Amazing post!!!

this is an amazing site from MONEYSAVINGMOM.com!!! i am seriously going to check this out! i suck at coming up with ideas for meals and she does it for yoU!!!!! based on your likes and dislikes!! fabulous!!! and for $5-10 a month! um definitely worth it!
this is the post from http://www.moneysavingmom.com


Posted: 07 Nov 2009 09:07 AM PST
Kate, from Stolen Moments Cooking, recently offered to let me try out her personalized menu planning service. I was a little bit leery of how it would work for someone like me. I rarely follow recipes or directions and so following a menu plan that someone else made up for me? I really didn't think it would work. But I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful this service was--even for an out-of-the-box, non-systematical person like me!
Here are a few things I liked about Stolen Moments Menu Planning:
First off, Kate doesn't just send you a generic menu for the month. Oh no! You fill out a survey and then she custom creates a menu tailored to your family's likes and dislikes--and it's all factored in with your grocery budget, too. I was impressed with her ability to take the survey I filled out and put together a great menu within our weekly grocery budget which also considered our family's food preferences. It sort of felt like I was royalty or something to have someone else planning customized menus for our family!
Secondly, while I didn't follow the menu exactly (you know that would pretty much be impossible for me to do, don't you?), having a full month's worth of menus all mapped out for me gave me a great springboard of ideas and inspiration to work from. As a busy mom of three little ones, it definitely saved me time and mental energy to have a list already made out to work from.
Thirdly, Kate had a lot of unique ideas woven throughout the menu to help you speed up your efficiency in the kitchen. For instance, she suggested I bake extras of certain items and stick them in the freezer for a later date. One of my favorite ideas was her recipe for Homemade Uncrustables (just make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut out with a biscuit cutter, crimp the edges together with a fork, and freeze). It's such a simple thing, but something I'd never thought to do before. What a fun and economical way to have lunch-on-the-go all made up and at-the-ready in the freezer!
I believe strongly that one of the easiest ways to save money on your grocery bill is to have a menu plan and to follow the plan. It will eliminate dozens of unnecessary purchases and store-runs throughout the month which will invariably save you dozens--if not hundreds!--of dollars.
If you want to plan menus but feel hurried and harried as it is and would rather pay a little bit to have someone do the work for you, I'd definitely recommend that you check out Stolen Moments Menu Planning. The small amount of money it costs each month, could definitely save you more than ten times the actual cost of the service.