Dinner time tends to be a struggle for me, I find it very difficult to come up with meal ideas, then when I think of something I have to forage the pantry to make sure that we have the ingredients. Inevitably, we would have everything but one ingredient and I’d have to start the thinking process all over again. I love to cook and bake, but I hate to think. The first step in solving a problem is to define it… essentially, I needing to remove the thinking part from the meal time scenario.
Ok, so at the beginning of school last year (September 2010), I came up with a plan. While eating Sunday dinner, we would plan our weekly meals as a family using the magnetic whiteboard weekly meal planner that I found at Target. Click here to see OrganizHer products on Facebook. The kids were actively involved in choosing meals and Ella would capture them for us. We would then use this meal plan to help generate our shopping list. Wonderful things began to happen… most importantly, I no longer had to think. That’s right, I became the best brain-dead mom around. Secondly, our grocery bill dropped significantly because we started only buying what we needed instead of aimlessly walking through Walmart. Loved it.
For some reason, near the Holiday season, we started neglecting our meal plan, MUCH to my dismay. But I kept thinking to myself that I need to automate this process somehow… pen and paper are so early 21st century.
Changing gears for just a moment (stick with me, it all comes together), I started using Springpad to organize some projects, ideas (both personal and professional) that I wanted to address. LOVE Springpad, it’s a really cool, online, FREE tool, please visit their website (I am not affiliated with Springpad but would welcome any offers from their people).
Then, last week, I had an epiphany… I bet I could somehow use Springpad to help with our meal planning. Turns out these guys are wayyyy ahead of me (not surprising, considering my distaste for thinking) and an entire portion of their blog is dedicated to meal planning. WHOA!! THIS IS IT!! I created a notebook entitle “Meal Planning” (have I ever mentioned that I am really creative when naming things?). Then in the ‘my stuff’ section I typed in, or linked to, all of our recipes… everything that we currently make and enjoy. I went to my board in the Meal Planning notebook, created labels for the days of the week, then grabbed the meals we wanted to make for the week and posted them to the board. Then, and here comes the BEST PART, I automatically generated a shopping list from the menu!!! AUTOMATICALLY!!! You can always uncheck an item… say the recipe calls for an onion and you already have one, just don’t include it in that week’s shopping list. You can also manually add items to the list that you need and did not appear in any recipe.
Wait, it gets better.
There is an app for the iPad as well as our Droid phones so that this list NEVER has to be printed (this is for my environmentally aware friends, you know who you are). Craig was at the grocery store yesterday using his phone to view the list. No duplicate info, always live, interactive, real-time… we have reached the 21st century!
Wait, it gets better.
There’s a button that you can add to your browser entitled, “SpringIt!” If you are on a website with a recipe, you can click that button and add it to your recipes. The folks at Springpad also post recipes and meal plans on their blog with recipes that you can Spring. So freaking cool!
Ok, last time it really does get better.
Let’s say you want to plan when you will be eating out at a restaurant. You can add your favorite restaurants to your notebook and then post them to your board, just as you would a recipe. When you add a business (of any type), it includes the phone number, map, and any other available info about that business.
This is just one example of how you can use Springpad, it is a very robust application and I highly recommend checking out their website. A few ideas on potential uses: vacation planning, spring cleaning, and any home or business project.
you are too funny! I have been doing my meal planning on Excel for a year or so…cut & pasting the recipes into calendars in excel, shopping for all the meat @ Sams the 1 st o the month then…. getting the weekly items on Sunday BUT I might change my ways now…I have all the tools
thanks babe
PS: Jack is next to me loving the pictures of Mr.
THANKYOU!!! Yes I intentionally am shouting that! Thank you so much Heather. I have been looking for something like this & can’t wait to put it into action. I am beyond excited. I don’t make ‘resolutions’ but I do however try to set some realistic goals & since I love organizing there always seems to be something of that kind on my goals list. Meal planning organization as well as a recipe book that is current was put on the goal list. Now I can really tackle it & see results. Adam bought an R2D2 Droid for himself & a blue/black one for me so we actually have cell phones now. This is going to be instrumental in making my life easier! THANKYOU so very much!
Thank you so much Heather for this wealth of information. I sit down every week with the grocery flyer trying to plan meals with a good old fashioned pencil and paper. I always have a million little notes for things to remember. I feel like I spend more time trying to organize my thoughts then actually acting on them. I am constantly trying to figure out a way to make this house run like a well oiled machine… springpad might be my answer. Maybe you should offer a class on organizing and priortitizing… ; )
Thank you for introducing me to this great tool! I recently moved back out of my parents’ home and I think this will definitely help me figure out what I want to eat and what I will hence need to pick up at the store! (Maybe I will start eating less macaroni and cheese!)
I soooo can’t figure out how to do this. I can’t find ‘labels’ just notes and tasks and events. Then if i try to drag a recipe into the note/task/event, it doesn’t work. I’ve been searching thinking i am just springpad idiot, but maybe it’s the new system? Help!
btw, I just joined springpad this month.