E-mealz update

So... e-mealz... as a program I think it was great. Unfortunately, it wasn't saving Hien and me any money so we had to nix it. We ended up spending about the same. I do however think that it was nice having my grocery list already made for me, along with recipes picked out. If we were a larger family I think that it would have been a much more useful tool, and I would still encourage people to use it if you are having a hard time staying on a budget with your grocery needs.

Some things that were a bit of a bummer:

• They only give you 5 dinners and leave you on your own for lunch and weekends. This wasn't a problem for us because we always had left overs that we ended up eating. Actually, were able to stretch the 5 meals out to feed us for about a week and a half.
• I didn't notice that the items on the list were on sale or "in season"
• They use broccoli often
• Menus are very "American" I would have preferred it if they had more ethnic variety, or at least offered a plan that had ethnic variety.
• Grocery list was hard to read sometimes because of the 'staples' category. This was at the bottom of the page in separate colums. I had a difficult time getting them at the store because everything else is listed by what store section you would find them in. This made my trips to the store longer and a little frustrating.

Some things that I really liked:

• Recipes were easy to follow.
• The food tasted great.
• Most menus were fast fixes and didn't require a lot of prep time.
• I was introduced to some new recipes