Weekly Menu Planner: Should You Buy or Get One Free?

A weekly menu planner is an essential piece of any grocery savings plan. As I’ve mentioned in my in strategy overview preparing a menu and having a repertoire of recipes in which to prepare it are essential to grocery savings. This is because it is impossible to get organized with your grocery shopping without having an idea of what you are going to cook that week and it is impossible to create a menu without having a list of recipes to choose from

The Basic of my Grocery Savings Strategy

The basics of my grocery savings strategy are;

• Have a list of cook-from-scratch recipes to choose from.
• Peruse your grocery store ads to see what meats are on sale.
• Choose from the list to create a weekly menu capitalizing on the meats on sale.
• Make a grocery list based on the menu.
• Go grocery shopping and stick to your list!

So, in order to pull this off, you have to have some means of writing down a menu. A simple paper and pen would suffice, but there are better options out there.

Weekly Menu Planner Options

• Printable weekly menu planners available online – These are really no more than a calendar you can write your recipes on. They really are of little value over a simple pen and paper.
• Customizable online menu planners – These are simply a step higher than the above option. They are basically calendars on which you can type your recipes on each day before you print it.
• Recipe Software – This is a full-blown recipe software that will do it all for you.

Which to choose?

The first two options are free, so use them if you wish. I just don’t really see much advantage of searching for a menu planner just to get a pre-printed piece of paper you have to print out of your computer. Why not just go to your local office supply store and buy a cheap day planner.

The last option makes the most sense to me. They are all-in-one products which does much more than just help you plan your menu. There are several options out there ranging from free internet-based to $75 products. I’ve check some of these products out and the common theme seems to be you get what you paid for.

Check out my page on Recipe Software, for more information about these powerful products.

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