E-mealz was recommended to me by my sister-in-law and a friend in Jacksonville. It's also endorsed by financial planning guru Dave Ramsey. It's an online meal plan that tells you exactly what to buy, how much it will cost at your selected store and how to prepare the meals. It's supposed to save you time and money because you shop according to the sales at the stores, use all of the ingredients you buy and the grocery list is sorted by the sections of the store so you don't skip anything and have to walk in circles around the store (which I am prone to doing). A few months ago I checked into it, but decided that because of my picky eater it wouldn't work well for us. This week I decided to give it a try. After doing our budget when we moved I realized (again) that food is a category where we could save money with better planning.
Michael looked over the meals and said he could eat all of them (with only a few modifications) so we headed out to Wal-Mart for our first shopping trip using the pre-planned list. Just for the record I hate shopping at Wal-Mart, but it's our cheapest option in VIcksburg. After a long and frustrating trip through the store I was shocked to find I spent more than I EVER have on groceries (ever in my entire life!). I usually spend more at Wal-Mart since I buy things other than groceries that I wouldn't buy at Publix or Kroger, but this was ridiculous!
I haven't made any of the meals yet, but I think I was doing better at budgeting my meals than I thought. Only time will tell, but if my next trip proves to be like this one, I won't be recommending e-mealz. Hopefully next time will be must more cost-effective. I'll report back in a week or two.
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I haven't tried e-mealz yet, although I have friends that use it. But what has worked for us is simply planning a menu for 2-3 weeks at a time, and then shopping according to that menu. Sure, we end up having to pick up one or two things here or there, but we have saved so much money doing this! AND, it's meals we have picked out, so it's all stuff we will eat. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteI shop according to our menu, too, right down to each side dish. However, I only do one week at the time, unless I find a good sale price for something that I know we'll use later. For example, when chicken breasts go on sale for 99 cents, I stock up! Kristin is right, this saves us a ton of money and time.
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