The Best Meal Planning Resources for Busy Families

These are my favorite meal planning resources for busy families. Sometimes you just need an easy way to organize yourself. And, as always, this is my favorite place to find recipes.

• Get Organized By Meal Planning
• Gluten Free Cooking on a Budget

Meal planning sounds SO great, in theory. The problem tends to be that it takes time to do the actual planning! As always, I've searched the internet high and low and found the best meal planning resources that save you time and ultimately money. Not all of these are free but I think the service they provide and time/grocery money they save you is likely totally worth it.

Best Meal Planning Resources:

1. Cooking Light's planner

update: it has changed a little but still very handy!

This is not an ad but it's about to sound like one. This is so easy. Choose whether you want vegetarian, low calorie, quick & easy or 5 ingredient recipes. 

Then they show you a bunch of different photos (hover over them for details) and all you have to do is drag and drop them into the day box. Then click print. You can print them all at once if you'd like. Couldn't be easier. 

Go check out the Cooking Light meal planner here.

2. The Fresh 20

This subscription service is perfect for busy families. I haven't tried this but I definitely want to. For a low monthly fee you have access to all their meal plans that include ingredient lists. And the best part is they keep the number of ingredients low and make sure you use all the ingredients in the meals. No leftover half a can of "who knows what you'll  use it for now". This seems like a great company. I loved what I read about them on their site.

Check out The Fresh 20 here.

3. eMeals

This is another paid meals subscription service. There seem to be more options for this program. I don't know anything about this one either but the site is impressive!

4. Plan to Eat

This online app is a bit different than the previous two. For this app you actually use your own recipes. You can import recipes from anywhere on the web (find some you like on Pinterest?) then you just drag and drop your favorite recipes into a calendar and it makes the shopping list for you. That's a great time saver! Plus you get to eat the meals you choose. 

See more details about Plan to Eat here.

5. Download a Free Meal Planning Printable

Not ready to give up on pens and paper? Download one of these free meal planning printables! 

Learn more about the printables here.