It’s a simple fact-meals need to be prepared every day. Whether you have a family of one or a family of twelve, planning your menus ahead of time can help you eat better, reduce stress, and save both time and money.
In today’s hectic world, we are often making meal decisions based upon what is available at 6:00 PM in whatever supermarket is closest to our home. Doing this day after day is not good for your wallet, or your sanity.
So what is the solution? A menu plan! Menu plans do not need to be complicated, and you do not have to invest hours in making one. A small investment of time can reap great rewards. Here are some of the advantages to using menu planning:
• Good for your wallet-A menu plan can reduce trips to the supermarket, reduce impulse buying, and help you use leftovers more efficiently
• Good for your life balance-Planning meals ahead of time can eliminate last minute trips to the store for forgotten ingredients as well as frantic searches through the freezer looking for something you can thaw and serve quickly.
• Good for your health-Now that you have saved time by eliminating constant trips to the supermarket, there is time to prepare healthy dishes for your family instead of relying on overly processed convenience foods.
Design your plan to fit your personality. If you hate to try new dishes, then don’t feel compelled to just because you are creating a formal plan. If you have ten favorite meals that you cook on a regular basis, start by including those on your plan. Once you get more comfortable with menu planning, you may find you want to branch out and try some new things. One thing is certain, you will already have found extra time just by sticking to a plan, so you may choose to spend that trying delicious new meals for your family.

Found a great video on how to do a Julienne Cut with kitchen knife.

How long it has been that you have taken your spouse and your kids out for a vacation? Definitely, it’s over a year……Right! Planning a vacation might sound too complicated when you have tight schedules at your office, but family can also be not ignored. This is the right time to pleasantly surprise your family with a holiday where they have always wanted to be. It just takes a fraction of seconds and……….do not forget about menu planning. It is the most important part of the vacation that will certainly make your loved ones feel more special. With menu planning, you can get everything what you want just at reasonable prices which will be easy on your pockets. If you are budget concerned, then also you do not need to worry……. service providers will take care. You just need to choose one service provider, which can provide everything in the menu that you wish to have. Holiday Menu Planning offers a variety of options……if your family loves to have roasted turkey, Swiss green bean casserole, apple pies, pumpkin cheesecake, vegan cinnamon swirl coffeecake, shrimp cocktail, sushi platters and lots more. Isn’t these mouth-watering eatables sound too lip-smacking? Yes…..they do. Then what are you waiting for!!!!! Just opt for the best menu planners and make your family feel special. Whether you want to take them out for Thanksgiving or Christmas, the menu planning service providers will surely fulfill your desires and you planned something outside you can even have holiday dinners, as per your convenience. So, enjoy……

Surely, it’s been a long time that you have planned any holiday with your family, obviously because of all those hectic schedules. Now, do not count those short weekend plans when you were out for a movie…………! If you have not planned a vacation yet, this is definitely the right time. Just Imagine !!!! An evening near the beaches, you and your spouse enjoying the dusky sunset and your kids having a great time playing at the beach……….Then at night the family savors the scrumptious dishes that you had already selected while holiday menu planning and get everything you wish for. Isn’t it superb? Certainly, it would be…..Generally, people while planning an outing with the family overlooks to make arrangements for the menu that they would prefer and this some times becomes an unpleasant part of the vacation. To avoid such situations, it is always recommended to have a menu planning and get facilitated at the vacation. The menu planner can include various options like fresh smoked hams, roasted ducks, delicious turkey, mashed potatoes, baked cakes, autumn roasted vegetables and lots more. From meal starters to desserts, menu planers can have everything that can easily fall into your budget. These days, there are numerous websites to choose the menu planning facility for your vacation. The service providers give their best to meet the requirements of people and this is definitely going to make things easy for you. So, just don’t make plans. Go and grab the opportunity make this one, the best-ever vacation for your family.

When was the last time your family had a meal together? I don’t mean sitting in the car munching on burgers from the drive-through. I mean sitting down at the table and sharing a home-cooked meal.

If you can’t remember when you last enjoyed a family dinner, make plans to have them more often. Experts have found – and continue to discover – plenty of benefits for both children and adults when families have dinner together at least three times a week.

I know…I know, it’s not always easy, so click here if you need help with meal planning and grocery shopping.

Here are 10 reasons why you should have family meals more often:

Good For The Body
1. When families eat together, everyone tends to eat healthier. People who have frequent family meals consume more calcium, fiber, iron, and vitamins B6, B12, C and E. It could be because home-cooked meals are healthier than fast food and restaurant meals. (Source: Archives of Family Medicine)

2. Children tend to eat more fruits and vegetables when they frequently have dinner with their families. They also tend to eat fewer snack foods. (Source: American Dietetic Association)

3. Children in families who eat dinner together are less likely to be overweight (Source: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine). This makes sense, given the findings in #1 and #2 above.

Good For The Brain
4. Children from families who eat meals together get better grades than their peers who don’t have lots of family meal times (Source: Lou Harris-Reader’s Digest National Poll).
So family dinners are not only good for the body; they’re also good for the brain.

5. When families eat together frequently, children have better language skills compared to kids from families who don’t have family mealtimes often. (Source: Harvard
University)

Good For Emotional Health
6. Children of families who eat together report feeling happier and are more optimistic about the future, than their peers who have infrequent family meals. (Source: Lou Harris-
Reader’s Digest National Poll)

7. Teenagers are less likely to use drugs, smoke, and drink alcoholic drinks, when their families eat together regularly. (Source: Columbia University)

8. It may come as a surprise, but among Moms who work outside the home, those who have family mealtimes reported feeling less stress than those who had family dinners less
often. (Source: Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal)

9. The more often teen girls had meals with their families, the less likely they were to have symptoms of depression and suicidal behaviors. (Source: University of Minnesota)

Good For Family Bonding
10. Eating together gives family members the chance to communicate and build relationships, something that both adults and children appreciate very much. (Source: Nutrition Education Network of Washington & Oprah Winfrey’s “Family Dinner Experiment”)

I hope these reasons motivate you and your family to try and eat together more often. We’re all busy – even children have plenty of after-school activities. But as the list above
shows, family meals are worth every effort we put into them. It helps to plan ahead so that we’re not scrambling to get dinner ready or panicking because we don’t have all the
ingredients we need.

To make it easier to get the family around the table with a home-cooked meal, check out href="http://dinewithoutwhine.com/amember/go.php?r=7810&i=l10">Dine
Without Whine’s menu planning service. It costs just a penny to try it out!

Catching up on the DVR and saw Suze Orman on Oprah. She blew me away with a suggestion to everyone in American to not eat at a restaurant for a month. I wonder if there will be a rush on the web for menu-planning. She a great segment with Oprah. Suze is giving away her 2009 action plan as free download until January 15th. Maybe next time Suze will stress the money and time save by consistently menu planning.

I was going through a new meal planning website Dinnerbeat.com. I have talked to some local restaurants and their numbers for dinner service have been down over the last few months. It seems like many individuals and families are starting to cook more often. Statistics have proven that planning meals ahead of time is one of the most effective ways to save money on food. The wonderful thing about the web is the number of resources for recipes.