Yesterday I was catching up on my FlyLady.net mail and came across one of their featured summer recipes. It looked tasty, but I know I couldn't get my family to eat it so I just scrolled through, skimming to see if there was any further content I could use. And then I learned that the recipe was credited to the fine ladies at savingdinner.com (Note: this is not one of those paid/sponsored blog posts. This is an actual kudo from my life to yours) Well, checking into the site further I found I could afford to subscribe to a three month package of weekly menus/shopping lists mailed to me. I can also go online to download it.

The first choice I had was which plan to sign up for: they run them by the standard year, but can break down quarterly for those of us who hesitate to commit to a full year. The second choice was which specialty I wanted to choose. They feature plans for weight watchers, health restrictions, seafood/meat/vegetarian only options. The choice I went with was frugality. I signed up, paid them, and a few minutes later I had the introductory menu in my inbox.

The first page of the pdf file is the grocery list. It gives you a brief synopsis of the 6 planned meals for the week, with suggested sides, and breaks down the necessary ingrediants into grocery-store sections. Meat, produce, condiments, dry grocery, etc. After each ingrediant is a parenthetical notation that tells you which meal it goes to- in case you need/want to alter their plans in any way. Cross off the list anything you already have, and off to the store you go. I crossed off about half the meat section, half the spices/condiments, and a few other things. My grocery bill this morning at Food Co came to $68.56 which included several little extras that we eat regularly and were out of. Each recipe serves 6-8, and I'm thinking that the way we eat/stretch certain things out that this shopping/menu plan will last more to 10 days rather than the 7 it's designed to cover. Assuming a couple of leftover nights and the weekly pizza delivery, I'm thinking that my three month subscription could be stretched out to cover 6 months of real-time. I'll let you know how it goes.