Menu Planning Help

This week has been a challenge at our house with two kids sick with the flu. The last thing I wanted to do was menu plan, but I firmly believe menu planning can have a huge impact on your budget. So many people buy food without a plan. The easiest way to save money at the store is to have a plan or purpose for everything you are buying.

I have been reluctant to try a menu planning service because we are very healthy eaters and I have two young kids. So, I worried the recipes would be ones we would never use. However, I have always wanted to try a menu planning service and I figured this was the perfect week to try it. I decided to check out Relish and see if their service could help out this tired mom! Click here to check out Relish.

How does it work and what do you get?
Cost is $7 per month (price goes down the more months you order).
You get 5 menus per week, lunch ideas, and 5 frozen dinners for the month.
You can pick from a list of menus.
Menus are labeled to help you pick (kid friendly, vegetarian, quick, crock-pot).
You get to print out your recipes.
You will also get a premade grocery list divided into shopping categories

What did I think?
I was able to find a lot of healthy, kid-friendly recipes.
I was able to take the recipes I picked and easily substitute healthier options or things my family likes. I changed regular pasta to whole wheat pasta and ground beef to ground turkey.
I was still able to plan my menu around what I had on hand and what was on sale. I had lots of chicken, pasta and sauces so I picked recipes with these items.
All my recipes took under 30 minutes to make.
The recipes were very easy to make and did not require any rare or expensive items.

The Results
I made it in and out of the store with my premade list in 25 minutes! I managed to make healthy and kid-friendly meals in less than 30 minutes even with 2 sick kids. I felt like superwoman! I would definitely suggest you give Relish a try. Learn more about Relish here.