TOS Review: E-mealz

So, "What's for dinner?". 

If you cringe when that question is asked, then I have a solution for you! E-mealz is a simple solution to solve your dinner dilemma with easy meals based on delicious recipes and a consistent grocery budget.

Jane DeLaney, founder of maketimeforfamily.org and E-Mealz, is a mother of four children and the wife of an associate pastor. She grew up as the third of five in a preacher's family, living in the church parsonage. Many wonderful memories grew out of the shared experience of family dinner for Jane, but she found that her life was drastically different from her mother's.

Jane's inspiration for E-Mealz grew out of her frustration with the difficulty of pulling off dinner for her own family. She says that she felt one week would be semi-sane with "a scribbled down meal plan on napkin lost in the bottom of my purse," and then the next would be sheer chaos. But she was committed to making her family life ordered around an evening meal where everyone could decompress and come face to face with each other.

E-mealz offers families just that option.  With 28 different meal plans to choose from, they have an option for available for many different families.  Plans are available for families from 2-6.  You can easily double recipes if your family is larger as well.  You can see a sample of each plan here.

You can subscribe to e-mealz for only $1.25 per week.  You subscribe for 3 months at a time for $15.  Once you subscribe, you have the choice of changing your meal plan once during your subscription.  E-mealz is also recommended by financial guru Dave Ramsey. He says, "Food is the biggest budget buster of all. I’ve wanted someone to create a practical solution to the "beans and rice, rice and beans" dilemma. Finally... E-Mealz has done it! You will save a ton of time and money. And at just $5.00 per month, E-Mealz is a no-brainer!"

I choose the Any Store Regular Family Meal Plan and then switched to the Aldi Regular Family Meal Plan to compare.  Overall, I found the 2 plans pretty comparable but would choose the any store plan for the future.  The weekly meals are very easy to adjust.  The shopping list gives you the meal number so if you are skipping one of the meals that week on the plan you just simply skip that number.  The average meal plan costs between $75-$85 if you already have some of the basic staples.

The plan works in 3 simple steps.

You can't get much simpler than that!

Out of the meals I fixed, my family loved them all!  Every week, I tweaked the menu plan to fit our family.  Our schedule during the time of this review was C-R-A-Z-Y so not having to really think about "what's for dinner" was such a blessing.  I also tweaked a few of the recipes. The one below was Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole and I left out the poppy seeds because they irritate tummies around here.

This one was Spaghetti Pie but I used a casserole dish instead of a pie pan.

Here is a picture of the week's menu plan and grocery list.

Overall, we really enjoyed the plans we chose from e-mealz.  It was a big relief for me in having menus already planned during such a busy time.  I think subscribing for 3 months at a time would be beneficial for us because of the tweaking I tend to do.  I could throw in a few of our tried and true favorites along with the menus offered by e-mealz.  It was also nice to try new dinner meals for that dinner time rut I often get in.  


Would our family purchase a subscription to e-mealz?  I can't say I would keep it going all the time but I would definitely see subscribing occasionally when I know we will have a hectic schedule coming up or just need some new inspiration.

Don't forget to check out what my fellow crewmates thought of E-mealz.

**Disclaimer: I received a free membership in exchange for my review. The opinions here are my honest and true evaluation!