Meal Planning Made Easy? Yes, please! {Plan to Eat review & giveaway!}

I’m sure you’ve heard it by now–meal planning can simplify your life AND save you money. I’ve been meal planning off an on for a few years now, and I will tell you that the weeks when I have a meal plan ready go much more smoothly than when I don’t.

When Plan to Eat approached me about their meal-planning service a few months back, I was thrilled to check it out. I had been wanting to move my cluttered array of recipe cards and print-offs from the stuffed cabinet above my stove and arrange them in a more organized fashion.

I have been thoroughly impressed with the Plan to Eat site! Not only can I store all my recipes in their database, but I can also share recipes with other Plan to Eat users/”friends.” Plan to Eat also has a blog that includes a plethora of fabulous recipes!

I am still in the process of uploading my entire recipe collection, but I’m finding that it’s decluttering my kitchen–and computer–and ultimately eliminates the possibility of me losing recipes.This service truly saves money and cuts down on chaos in your home!

The hallmark feature of Plan to Eat is the site’s unique meal planner. Once you have your recipes uploaded, all you have to do is add them to your queue and drag/drop them to a calendar. Voila! You have a week’s, a month’s, etc. worth of meal plans at your fingertips! You can choose to print the plans or keep them online, and they will save for future use. So if you want to say, rotate meals every other week or every other month, etc., all you have to do is pull up your saved plans!! The picture below is a screen shot of one of my sample meal plans:

Other features I love about Plan to Eat include:

• The automatic shopping list generator: Once you have your meal plan ready, PTE will automatically generate your shopping lists for you! (You indicate if you want lists generated for the current week, that day, every 2 weeks, etc., depending on when and how often you shop.) But wait–what if you already have some ingredients on hand? No problem…
• There’s a drag & drop feature that lets you “stock your pantry”!
• There is also a “cook from my pantry” feature that actually generates recipes from your database that only require ingredients that you already have on hand! (Hmmmmm….I can see this being super helpful on those nights that I don’t plan!)
• The toolbar feature lets you drag and drop a “Save Recipe” icon to the toolbar on your computer, so it’s SUPER easy to save recipes to your database with just the click of a mouse! (This functions the exact same way the toolbar feature on Pinterest functions.)

A Plan to Eat membership costs $4.95 per month or $39 per year (which makes it only $3.25/month!). Can $4.95 a month really save you money? Yes! In the long run–or even in the first month I believe that it can. I can say from personal experience that when I get out of the habit of meal planning, I am much more likely to give in and order a pizza or run through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru (I know–shocking!) or grab an uber expensive ready-made meal from the deli.

Yes, if you use it, Plan to Eat can save you money! And it will most definitely save you from the all-too-often chaotic 5:00 p.m. hour.

Plan to Eat is graciously offering The Humbled Homemaker readers an AMAZING deal: 20% off a yearly membership! That makes a one-year membership to this amazing service only $31.20! That’s only $2.60 per month!! Use code: THEHUMBLEDHOMEMAKER. You can peruse the site and sign up for a membership here.

Not quite ready to commit? Plan to Eat offers a one-month trial membership–for FREE! Sign up for your free month here.

Want to try to WIN a one-year membership?! Enter via Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclosure: I received a membership to Plan to Eat for the purpose of this review.

Be sure to enter ALL of this week’s giveaways!

Plan to Eat 1-year membership

Lexie: Naturals deodorant

Lilla Rose gift certificate

Please visit my sponsors:

Sweet Little Blessings: Meeting all your cloth diapering needs–with FREE shipping on all order over $40! Plan to Eat: Meal planning made simple.

I’m linking up with: The Better Mom, Growing Home, Deep Roots at Home, Time-Warp Wife, Raising Homemakers, Women Living Well, Fellowship Friday, Monday Mania , Frugally Sustainable, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Fight Back Friday, Comfy in the Kitchen