but it doesn't require you to enter your card info when signing up so I figured what's the harm? Here's what I wanted:
-Something that would enable me to input normal recipes without being too overly complicated
-Something that wouldn't make me feel like a totally uncultured swine for not using fancy ingredients that I probably pronounced incorrectly
-Something that would allow me to drag-and-drop meals onto a calendar
-Something that would then convert the next week's meal plan into a grocery list that I could add and subtract from as needed
-Something that could scrape local ads and match meals up with sales and reflect that on the grocery list
Plan to Eat does everything but the last item, but frankly I found a simple and thrifty way around that.
-Something that would enable me to input normal recipes without being too overly complicated
It took me about half an hour to put all of the recipes we usually eat into this. Some of them were basic, like Oatmeal-- it takes one full box to feed everyone if we eat it for breakfast-- and some had multiple ingredients.
-Something that wouldn't make me feel like a totally uncultured swine for not using fancy ingredients that I probably pronounced incorrectly
Sometimes, when you have three little kids and your husband just got home from work, you need to make something you know will go over well and is fast. Like kraft mac and cheese. It allows you to input amount, units (boxes/sticks/cups/etc it's a blank text box!), and ingredient names, and how many this particular recipe will serve. If you plan to serve double that, it'll automatically adjust the amount you need to get in your grocery list!
-Something that would allow me to drag-and-drop meals onto a calendar
IT'S BEAUTIFUL :O
Here's this week. You literally drag and drop. On the side it'll tell you how many times total you've planned a meal, and how many times recently you've planned it. You can also put something in the Freezer(!!) if you are into freezing meals ahead of time. Haven't played with that yet, but the option is there once I get the basics down. I only found this out later, but you can put more than one item under each meal!! I'm vegetarian, Sister B is vegan, and everyone else loves meat as well as veggies. Being able to plan multi-course meals is AMAZING. You can plan for a week or a month, and click over to the next month EASY. So, so beautiful.
-Something that would then convert the next week's meal plan into a grocery list that I could add and subtract from as needed
This was after grocery shopping and after taking into account everything I already had. I ended up stopping at Hardings after Meijer but forgot to check it off to reflect that, hah. As you can see, everything is automatically calculated and combined to show me in simple terms what I need to get. If I want details, I can refer to the little [letters] and their corresponding meals. It's worth noting that they have no app, so I ended up having their site open while I shopped and it was clean and easy to use. ("Snacky," was budgeted in to account for the random little items I'd see and think hey that's a great snack for the week, btw) You can file each item under multiple stores as well or choose to view by stores vs categories. Shop at Aldis, Hardings, Wal-Mart, and Meijer without forgetting any sales! Notice the Planner Date Range-- if you want to and have it already planned, you could shop far ahead in advance and SAVE SO MUCH MONEY/
You can click on each item and add notes or move it to a different category. This helps SO MUCH, particularly with the next item...
-Something that could scrape local ads and match meals up with sales and reflect that on the grocery list
So, this was kind of asking a lot and to be honest there's no app that does this really well-- there's some facebook groups who sit down and do this by hand, but that's as close as you're gonna get for now. I found that when dragging-and-dropping onto the calendar, if I consulted the local ads and just skimmed it it gave me an idea of what would be a good idea for the week. It'd be easy to add the prices in the notes, or remind yourself of sales, change the quantity you want to get manually (beyond just what your plan calls for-- maybe you want to stock up!), or mention you have a coupon. I haven't found any other site that did this, particularly in such a clean and appealing design.
The Results This Week?
I stuck to my list because I KNEW I wasn't forgetting anything (and knew exactly what stores I had to go to for which item). It was $80, but I have a feeling I could get that lower. We've stuck to following the plan, and I intend to print out a copy of the menu to stick on the fridge in addition to being able to reference the site. I made it a point to plan things that would result in leftovers for the next day for Eric to take to work.
Next Time:
On Saturday I'll consult the ads and do another round of meal planning. I'm always forgetting my mPerks, so I'll skim through those as well. There's an option to add Staples (things you always need to have around, like TP, dishwasher pods, laundry soap, etc), but as we've been buying most of those in bulk from Sams Club I haven't played with it much yet. My mom, who did meal-planning via pen and paper, suggested I try to have themed meals and rotate between a couple options for each theme. Then it'll be off to the store, probably with my trusty shopping partner Izzy in tow. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing our monthly grocery bill go down, finding ways to get it lower (Sister B and I are working on making bread and rolls 'cause we use so much of it and handmade is tastier than a machine but man bread is difficult), and bringing an end to the part of marriage where we have the "what do you want for dinner?" "I dunno, what do you want?" conversation several times per week!