meal planning Archives - Cassie Smallwood

How To Save Money On Groceries With $5 Meal Plan This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure here. Have you ever heard of $5 Meal Plan and their done-for-you meal plans that save you money, time and stress? If you're tired of spending a ton of time and struggling with meal planning or having trouble sticking to a grocery budget because you just buy everything as you go or try to make fancy recipes you find online with a million ingredients and totally blow your budget, you'll want to keep reading to find out how you can save money on groceries and time at the grocery store! I first heard about $5 Meal Plan when I was writing a post about how to start meal planning. It seemed like a really awesome concept to save money on groceries, stay organized, save time on meal planning and stick to my grocery budget. So I decided to look into it further. When I found out they offer a free two week trial, I had to give it a try! Once I got started on their site, I was shocked at how amazing this program is! The Best Things About Saving Money On Groceries With $5 Meal Plan The first thing I really like about $5 Meal Plan is that they will email you a complete meal plan every Friday. I love that it arrives on Friday so it's there and ready for weekend grocery shopping. Here's what you get in your meal plan: Five dinner entrees with sides – Each week they include one freezer friendly, one slow cooker, and one 20-minute dinner One breakfast recipe One lunch recipe One random recipe for a dessert, beverage or snack Customize Your Meal Plan Now here's the best part...you can modify this meal plan. If you like most of it, but there are a few things you want to change, you can go in and search their recipes and just drag and drop to remove the recipes you don't want and add the new ones you like. Which brings me to the ways you can search on the site. They make it so easy! You can search by meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, side dishes, beverages). You can also search by cooking method (baked, Dutch oven or saucepan, freezer friendly, grilled, one-dish dinners, skillet dinners, or slow cooker). You can search by ingredients. And last but not least, you can search by dietary preferences (dairy-free, gluten/soy/dairy free, gluten-free, and vegetarian. They're working on a Paleo option as well. So that's coming soon! The other option is that you can go in and make your own complete meal plan by just dragging and dropping the recipes you want to add and not use the one they make for you at all. You have complete control over your meal plan, but all the recipes are right there in one place and it is so simple! How Do The $5 Meal Plan Recipes Taste? The recipes are so delicious! Remember that this program's mission is to save you money on groceries and time on grocery shopping and meal planning. The recipes are easy to make, taste fantastic and they save you money on your groceries! The green chile burger is to die for and really easy to make! Since I moved to New Mexico, I've discovered my love for green chiles :) One of my biggest problems is figuring out what to eat for lunch. Sometimes I have leftovers, but I don't always want that. $5 Meal Plan has some really delicious and unique recipes for lunches so you're not always having a boring sandwich for lunch or trying to figure out what you can throw together to resemble a lunch. Grocery Shopping Made Easy So now that you have your meal plan all ready, you can download it to your phone or computer, send it by email, save it to your account on their site, or print it out! And here's the coolest thing, it gives you a complete grocery list (even the seasonings are on the list) so you can be sure you have the ingredients for every recipe for the week and not have to run back to the store because you forgot something!!! With a couple of clicks, you have a complete meal plan and grocery list for the week designed to save you money on your groceries! When you go to the grocery store, you can have your meal plan and grocery list handy. The grocery list is organized by sections to make shopping easier and you won't be running back to aisles because you forgot something. It has check boxes next to each item so you can mark them off as you go. It also gives you the amount of the items that you need so you can be sure to get the right size container for your meals. How Much Does It Cost For $5 Meal Plan? I'm sure you're wondering how much this is going to cost to have all of these meals planned out for you and I think you're going to be surprised to know that after your two week free trial, it only costs $5 a month! I was totally expecting it to cost more like $5 per week. The value is really unbelievable to me. The meals so far for me have worked out to be about $2 per person per meal which is saving us a lot of money compared to me choosing random recipes from all over the internet with a bunch of crazy ingredients. I love good food and enjoy trying new recipes. So this is perfect for me! The great thing is that the recipes are delicious, but they aren't complicated to make. So you don't need to be a chef to make this stuff. You can also favorite recipes. So when you try one and love it, you can add it to your favorites so it's easy to find when you want to add it to your meal plan again another week. They have a private Facebook group for their members and printable coupons on the site to save you even more money on your groceries! Plus you can get the nutritional information for your meal plan! This comes in handy if you're counting calories! So far I haven't found anything I don't love about the service, but if you're not happy with $5 Meal Plan, you can cancel at any time and it's really simple to do right from your account page. Plus, they'll refund your last payment if you feel the service wasn't up to your expectations! I really love this policy because I'm always a little nervous to join anything that's a monthly membership without knowing if it will be a runaround if I decide to cancel. You can put your worries to rest about that. If you're interested in trying $5 Meal Plan, please click my link. It's an affiliate link, but I promise this review was 100% my honest opinion. I love finding awesome new products and services that can bring value to people's lives and would never refer anyone to a product I don't absolutely love! Other posts you might like: Do It Yourself Meal Planning For Beginners How To Save $1000 For Your Next Vacation How To Save $928 Per Year On Your Cable Bill