E-Mealz

I forgot! I do have something of note to blog about!

We just signed up for E-mealz last week.  So far, we are enjoying it.
I was hesitant for a long time to sign up for anything like this.  For a couple of reasons...
1.  It seems like something that would be so easy to do yourself!
2. We prefer to buy organic/natural foods when possible
3. It seems like something that would be so easy to do yourself!!!!!!!!

The final straw is that I am just not in the mood to eat dinner.  I don't ever care what we have, and it is hard to think of things I want to eat for the next week.  I would honestly eat breakfast for dinner every night right now.  When something is actually made, I can sit down and enjoy it, but my inspiration is ZERO for coming up with creative ideas, making a plan, blah blah blah. It was getting expensive to just come up with things off the top of our heads, or just walk through the store buying whatever looks good at the time.

As much as it hurt my pride to sign up for something that seems like it would be so easy to do yourself, we finally decided to just give it a try.  Another downside to this particular website is that there is no free trial period or introductory rate/price, so we paid for 3 months at once just to try it, which is the only way you can sign up, three months at a time.  I have since found out that there are promo codes which save you $2-$3.  That was sad, because we had already signed up.
Basically, it's $5/month, $15 for 3 months.
You pick a plan.  They have many to choose from.  We chose the family of 4-5, 7 meal plan, Kroger.
You can change your plan once per three months.  They have weight watchers plans, different stores, meals for 2, etc.
Each week a 7 meal plan is posted.  It is based off of the sales going on at Kroger for the week.
It lists all the ingredients for every meal, the staples you need to have on hand (which are minimal), and the prices listed for the week.
The typical grocery bill for the 7 day plan is supposed to be $70-$80.  That was another thing I wasn't sold on because that didn't seem very cheap for me.  But, then, I considered, if we are eating 7 meals at home and not eating out, then that isn't bad for a family of four.  Especially for a good variety of foods, not repeating the same old same old every week.
This past week our grocery bill ended up being $130.  That is a good bit more than what we used to spend when I was couponing like crazy.  But....we eat three meals a day at home!  I know a lot of families who spend more than that and their house sits vacant all day long, so I think we do fairly well for a family who snacks and does all their meals at home most every day.  We probably eat out once a week now on average.
Also, he spent more on several of the items than what was listed because instead of getting one pack of ground chuck, he got a multi bulk pack of ground turkey.  And instead of the boneless pork chops listed he got a bigger pack that was on sale that we quickly split up into 4 more meals.
AND the best part was...we got to try some new recipes that weren't crazy expensive to make, that we had all the ingredients on hand, mostly bought on sale, and that we loved!
We can also substitute natural and organic when we want, so that isn't an issue really.

We will be doing some substitutions here and there for things that just don't sound good to us at all, but throwing in a spaghetti night on occasion is better than starting out with a meal plan of "okay, we'll have spaghetti one night and tacos...what else?"
ha ha.

I say it's a win so far.