Sunday, October 24, 2010

PlanToEat.com

I have to give another shout out to PlanToEat.com.  I have been using their service for a couple of months now, and I really LOVE it and think it is totally worth the money.

Each Sunday, I sit down and plan out my menu for the week so that I have everything I need when I do my grocery shopping on Monday morning.

First stop is the Recipes page.  This shows all the recipe’s I have in my recipe box and lets me know how often I have used them.

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If I want to add additional recipes for the week, I click on the Add Recipe button in the top left corner.

With this page you can import recipes from more than 100 websites or you can input a new recipe yourself.  The bulk input is great for copying and pasting recipes from blogs and websites not available in the “import a recipe from a the web.”

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Next I go to the planner.  This is great because I can see what recipes I have been using lately and try to get some variety in our meals.  It’s all drag and drop.  You can add additional ingredients that you may need or make notes as well.  The main dish recipe is in dark purple.  Extra ingredients are in light purple.

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Once you’ve planned your menu for the week you can go to your Shopping list.  Choose the time frame you want to shop for (the upcoming week, etc.) and it will pull all the ingredients you need for the recipes you’ve selected.  If you already have some of the items you can check the box and click “don’t need” on your pantry inventory and it moves those items from your grocery list to your pantry.  You can drag and drop any of the items to which store you would like to purchase them from.  I only plan for dinners, so I usually need to add additional items (either by moving them from my pantry by checking on them and hitting “need” or adding a new item at the top) for breakfast, lunches, and snacks.

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One of my favorite features is the “Manage Categories” found in the Category drop down menu.  Here you can add new categories and rearrange their order so that they line up with your grocery store.  So when I shop and look at my list, everything is aisle by aisle.  No more hunting all over for the next thing you need to purchase.

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This is truly a great website and I’d love to share it with you and swap recipes.  I’m always looking for quick yummy food!  It has cut my shopping time way down and I stay on budget a lot better!  You can print out your shopping list from the website, or  you can even access it from your smartphone and check things off as you go.  Love it!!!!

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You can do a 30-day free trial to see if you like it.  After that it is 4.95/month or $39 for the  year.  I bought the whole year.

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