Has anyone tried the E-mealz plan and what

[T Baer]

are the pros and cons of this website assistance for planning your meals and buying your groceries.

 

http://www.e-mealz.com/index.shtml

[Frontier Mom]

I'd like to know as well. It gets my interest but I'm bad about signing up for too much. Looking for responses.

[kdeno]

:lurk5:

[Parrothead]

I signed up for it last week. I did it on a Tuesday. My store menus change on Wednesday. So I was able to get three menus in one week to start. On Tuesday I got "last week's" and "this week's" Then Wednesday I got the new menu.

 

So if you want a lot of bang to start out sign up one of the days before your store menus changes.

 

There are a couple of things I don't like.

 

In thee week's worth of menus I've gotten two meals with cream of something soup. I'm not a big fan of canned soup recipes.

 

 

 

• I can only change my plan once every three months.
  
• I did have enough notice that I was prepared to make a sauce from scratch for the one meal I used with canned soup as an ingredient.
  

 

 

I'd really like to switch more between plans. I'd like to check out a couple vegetarians, an any store and a wal-mart. I can, but I have to wait months to get them all.

 

I do like that I find it easy to substitute ingredients. I had a chicken and spinach recipe that I changed to chicken and zucchini. I will use my own sauce recipes.

 

I also like that I seem to be saving money at the market. I don't have to run to the market because I don't have X ingredient on hand or because I forgot to pick up Y ingredient. Because I can not go into a market and simply buy one thing. Not to mention the gas and time saved.

 

ETA: If I had to pay myself by the hour to check ads, put together menus and grocery lists, it would cost me more than $5.00 a month.

Edited September 1, 2010 by Parrothead

[PinkInTheBlue]

I just signed up several days ago. I originally signed up for the Wal-Mart plan but was SO unimpressed by the recipes that I switched to the Publix plan even though it's about a month before they open in town. Still not blown away. Doritos Pie and later Grilled Pizza Sandwiches with Doritos is not examples of meals we would really even try. Another night was hot ham and cheese. I have 3 months to keep trying but so far it's not what I hoped.

 

For $15, it's worth checking out even if I get only 4 or 5 new meals out of it. We are desperate for new things to eat here!

[Brenda in FL]

Click the tag at the end of this post and you will see more discussion on e-mealz. I just tried our first meal - and I really liked it.

 

I haven't subscribed yet, but I did print out the sample Aldi and Any store plan for a total of three meals - I purchased mostly everything at Aldi's (not everything was available).

 

I figured I'd see if the system would work for us and if we liked the meals. I might try the same thing with two different samples before I purchase.

 

Although I'm not thrilled about buying most of our meals at Aldi's, I do like that its cheap, a small store to get through, and I don't have to clip coupons and watch for sales. (Moving to NC with all the different couponing options has put me over the edge!! I can't go to the grocery store without my coupons and sales but it takes hours researching all the deals and deciding which store to go to!!! I was avoiding the store and thus had nothing in the fridge for dinner!!)

 

For the poster who wanted to try different plans - couldn't you still try the sample menus? Or did that not give you enough options? It is too bad that you can't choose which plan you want each week.

 

Another con I saw was that the Kroger menu was not valid for my area in regards to sale prices.