Author Topic: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat  (Read 8572 times)

Lovey

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saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« on: October 18, 2013, 12:43:38 PM »
We use http://plantoeat.com/ref/0nal2ekzib to plan our meals.
I have used PlanToEat for a year or two. I love it. The wonderful thing, well I have to rewrite this as there are tons of wonderful things, but the wonderful thing in what I suspect would be different between it and other planners is that I can enter my own recipes, cut and paste them super quickly, or import them from websites with photos too. I can rate them. The link imports so I can go to the original article. I can tell it the # of servings, but if I change that it alters the whole recipe for me. I can drag and drop to the calendar to plan all meals of the day and even add notes. I can import all of my calendar's features into my ical feed so they are on my calendar on my computer. I can use the app to not only see my shopping list (which has multiples of an item from different recipes all added into 1 lump sum of that item) but also to pull up the recipes if needed. The shopping list can be easily set up to show items by aisle/type, as well as by favorite store to purchase that item in. If you need something added, Cliff responds quickly! Ask away if you have questions!

It also saves me trips to the grocery store and time because it adds up how many onions total I need for the whole time period I set to shop for. I no longer just think, "I have onions." Now I realize I may have some, but I need 12!

It saves time because I can save whole time periods of menus to future time periods too.

When I see great recipes online, I immediately save them to plantoeat using the import tool on my browser tool bar.

And please, if you do want to join, use my referral link because they give fabulous credit for sharing about it, but that is NOT why I shared. I really love it. It really does save me money and time.

http://plantoeat.com/ref/0nal2ekzib is my referral link.

Feel free to ask me questions!

Dr. A

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2014, 01:47:11 PM »
Wanted to give this post a bump, because PlanToEat has a "black friday" discount window coming up.

I haven't used any other meal-planning apps, so there may be better ones out there, but I've been extremely happy with this one. PlanToEat includes a robust set of organizational tools, including copy/paste ingredient lists, imports from recipe websites, automatic shopping lists for multiple stores, and menu groupings of multiple recipes.

They run a discount over Thanksgiving weekend for a half-price subscription. The discounted price is $20 a year, so if it prevents me from ordering pizza just once during the year (and boy, does it) I've earned back my subscription.

Here are some features that I think are nifty:
  • Drag and drop meal calendar.
  • Pantry and Freezer tracking (if you can keep it up to date)
  • Mobile site automatically opens shopping list with checkoff feature.
  • Assign items to food category and/or a particular store. (I have a separate store for "only buy if on sale" items)
  • Each recipe can be stored with: cuisine type, rating, nutritional info, cost per serving.
  • "Queue" for storing meals you want to add the next time you update your calendar.

We've been using this site since 2011, and they have consistently added useful features. For instance, two minutes ago I discovered the "staples" list that populates with items you buy frequently, so you can remember them even if they are not in your upcoming recipes.

Anyway, here's my referral link if you're interested:
http://www.plantoeat.com/ref/oqlqkvw4rv

Fodder

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2014, 09:25:30 AM »
Plan to Eat is awesome.  Another service that is great is Fresh 20.  They have some deals going on right now, but if you sign up, you get a new menu every week (and access to a year's worth of previous menus), and the menu will use 20 fresh ingredients, and up to 20 pantry staples (spices, seasonings, etc.).  Some of the menu items can be a little spendy, but are easily substituted (i.e., if they call for an expensive kind of fish, you can always use a cheaper kind).  I like how the system forces you to get organized at the beginning of the week, and sets you on the right track for the whole week, after an hour or so of prep on the weekend.

I don't use it all the time, but when I have used it, I find it's a great system.  It probably won't save you money if you already meal plan and shop sales, but if you are someone who needs some guidance to get you on track and meal planning, it would likely save you quite a bit of money.

http://www.thefresh20.com/

Villanelle

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2014, 10:01:15 AM »
Plan to Eat looks Awesome.  I hope I remember to do that Thanksgiving weekend. 

I love that it will send the grocery list directly to my phone!!
« Last Edit: November 20, 2014, 10:03:17 AM by Villanelle »

wearfannypacks

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2014, 09:13:09 PM »
I'm intrigued, I think I'll be giving this a go after we get back from visiting family over Christmas. I fall on and off the meal planning bandwagon and I'm sure we waste more food than we should.

ash7962

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2014, 12:12:29 PM »
WOW this looks amazing.  I've never been able to stick to a meal planning routine on my own, and this looks super easy.  I'm also extremely impressed with their "Add to PTE" bookmark button.  It imports the recipe to your PTE in a few seconds, you stay on your the source recipe webpage, then you go on your way.  That is so easy to use and what an amazing feature to include.  Also its worth mentioning that they did not require my credit card info for the 30 day trial, and if I never used this thing I could just forget about it and not have to worry about being charged for it.  The subscriptions do not automatically renew, and you can export recipes even when your subscription has expired.  They pretty much did everything right to get my business.  I know my food budget is one of the biggest places where I should be able to cut money, so hopefully this will help me out.

P.S. I just signed up today and haven't had a chance to actually use it beyond adding a few of my recipes, so keep that in mind when reading this glowing review.  I will try to report back after using it for a while.

wearfannypacks

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2014, 07:16:25 PM »
Alright I've been using it this week.

One of my tips would be to have "leftovers" as a recipe. You can plan for leftovers as a meal. That has really helped me not cook too much food.

Love how easy it is to drag an drop recipes onto the calendar, and the auto populated shopping list from the recipes. I went shopping with it and it is awesome. It also categorizes your list by diary, meat, canned goods, etc. So you aren't constantly scanning through your entire list. You can also check things off on your phone.

We will be signing up after my trail ends. I love that I don't have to expend mental energy thinking about what to make for meals. My husband loves the interface too and is on board. Thanks for the rec!

Dr. A

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2014, 07:49:39 PM »
One of my tips would be to have "leftovers" as a recipe. You can plan for leftovers as a meal. That has really helped me not cook too much food.

Definitely. Every Thursday is leftover night in our house.

I also have recipes for salad, bread (I make my own), taco seasoning, and things like that so I can auto-populate the shopping list and make sure I have all the ingredients on hand.

catccc

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2015, 08:22:04 AM »
I'm curious how well it does with various dietary restrictions, a quick glance at some of the testimonials is promising.  I like their business ethic, also, from the details of the service on the front page...  Will definitely check it out!

theonlybutler

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2015, 08:11:19 AM »
This post gave me a great idea!  Quick Google search and I found www.supercook.com, the site lets you choose recipes based on what's currently in your fridge.

Metta

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2015, 09:04:07 PM »
I've started using Plan To Eat and it seems to be helping me so thanks for telling me about it! I'm not a very good planner normally but I really like their interface. After the free month I'll probably join.

celticmyst08

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2015, 12:15:57 PM »
Thanks for this! I'm going to give it a try! I am notoriously horrible at meal planning, and although I've gotten better, I still find myself throwing out rotten food more often than I should.

okonomiyaki

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2015, 01:36:55 AM »
I use Paprika, which seems to do the same thing (on a Mac/Android/iOS devices and not as a web app). A mustachian advantage is that you only need to buy the app once, instead of having to pay a subscription price for syncing.

facelikefizz

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #13 on: April 21, 2015, 02:46:18 PM »
One of my tips would be to have "leftovers" as a recipe. You can plan for leftovers as a meal. That has really helped me not cook too much food.

Definitely. Every Thursday is leftover night in our house.

It's Monday for us. I do our weekly shop on a Tuesday so by Monday we're pretty much out of fresh food so freezer leftovers it is! The addition of the freezer meals feature a few months ago has been great to keep track of what I've got.

It's not cheap (even with the Black Friday half price sale which I have always made use of) but I'm pretty sure I save money overall. I plan a month of meals at a time which helps to reduce wasted food. I also find the shopping list helpful as if it's not on the list I don't buy it! I'm can be pretty strict with myself on impulse buys if I have a list to work from.

No-stache

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Re: saving money by meal planning with plantoeat
« Reply #14 on: April 21, 2015, 07:23:57 PM »
I'm a decent meal planner but this looks waaaaaaay cool. I'm going to do my 30 day free trial for the month of May since I'll have a new monthly budget. Thank you for the link! I'll do a referral if I join. :)

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!