frugal underground

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I’m a fledgling frugalist myself, I’ll admit. I don’t know all the tricks in the book yet (but I will!). However, one thing that most all frugal folks agree on is this: meal plans are good. (I was going to put “meal plans are one of the most important parts of saving” but I would be surprised if everyone agreed on anything this specific).

In any case, I’ve been trying to use meal planning to keep my grocery purchases realistic and get the most out of what I buy. I do all of my grocery list making at the computer already, so I wanted an online service that would let me do some planning while I was at my computer (I’m pretty much here most hours of the day anyway).

At first I tried Recipezaar, of which I am a big fan in general, but their meal planning tool requires that I create the plan using recipes or simple ingredients already in their database—well, I could also add my own recipes. But that’s too time consuming, especially if I have the recipe I want to use in a cookbook already. I don’t necessarily want to type the whole recipe in, at least not until I’ve made it and know if it’s any good. Alternately, there were things like “deviled eggs” and “grilled cheese sandwiches” that really don’t need a recipe, but aren’t simple enough to be in the ingredient database. What I really wanted was something that would let me enter freeform info, like “Mushroom Lasagna on page x of The Whole Foods Market Cookbook”.

Enter Meals Matter. This is a great site that’s “developed and supported by the Dairy Council of California”. When I saw that, I thought it might be skewed somewhat, but I’ve been pleased to find that not only does it seem unbiased, it’s exactly the tool I’m looking for.

Well, okay, the first thing I did was email them a few suggestions, but that’s only because I think I’ll be sticking with them for the long haul and want it to be fabulous. Right now, it allows both freeform planning and also adding recipes from their recipe database. It also offers a reasonably robust shopping list generator. I have a few issues with it (I like my list grouped by store aisle, etc.) but it’s as good as any free tool I’ve seen yet.

The upshot is that this free, handy site might be just what you need, too. It is a good tool right now; it looks to be well-funded; the response to my suggestions was positive and implied to me that development is active; and (need I mention it again? I think so!) it’s free. Viva free! If you need a basic meal planning tool, give it a shot.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 6:22 pm and is tagged General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.