Spring Giveaway Week: Win 1 of 3 One-Year Subscriptions to Plan to Eat
I have a confession to make. I may run a website. I may have self-published ebooks. I may own a laptop and an iPhone. BUT. I am not a technical, computer-loving person. No sir.
My husband actually finds it funny (or irritating, it may depend on the day) how incredibly inept I am when it comes to using most electronic devices. DVD players and universal remote controls? I’m useless. Using my iPhone for more than making a basic phone call? My 7 year old is teaching me how.
All that to say, you would think that when it comes to menu planning, I would be a pen and paper kind of gal. And you would be right.
However, last week I decide to challenge my technologically-impaired self and go back to doing my menu planning online. A couple of years ago I was introduced to Plan to Eat, an online recipe, menu planning and grocery-list program. At that time, I recognized how useful the program could be and I jumped into trying it out. I thought it was a brilliant solution and really loved the idea of using it. But, since most of my beloved recipes were in cookbooks or written on cards, I relegated to my pen and paper ways after a while.
Things have changed, though. Increasingly, I find more and more of my go-to recipes are from online sources (mostly blogs, some large recipe websites, and others from ebooks that I never get around to printing out). I’ve begun to somewhat use Pinterest as a way to at least store them and remember where they are, but I needed something even better than that.
Last week, I returned to Plan to Eat and realized just what a perfect program it is for those who find their food inspiration online!
A Simple Way to Store and Organize Your Recipes Online
You can import and store your favorite recipes, using categories (breakfast, salad), food ethnicities (Mexican, Italian, etc.) and tags (fast, crockpot, guests) to store them and then search through them later to find what kind of meal you’re looking for. From some websites, importing them is as simple as clicking a button. From blogs, ebooks, etc. it’s a copy and paste process, a few fill-in-the-blanks, and presto. Your recipe is in the system.
You can also share recipes with friends, giving them access to your recipes and vice versa. No more running back to Pinterest to find that recipe I think I store there, or to search through my most-frequented blogs, trying to find the recipe that I think I might have seen here last month.
Did I mention that it’s super easy, even for the technologically impaired?
Once the recipes are in there, you go about your meal planning as you usually would, but you simply drag and drop the recipes you want into the days when you want to make them. As you do this, a grocery list is automatically generated. You can use it to compare it to what you already have in the fridge and pantry, so that you don’t forget to buy anything required for one of your meals.
With my two-week meal plan complete, I printed it off (to put on my fridge) as well as a good number of the recipes that were included. Since they each print out nicely on one sheet of paper, I thought it might be a convenient way to build up a small binder with the meals we eat most often, so that I have all of those recipes in one easy-to-access place. As opposed to my current system (now which binder/website/recipe card/cookbook was that recipe in?). Ahem.
And, for those who actually know how to use their smart phones, you can ditch the pen and paper all together and simply view (and check off items) on your grocery list, using the Plan to Eat app. How cool is that? I’m sure my 7 year old already knew that.
Try It for Free
If you’re totally unsure of what Plan to Eat is all about or whether you would use a system like this, they offer a free 30-day trial. Take a tour, try importing some of your recipes, play around with the planner functionality, see how the grocery list works.
Membership is very reasonable at $4.95 a month, or (a better deal) $39 a year, which works out to $3.25 per month.
Plan to Eat has been our premium sponsor at Keeper of the Home this winter, and they’re definitely a business that I love to work with and highly recommend! Since I am a huge believer in meal planning, I’ve always recommended them to those who are friendly with technology, and yes, even to the backwards gals like myself. 🙂
Or You Could Win It… I have 3 One-Year Subscriptions to Give Away!
Rather than simply leaving comments, I’m trying out a new method for entering giveaways. Click below to complete one Rafflecopter form, for all of your multiple entries, and then you’re done!
I would love to try the one a month cooking and shopping. Meal planning is the only way to do that sucessfully! Its been great for our budget too!
I try to meal plan once I receive the weekly store sale brochure and winning this would really help! My goal for this year is to try and get out of the rut of cooking the same things by getting the brochures and looking for new recipes online based on the sale items.
Meal planning has been my greatest battle as a homemaker. I don’t know why it is so hard for my brain to wrap around it, but for some reason, it is extremely difficult for me. Even though I know we save money, and saves stress at meal times when I plan, I have such a hard time putting good ideas for meals on paper.
we are eating less convenience food and lots more homemade.
Meal planning is certainly an area where I am trying to grow and this would be such a helpful tool! Thanks for hosting this giveaway!
My meal planning goal this year is to waste less. I use an Excel spreadsheet (designed by my wonderful husband for easy use) to plan meals and I have found that even though I plan, I rarely follow the plan and when I do, I have such a surplus of food that it either gets lost in the freezer or ends up wearing a blue fuzzy coat because I stick to my menu and never allotted for leftovers!! We are blessed to be able to eat organically & completely naturally, so it is a shame that I am allowing such waste to occur!! Thus, my goal!
Menu planning is something I’ve been interested in doing, but it seems overwhelming. This looks very helpful. Thank you!
I would love to win! I’m a little computer illiterate, so maybe this would allow me to
Meal plan on the computer without it be difficult!!
A “real” menu planning tool would be great! Currently, we don’t really menu plan at all.
I too still use the old pen and paper for my menu planning, the funny thing is that I am pretty tech savy…Just not in meal planning 🙂 I’m hoping to find a way to make an initial inventory of my pantry and fridge, and then have a program that would cross reference the recipes with the inventories and automatically tell me what I have and what I need. However, reality is that I will probably not get to that for another couple years, and plan-to-eat would make dinner much easier then my current method of making a list on paper and then emailng the recipes to my inbox each week.
This year, I plan to figure out how to plan meals more efficiently. Pen and paper just doesn’t cut it anymore!
I’ve been wanting to get my meal planning in order for some time now – would love this! Thanks for the chance to win and for the great site!
I would like to try something like this!
Sarah M
I love finding recipes online. It sounds very convenient to have them all in one place.
I am trying to collect all my GAPS recipes in one place and get better about meal planning. Right now my repertoire is way too limited.
I’d love to win this. I need all the meal planning help I can get!
This has intrigued me for a long time…I am desperately needing to expand my meal repertoire, and have also been turning to the internet more and more for new meal ideas. But I literally CUT AND PASTE into my hard copy cook book. It’s a mish mash, let me tell you. This sounds pain free…
After 25 years I really need to start meal planning. Now that I am working outside the home I find if I don’t have a plan we are eating too much junk.
I just need some get-up-and-go in my menu planning. Plan to Eat is sure great for having all your online recipes in one place!
I am horribly non-technical, and I’d love a more centralized way to manage my online recipes.
Recipes all in one spot sounds great!
Amazing giveaway! This would be great for helping me to get that area of my family’s lives organized. We do well some weeks, other weeks we just fly by the seat of our pants and that’s so stressful!
Awesome giveaway! Have been wanting to try this service…
My hubby and I are Type 2 diabetic and our oldest is now seeing an endocrinologist for hyper insulin – i’m not good with staying on a healthy diet and I need something that could keep me on track, especially on days I don’t feel like cooking.
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for – recipes + grocery list in one location! Thank you for sharing about Plan to Eat! I’m a working mom with a toddler and an infant. I need to think ahead for meals and save money!
I keep hearing such amazing and useful things about this service. I love the many options I continue to read about and hope it would be helpful in helping me stick with meal planning and use ingredients we already have in the pantry and freezer!
Thanks for this kind opportunity!
I have been trying to doing the meal planning thing but find myself lost when it comes time to do it. Searching the internet for recipes I want to try, Knowing I saw them on one of these blogs but not sure which one. I think I a program like this would be very helpful in getting me started.
With three young children, being planned would help my day go smoother.
Lots of kiddos to feed at home and typically when you plan ahead things are made fresh, from scratch and healthier by far!
To have all your recipes in one place sounds great!
I’m just trying to get a menu plan together! I made a list of all the food I make on a regular basis in hopes to make a plan, (but that was about a month ago), and I still don’t have a “plan”!!
I’m just starting to get regular about menu planning and shopping. This would be a great resource to pull it all together!
THis sounds great and I have actually looked at it before. What I am doing is working — but I am using a calendar; this would give me more flexibility.
I’m like you in that I have recipes in books and online that I want to try. My system changes every week and I usually forget a few things…so even my husband would appreciate this!
I would love to win this!
fingers crossed!
This year my husband and I are shopping primarily in the bulk and produce aisles which makes us have to cook from scratch more. We just started managing our weekly grocery money differently–pulling out a cash allotment each week–which has brought more intention to our shopping habits. It also unburdens our co-op from paying the debit/credit card fees on smaller purchases. That practice combined with diligently eating leftovers is helping us to create less food waste. We hope to continue these steps further into the year.
I LOVE Plan to Eat! What’s your user name so we can share recipes? I’m Lmilla – if you care to add me. I’m entering to extend my current subscription, if that’s OK.
I’m “keeperofthehome”.
And yes, it’s fine to enter for extend what you already have.
I want to organize my recipes so that meal planning doesn’t take so long. This would be a great way to do that.
I love the idea that it makes up your shopping list as you select the recipes. That’s the part of menu planning that I hate the most because it’s so time consuming. I typically do a two-week menu and we have a few items more than once.
Thanks so much for this post Stephanie, it came at just the right time. I was just telling my husband how meal planning was such a struggle for me and I needed to figure something out so to cut down our grocery budget and set the extra aside to stock up on fresh fruits and veggie this summer to can or freeze. I think this can definitely help.
Thank you so much for your blog, it is such an encouragement and I am thankful for God using you in this way.
Great giveaway! 🙂
I would love to give this a try!
Top of the list of my meal planning goals is to eat at home every single night of the week. When I don’t plan, we end up eating out. 🙁 I think this giveaway would go a long way towards helping me reach my goal.
I try to meal plan weekly…I’d love to try out Plan to Eat.
I think this would help us save money on food. I tried planning out every week, but I get behind. Perhaps this would hold me accountable!
I am trying to change the way we eat, and having a plan – mainly getting those ideas out of my binder and off the internet – and into a plan I can take to the store is something I really need.
I am usually really good at meal planning, but since getting pregnant have been slacking! This would help me as I do almost all of my recipes online/pinterest/PC/etc. Sometimes I have a hard time finding them!
Even at my older age I am learning to plan meals again, even if it is only for two.
The Plan to Eat program would be a great start.
looks interesting! My husband and I were just talking yesterday about the importance of meal planning!
Sounds like a great idea for organization in the kitchen!
I would like to plan more inexpensive meals. Grocery prices have gone up so much!
My meal planning goal this year is to organize all my recipes (online sounds great), and to have two weeks of meals planned in advance.
I would LOVE this! Such organization is needed in my life.
Oh my. Meal planning is an area where I do well for a couple of weeks… and then fail miserable for a couple of months. A tool to help me be more consistent would be wonderful!
I’ve always used paper and pencil to meal plan and would like to try an electronic version.
Our meal plan goal for the year is to eat at home more often and only eat out once a month. So far so good but planning meals gets boring with the same stuff every week.
I’m planning to use my slow cooker more often…
I would love to use this tool!! I have so many bookmarked recipes and printed ones floating around… I know I could save a lot of money if I got my meal planning planned better!
I am always crossing my fingers to win one of these from different blogs… lol. 🙂
I just never meal plan as much as I plan to. (irony.)
Would love to try this…I seem to get stuck in a rut with meal planning. Seems like this could help to keep recipes organized.
So wanting to improve this area of my life. Wanting my children to know what the plan is and empowering them, through training, so that they will have the life skills to feed their families and be good stewards of the resources God provides.
The kids are getting busier now with after school activities, and if I don’t plan our meals, we will be rushing and scrounging and eating convenience foods. I would use Plan to Eat to plan out healthy, nourishing meals ahead of time so we can eat right!
Anything to make meal planning easier would be wonderful!
I plan on doing a better job of incorporating real food snacks and desserts into my meal plan this year–hopefully it will eliminate some of those processed food holdouts in our pantry.
I have all of these recipes from all over the web and I just need a way to organize and synthesize! I’ve got pins on pinterest, links in an excel spreadsheet, and a blog to try to get it all together, but Plan to Eat sounds like something that would really help me out all around, with organization AND planning.
I love the shopping list feature tied into the meal plan. It would save a ton of time!
Eeek! I did the trial awhile back and fell in love! I’ve gotten sooo out of the habit of meal planning, this would be wonderful for me to win!
I just found out about Plan to Eat last week and have been thinking about subscribing! I’d love to win!
I love Plan to Eat! Have lots of recipes there. Finding a recipe is easy with the tags you customize to fit your needs. 🙂
I just ended a 30 day trial about a week ago and am weighing whether I want to pay for a subscription or not…winning it would make the choice easier! 😀
I’ve just recently gotten into converting our family to whole foods & I’m loving all of the websites, blogs & recipes I’m finding on the topic! I would love to get better organized with my meal planning & with all of my printed out recipes stuffed in my cabinet! I would love a free membership to Plan to Eat!
Meal planning has helped me in the past, but I’ve gotten away from it. I would love some new ideas.
This would be a great system to have! One place for all my recipes.
I already meal plan with my google calendar, but it would be nice to have a grocery list made for me…
I have been planning on trying the free trial to see if I would actually use it. I am trying to meal plan but it seems like I always lose my list while shopping and the just let the week go by.
Plan to Eat would help me with my time and kitchen organization, from planning meals, to knowing what I have in stock.
I so could use this to plan out the menus for our family of 7! Love Keeper of the Home, BTW!
I’m working hard at organizing our recipes in one place, i have been using pinterest and delicious and am actually getting rid of paper recipes or magazines that I kept around!
I began planning weekly menus when I had my third son, seven years ago. As much as my family likes tried and true recipes I am addicted to trying something new and meal planning services allow me that freedom each week!
I have been wanting to try Plan to Eat forever! I desperately need help meal planning!
Always have trouble getting the meal plan to a shopping list – Help!
This would be a wonderful way to plan meals,….maybe we could conquer the ‘paper monster’. :o) Thank you!
I was just considering this last night. It would be great to win a subscription! We have some food sensitivities and, due to living in the country, extra planning is necessary. Thank you for your great site and giveaway!
I would love to make my meal-planning routine easier!
I’m using a trial of Plan to Eat right now, and I LOVE it! It makes planning so easy. I love that all my recipes are right there with the plan. AND I can open it on my ipod while I’m in the kitchen, see the plan, get the recipe… so convenient!!
I’ve been eyeing Plan to Eat for awhile now and think that it’d be super helpful. Unfortunately I got the no-go from hubby because of a tight budget. Winning a subscription would be awesome! 😀
I would love to have a membership for Plan to Eat because I tend to be a pen and paper gal also but would love anything that will make my meal planning faster and easier and a lot more organized than my current system (or lack thereof).
I’m going to try to have a month where we only eat food I’ve purchased and then made from ALDI!
How wonderful! Just the sort of program I’ve been dreaming of. My dear sister, Mrs. Wolf recommends your site highly. On my first visit today, I’m hooked!!
What a great solution to my two huge folders of recipes! I tend to go online rather than hunt through my seemingly organized recipe books.
I am wanting to eat less sugar.
Thank you for this giveaway! I will try anything to make meals easier!
to actually do a meal plan more than once in a while….and try to save some $ on groceries!
I was doing so well planning my meals at the beginning of the year, but I got off track here in March, so I just want to get back in the habit. I always try to plan ahead in the morning, but I would like to get back to planning a week at a time.
I currently meal plan with a little weekly calendar from Michael’s, but would love to do a bit more.
We want to use the food we have in storage this year.
I wold love to give this a try.
I am planning a large garden to can and freeze food to use.
I really need to start meal planning. Especially with the huge garden we just planted! Now I’ll know what foods will be ready!
I’m just starting to get back into meal planning and having something that actually makes my shopping list too… so great! I will definitely be checking out the free month trial.
i tried plan to eat and LOVED it. just can’t do any extra stuff at this time and got some cheap software so i’m trying to go back to it. we could use all the help we can get being grain free and combo of gaps/scd. thanks! 🙂
I want to budget better, and I know that meal planning is a big part of that!
I get all my ideas on line. this will be perfect.
I would love to streamline my meal planning. My goal is to make all or most of our meals from scratch, with minimal processed food, and to use up what we have on hand on a regular basis rather than always purchasing new stuff.
I hope to plan for a month at a time instead of just a week.
Plan to Eat looks like a wonderful product for meal planning!!
I just had baby #4 and need some help getting back into the meal planning swing of things.
I think a meal planning guide would be a great fit for me because I’m a baker and not a cook so I have no creativity when it comes to cooking meals.
My plan this year is to eat less meat. Incorporating more vegetarian meals is the goal!
Boy this sounds AWESOME! how fun!
My goal is to have some sort of menu for the month so that I will be better prepared to cook for my family. 🙂
Sounds like just what I’d need. Thanks for the giveaway!
Need help with cooking…so overwhelmed with re-starting the farm and business after moving out of state!
My goal is to plan dinners for every week this year with at least 3 beans meals planned for budget help. I think this could really help me to consolidate and organize all of my recipes.
I’ve just recently started menu planning, and it’s making my life a lot easier… but all of my recipes are online!! Something like this would really simplify the process, I think…
Putting food on the table every night is easier when I have a plan. My goal is to keep it up.
Plan to Eat would be GREAT for helping me not only plan my meals but also generate a shopping list very easily. That would save a lot of time and money.
How have I never heard of this before? Wow! Definitely sounds like something I have to check out. 🙂
I am trying to meal plan at least 2 weeks in advance if not a whole month!
I need help meal planning we have had too many days with hot dogs and PB&J
I have debated about signing up for Plan to Eat and after reading this post I think it would be worth it. Especially at the reasonable price that it is. It would be even better to win the 1st year free. Thank you
i’m horrible with meal planning… so i’m trying to start planning at least 1/2 my meals. i’m hoping to work my way up to more.
I had surgery that makes it important that I watch what I eat. Meal planning is necessary for me and this looks like it would be a great way to do that!
I need to get better at meal planning, as my food shopping comes in two week cycles (local food buying club)
Would love to try this out!
The idea of importing my recipes easily sounds wonderful.
I wish I had something to help me plan my meals. This looks more customizable than others I’ve seen, that pick out the meals for me.
I’d love to go paperless with my recipes! They always get so messy in the kitchen!
My meal planning goal is to stay consistent this year! I’ve been so off/on when it comes to planning ahead, but I really want to keep it up!
My meal planning goal is to actually do it! I always have good intentions, but rarely follow through. I think doing it online will help a ton!
My meal planning goal? Switching us over to entirely gluten-free… without having to constantly eat the same things!
With 3 little girls, I would love to be able to have meals all planned out!
I’d LOVE to win Plan to Eat! I have the goal to plan meals….sometimes I try weekly, sometimes I dream about trying monthly planning. So far, I can do the weekly for about 2-3 weeks, then life gets busy and it falls apart on me.
I really would love a tool to help me utilize our food budget and time cooking more efficiently, and access to healthy recipes would be wonderful!
meal planning goal: including our soon to be 1 yr old in our meals
I’m not very organized when it comes to meal planning, and I always get behind. This would be GREAT for me, especially with our first baby due soon!
I never know what to cook and I hate waiting until the last minute!
I plan on meal planning EVERY week. I save so much money! I am usually pretty good at it. But this would help streamline!
My meal planning consists of planning the evening meal in the morning/afternoon. I SO want to start planning! I do get a lot of recipes online, so maybe Plan to Eat would help me get going.
I love to meal-plan but it’s hard to gather recipes from so many different sources. None of my organizational attempts have succeeded so far . . . maybe this would be “the one!”
We will be moving overseas and will need to have a good meal plan ahead of time. We will be shopping at a military commissary that is about 1 hour away and will need to be well organized with our shopping.
I’m hoping to transition all of my recipes and meal-planning online because we’re going to be moving overseas, and the less paper I need to take with me, the better.
I just need to actually start menu planning. I sit down to do it, and can never think of what I want to cook. Our schedule is also always changing, so it’s hard to plan what nights I have time to cook and what nights I need something quick.
I seriously need some help in this area. I try and try and try to be consistent but I fail.
Oh goodness. I desperately need this. I am doing GAPS and sometimes I get so overwhelmed I want to crawl back into bed. I sometimes freeze up. We have been into this for 7 months now and are sort of hitting a rut. I have looked into other’s plans, but have a hard time since I want to use food we do have, rather than hunting down things we don’t. This seems a great system.
It would help me to keep up better with all my recipes!
Like you, my meal planning has changed so much. I think this would just help me streamline so much!! I just need a better system. 🙂
I have a hard time planning ahead – this might just be the trick to get me out of my rut and into a more systematic approach. I’d love to win to try it out.
I love Plan to Eat.
I love Plan to Eat. I use it right now to do my meal planning and I love that you can share recipes with other Plan to Eat users.
My meal planning goal is to use good planning to cut our food budget by half this year (I’m about 50% there).
My goal is to get better at having plans for a week at a time.
I need help staying on track with meal planning.
I am working hard at planning our meals in 2 week cycles to follow our pay periods. So far it has been working quite well, but this program looks fabulous for planning meals.
I need meal planning to be automatic and have an easy way for my husband to access it!
My goal with meal planning is to do it. I have been trying to meal plan for about 6 weeks now. Much less stress. Just takes a bit of time!! Also want to keep it healthy.
I tried P2E with the free trial before. Then I fell off the wagon of meal-planning for a while, as life got more hectic. Now I’m back, and ready to try again! Meal-planning truly makes my life so much less stressful.
I want to plan more gluten-free and dairy-free meals this year!
Plan to Eat would be a good fit for me because, while I love to feed my family real foods, I get so stuck when it comes to the planning part and this would be the helper that would help me get it done!
I would love this program. Now that we are a gluten free family it would be helpful to share recipes with my sisters family and my parents!
My husband does most of our meal planning. I think this would be great for us to use so we can better keep track of our favorite recipes and not get into a rut!
I love to plan my menus. This would be a great tool to keep my lists and recipes in one place.