Considering Emeals

Will all of my meal planning talk recently, the latest Groupon Portland deal on Emeals (thru Friday 3/15/13) seems like kismet!  Have you heard of www.emeals.com?

It’s basically a one-stop meal planning service which sounds awesome!

I would just get the dinners option for $29 (that’s a meal plan every week for a year, for only $29, normally $58), but they have a few different plans based upon which meals you cook daily, and then you can choose your food style:

Classic, Clean Eating, Simple Gourmet, Paleo, Low Carb, Low Fat, Portion Control, Natural & Organic, Vegetarian, and Gluten Free

You also choose whether you need a plan that serves 3-5 per meal or 1-2 which I find very helpful since it’s just two of us. Leftovers are nice but realistically they wind up in the trash most often.

Somehow they also connect with some of the grocery store sales for that week so you can pick the store you shop at the most:

ALDI, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs, Safeway, Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods

I’m typically an Albertsons or Fred Meyer girl myself, or WinCo if I feel like making the drive (and maybe I will if it’s just once a week), but I think just having a shopping list will save me money, even if I’m not at one of the stores listed above.

Every week they’ll email you the next 7-day plan with all the recipes and it totals up all of the ingredients that you’ll need so you can go through and cross off what’s already in your pantry and then shop for the rest.

Check out some of these sample plans… classic… simple gourmet… natural & organic.

Fun, right?!

I realize that meal planning in itself isn’t THAT hard, just write down the recipes and what you need, but that still takes precious time and right now I just want it done for me. This makes it a total no-brainer, just print the list each week and go.

It will also give me some new meals to try without having to hop on Pinterest for “just a minute” to choose some recipes.  Inevitably that minute turns into three hours and I’ve only written down one recipe to make but I’ve added another 30 on my to-try board.  Not that I’m giving up Pinterest, I’m not saying that at all!!

Oh, and another selling point?

Dave Ramsey is a fan which means it MUST help you save money, right?!

I think I’ve just talked myself into doing it but I’d love to hear from anyone that has any direct experience with it, good or bad, I’d love some real life reviews if you’ve got them!