In the quest to simplify meal planning, many people turn to meal planners for help. These meal planners usually come with a set of recipes and a shopping list to simplify the meal planning process. I could never get on board with these. I have looked into MANY meal planners over the years, but was never sold. Until I found the BEST meal planner.
Seriously, you guys…I found it! The meal planner for people who hate meal planners!
Today I’ve decided to show you how this meal planner addresses the many hangups that people typically have about meal planners.
This post contains affiliate links, which are designed for this site to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to other websites. For my full disclosure policy click here.
WHAT IS PLAN TO EAT?
Plan to Eat is an online meal planning program where you can store and sort your recipes, create (and save) menus, visualize your meal planning in calendar form, create a shopping list, and easily share your recipes with others.
If you want an even more detailed overview of the perks of Plan to Eat, check out this post.
For now, let’s see why I think you might like Plan to Eat even if you aren’t a fan of meal planners:
“MY FAMILY IS TOO PICKY”
This is the feature of Plan to Eat that sold me from the beginning.
By the time I downloaded a meal plan from some sort of service, I would have to tweak the recipes for our family’s tastes and dietary restrictions. With every recipe tweak, I would have to modify the “handy” shopping list. Eventually, what was a time saver just turned out to be a pain in the neck.
Until Plan to Eat.
The whole basis of this meal planner is that it uses YOUR recipes. Yes, inputting your recipes can take a bit of time up front, but it’s worth it! (Plus, I have time-saving tips for inputting recipes into the program! Just click here to read the post.)
“MY FAMILY IS TOO BIG/SMALL”
Pre-made meal planners can sometimes be tricky when it comes to modifying quantities for your family.
Not with Plan to Eat!
You can input any recipe you’d like, then modify the quantity with the push of a button. You can even have the program remember these quantities for next time!
“MEAL PLANNING IS TOO TIME-CONSUMING”
Plan to Eat is one of the fastest ways to meal plan! All you have to do is drag and drop recipes onto a calendar. It’s that simple!
On top of that, once you have your recipes decided, the program will consolidate ALL of the ingredients from your meal plan and create your shopping list.
I’ll say that again:
Plan to Eat will merge the ingredient lists for ALL of your planned recipes and create a shopping list for you!
It gets even better…you can even tell the program which ingredients you typically buy at each store and it will break up your shopping list automatically!
It really doesn’t get simpler than this program.
“MEAL PLANNERS ONLY HELP WITH DINNER. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER TWO MEALS?!”
What I love about Plan to Eat is that you can quickly input simple recipes, like your family’s typical breakfasts and lunches, and add them to your calendar.
To save time, you can even create a menu of one week (or even a month!) of your typical breakfasts and lunches.
Then all you have to do is drag and drop that menu to your meal planning calendar and the program will calculate your shopping list for you!
You can set up this menu ONCE and repeat it every month.
“IT’S JUST ONE MORE THING I WON’T USE”
This is definitely a valid point to consider, but I think you’ll find that you use Plan to Eat for more than just meal planning.
Once you have put all of your recipes into Plan to Eat, you’ll be able to access all of your family’s favorites at the touch of a button.
Plan to Eat has an awesome app, and I often find myself double-checking recipes on my phone when I’m in the grocery store. I’ve also been known to access recipes when visiting relatives (I don’t know about you, but I don’t typically pack my cookbooks on vacation).
It is SO handy to have my recipes all in one spot!
Another helpful feature of the app is that you can put the recipe card on “cook” mode, so that it’s easy to read from as you’re cooking!
Long story short, I log into Plan to Eat almost every day and I think you will, too!
“I DON’T MEAL PLAN”
If you’re a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants person when it comes to meal planning, you could still get some use out of Plan to Eat.
You have all of your recipes at your fingertips and you can quickly scroll through for inspiration when it’s time to cook.
On top of that, you can scroll through the recipes of your “friends” on Plan to Eat when you’re looking for meal ideas.
Even if you’re the type of person who decides and shops one meal at a time, I think you could still find ways to make use of this meal planner!
“MEAL PLANNERS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE”
This is one major hangup that I had with meal planning apps and services.
COST!
Plan to Eat is one of the least expensive meal planners I have ever seen! When you pay for the year up front, it only costs three bucks and some change per month. (If you don’t want to commit to a full year, it costs $4.95 per month.)
“MEAL PLANNER ‘FREE TRIALS’ ARE A TRAP”
We all know how “free trials” go: Enter your credit card information, make a mental note to cancel before the 30-day period is up, stress for the 28 of those days but then completely forget about it on day 29.
Ding, ding, ding! You just won an annual subscription!
Sound familiar??
Well, you don’t have to worry about free trial traps with Plan to Eat!
They provide a 100% free 30-day trial. They don’t even ask for your credit card information, so you don’t have to remember to cancel.
If you’re interested in giving Plan to Eat a try, click here to sign up for your no-strings-attached free trial.
(I receive a small commission from referring you to Plan to Eat, at no additional cost to you.)
But believe me, this wasn’t a sales pitch. This isn’t even a sponsored review. This is genuinely how excited I am about this meal planner and I want to save YOU some major time and headache.
Are you a Plan to Eat user? What is your favorite feature of this meal planner?