Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Atlanta, GA

Is one of your family resolutions to eat healthier?  Or maybe just learn to cook? Or try and be more organized about your meal time planning?

We all know that eating together as a family is one of the best bonding times you can have with your kids.  The benefits abound, from learning social skills, to table manners to just staying connected.  When I was growing up, dinner time was our family social hour.  And still is to be honest!

However, with busy schedules -- for both mom & dad and the kiddos -- making dinner and eating together sometimes get pushed aside.  Here at Savvy we've posted several time about how much fun it is to cook with your kids.  But that still leaves the "planning part."  Planning your meals in advance helps to save you time, money and helps to keep your sanity! 

I know what foods my family likes and how long it takes to prepare each meal.  Every Sunday I sit down and prepare a meal plan and shopping list based on that meal plan.  I do the planning for the majority of the week, but let the kids help out too and chose a meal each week that they want.  Sometimes I'm surprised by their picks!  We have our basic meal plan down -- but I try to incorporate something new or different each week for a bit of variety as well -- or sometimes we revisit an old favorite!

The meal planning does take a bit of time, but the more you do it, the less time it takes.  And it takes less time than stressing out over what to cook on a day by day basis!

And the money saving benefits!  By creating a meal plan, you know what food you will need (and quantities) to feed your family.  Having a list and knowing what you want and need cuts down on impulse buys and wasted food and money.

What if there was a website that was designed for helping you find and bookmark favorite recipes, help you come up with meal plans, maybe make some suggestions... 

Well, I can help you out --  emealsforyou.com is a website that does just this... and more!

Here is an excerpt from their website: 

emealsforyou.com was created to get families back to the table, at least as many times as possible per week. OUr goal is to remove some of the obstacles in the way of accomplishing this. We believe there are a few areas that stand in the way of having a happy meal as opposed to a "Happy Meal." The first was deciding what to cook; or as we call it the dreaded "What's for dinner?"  Solving this we felt the need for some assistance in what to buy, how much and so on. In today's economy we need all the help we can get to stay within our budget; using a shopping list is a proven method to save on your food bills.  At emealsforyou.com we provide the recipes/ meal plans (ideas); we scale the recipes for the number of people you are cooking for and then we provide the shopping list.

We also understand in the current economy it is important to save money wherever you can. Planning meals can save you real money while feeding your family great, tasty and good-for-them meals. Simply make your choices from hundreds of recipes and meal plans or create your own meal plans from our recipes, complete with photos. Point and click and you have the recipes, scaled to the number of people you are feeding; no more dividing or multiplying ingredients to get the right amount for your family, and shopping lists ready to print on your printer.   By planning your meals and using a shopping list you will easily be able to save more than the cost of our service in the very first month.