Eat At Home Meal Plans Review – An Honest Review of Great, Easy Money Saving Meal Plans for Families. The best and most affordable meal planning service for busy moms and families living on a budget. This honest Eat at Home review will help you determine if the meal planning service is the right fit for you and your family and how to save money on meal planning.
Tell me if this sounds like you… You tell yourself “I’m going to make a budget for food and I’m going to stick to it!” And even though every other time that you’ve tried to make your grocery budget stay on track and you’ve gone off the rails, “this time will be different.” And you’re resolved to make it work and stick to it.
And day 1 went so well and even day 2 has been going ok… and then by day 3… you forgot to take the ground beef out of the freezer and it’s 4:52 pm and the kids are starting to look at you like they’re getting ready to say the dreaded “I’m hungry” and you’re scrambling to try to figure out what to make but you’re tired because you just got in the door and the crockpot was supposed to be on but it wasn’t and now… you say “SCREW THE BUDGET!” and get pizza.
Sound familiar? Yeah. Me too.
If you find that life is just too hectic and you spend more time in the fast-food drive-thru than in your kitchen, the missing ingredient (pun totally intended!) to peaceful cooking at home is likely meal planning.
While the concept is simple enough, meal planning can be a bit overwhelming — particularly without some sort of help in getting started. Trust me when I say this: I TRIED. I really did. I tried everything to make my own meal planning.
I shopped around for great recipes, everything looked so good, but I always wound up picking recipes that required 16 hours of prep work, obscure and expensive ingredients, and things that ultimately my family didn’t like. Not just that, but making the list of all of the ingredients I needed from the store was a royal pain.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t have time for cooking, I didn’t have time for the prep work behind the scenes either. I didn’t have the time to find recipes, go over them to see if my picky 4 year old would eat them, make a master list of what to get at the grocery store, and then finally do the shopping. Once all of that was done, an entire day of mine was gone!
Right here was where I knew that I had 2 choices: either accept that in order to “stay on budget,” finding and cooking meals that my family would like was going to take up a LOT of my already packed schedule and then I was still just going to get Chipotle on the way home from the grocery store because I was too tired from the kids’ activities and life to make myself food… (hard pass)… OR… I needed to get some help.
After trying (and failing over and over again) on my own, I discovered the best thing ever to help me with my meal planning: Eat At Home Meal Plans.
Eat at Home is an amazing meal planning resource that makes planning out your meals super simple. If you’re like me – with basically 0 extra time between working and school and trying to keep the bills paid on time and food in the fridge and taking a kid to baseball or swimming… oh and don’t forget to shower and go to Bible study! – these meal plans are exactly what you need!
Imagine having a delicious, budget-friendly, kid-friendly, easy to make/prep/shop for a home-cooked meal that everyone is happy with at dinner time. Oh, and someone else does all of the recipe finding/ testing and the grocery list-making. All for around $2 a week. Sounds amazing right?
With Eat at Home Meals, you can forget about trying to find recipes that your people will love. Forget about the stress of trying to find recipes for the crockpot or the instant pot. Forget about the need to have recipes that work on a budget for someone with dietary restrictions. You’re all covered with Eat at Home Meals.
These are the only way that my family would be able to eat delicious food every night. Trust me – I’m NOT a skilled cook. But even I can get behind the recipes and how easy they are to make. It’s certainly been life-changing for me, and I decided it might be helpful for me to do an honest Eat At Home review so you could determine whether it is the right option for you and your family.
(Hang on: because I’ve been using them for years now, I’ve got a special discount code to share with you! Just use the code CAROLINE25 at checkout and save 25% off of your meal plans!)
What exactly is this Eat at Home Meal Plan?
First of all, let’s talk about what It actually is. Eat at Home Meals is a system that will allow you to cook food quickly, so it doesn’t take away from your busy lifestyle. Every single recipe at Eat at Home is created with the consideration that you, like most people, don’t have a lot of time to cook but still want to stick to a budget AND feed your family healthy delicious food. So, the prep time is quick and easy, as well as the actual cooking times (which, yes, there are options for how to cook the meals – but more on that later).
Not only is the cooking and prep simple, but you will also get a grocery list that has every single ingredient you need (including the things you have in your pantry already). No more guesswork or aimlessly shopping or trying to find weird ingredients – this is the best way to get a grocery list for meal planning together fast!
Got a food allergy or a dietary restriction? You’re covered with Eat at Home Meals
The other thing that makes this a great option for many people is that there are several plans created with dietary restrictions in mind. Yes, even if you’re on a keto diet, you can make these meal plans for yourself and for your family.
The programs currently available are Slow Cooker, Whole Foods, No Flour, No Sugar, and Traditional Plans. Even better? You will have access to all 4 of the plans when you sign up! You can choose what the best fit for you and your family is, even if it varies week by week.
And, when you sign up for Eat at Home meal plans, you will have access to an entire month worth of recipes from all 4 of the plans. That is going to give you an incredible library of 72-80 recipes a month (check them out HERE)!
These meal plans are fantastic at not repeating recipes in the same quarter, so you don’t have to worry about eating the exact same thing every single month.
The Benefits to the Eat at Home Meals
There are so many benefits to the Eat at Home meal plans, but these are the ones that were most crucial for me and my family. Here is a breakdown of why I honestly love the Eat at Home Meal Plans.
- You don’t have to be a chef to make these meals. Each recipe is a down-to-earth meal that can easily fit into your level of cooking. You don’t have to know everything because the instructions are crystal clear and easy to follow. This was a big one for me since I never learned how to cook!
- The food is easy to find at your local grocery store. No random, obscure ingredient that you’d only be able to find in a boutique grocery store. Even if you live in the middle of nowhere, you should be able to find the ingredients without issue. The recipes specifically use ingredients that are easy to come by so you don’t have to search all over.
- The recipes are extremely affordable. Ok, maybe this one if my favorite! The recipes are easy, delicious, AND budget-friendly. You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg for these meal plans. For a small fee, you receive access to tons of amazing recipes that you will love. You will save money because everything is organized and you can plan ahead. This will allow you to skip the dining out, which will save you even more. The Eat at Home Meals reviews speaks for themselves!
- It costs as low as $1.21 per week. The meals are affordable, but so is the service itself! When you use the discount code CAROLINE25 to get 25% off, it winds up being as low as $1.21 per month to get lunch and dinner recipes for the whole month from 4 different meal plan options.
- It’s easy to find everything you need in the member area. I’m bad with technology. So an easy to use member area is VERY important to me. Thankfully, everything is in one place when you login. And they’ll email you letting you know when the next month’s meal plans are live and ready to grab.
- I LOVE that the recipes include crockpot AND Instant Pot instructions as well as the conventional instructions! I LOVE my InstantPot and my crockpot and there are a lot of days when the only chance I have to get dinner on the table is if I use either of those appliances. Thankfully, the Eat at Home Meal Plans have conversions for both slow cooker and pressure cookers! Yay!
- It takes the stress out of meal planning. You don’t have to do a lot of thinking, just pick your recipes, shop, and prepare them. I know how stressful it can be when you try to meal plan without an easy-to-follow system. This system has already been used by thousands of people each month and it works, so there isn’t much of a learning curve. The Eat at Home Meals team really has thought of everything.
Don’t forget – you get a special discount! Just use the code CAROLINE25 at checkout and save 25% off of your meal plans!
Eat at Home Meal Plan vs. Meal Delivery
Ok, I’m going to hop up on my soapbox here.
Meal delivery services (Hello Fresh and the like) are NOT going to save you money. They just aren’t. Sure, they do all of the shopping for you, but you could take the grocery list from Eat At Home Meals and then just hop right over to Instacart and have someone do your shopping for you for less.
With a meal delivery program, you will pay high prices to pick from just a few recipes a week. Then they ship the food to your door along with directions on how to make the food. Of course, this is ultra-convenient, but there is definitely a cost associated with that. These meals cost WAY more than if you drove to your local store and picked up the exact same ingredients (and, if you shop Aldi with Instacart, the cost is even less).
Another major difference is, meal delivery companies tend to only have a few recipe options available each week. I tried Hello Fresh in the name of experimenting. And in the week I picked, there were no dinner options that sounded worth it or that even sounded good. This particular week, the options were a few fish dishes (I hate fish, so those were out) and the other dishes were way too easy and basic to validate the cost. I mean, tacos? I can make those at home by myself. Pasta with meat sauce? Really? For $8 a meal? I don’t think so.
And forget about those meal delivery services if you have more than 2 kids. If I wanted to feed my whole family, I’d need to buy 2 boxes. Just not worth it when you compare to Eat at Home Meals and Instacart together costing less AND getting a lot more food.
The bottom line here is that Eat at Home Meals are not the same as a meal delivery service. You still need to do the shopping for the ingredients, but they are not difficult to find, and the recipes are easy and delicious.
Plus, you get a lot of options and recipes to choose from that utilize all sorts of cooking methods. This will save you a massive headache because you aren’t trying to choose between foods you know your children (and maybe a picky husband) just aren’t going to enjoy. Let’s face it: there’s nothing worse than shopping for and making a meal that no one wants to eat.
I will say, for my family, we are pretty picky about the type of produce that we buy. So to us, Eat at Home Meals get the advantage simply because you get to go to the store and pick out what vegetables and fruit you want, rather than relying on a company to do it for you.
Is there a downside to the Eat at Home Meals?
It wouldn’t be an honest review of the Eat at Home Meal Plans if I didn’t share with you what I didn’t love. I mean, obviously I love them. But even with something like this where I love it so much, there are still some downsides.
- Not a whole lot of customization with family sizes. You can choose the size of your family, but we’re bigger than the average family. So when the options are either just 2 people or a “family,” they’re usually not talking about a family of 6 including 4 boys/man who eat like there’s no tomorrow.
- I wish there were more dietary options. Now, I will say this: they are NOT a dietician service that makes recipes specific to dietary restrictions. I’m thankful that none of my kids have severe food allergies, but I do have a son who needs to eat gluten-free. We’re able to modify the meals for him easily (eating gluten-free is actually not terribly hard at home). But I do wish that there were more options there.
- I wish that the recipes could be changed out. Ok, this one is nit-picky. I know that between the 4 recipes for every month, I can find more than 1 delicious meal if I have one that just doesn’t sound good. But I wish that there was a database where I could say “nope, there’s no way I’m making salmon… let’s change that out to chicken instead.” But, again, this is me being overly critical.
I mean this when I say that I’ve tried a lot of meal planning routines and services. I mean a LOT of them. And the Eat at Home Meals really checks all of my boxes. They’re easy to make, delicious, stress-free, Instantpot and Crockpot friendly, budget-friendly, picky eater friendly, and – because we’re those people who like to avoid processed food and try to eat organic as much as possible – the food is actually good for you.
You can start using Eat at Home Meals and make your life SO much easier right now. Just use the code CAROLINE25 at checkout and save 25% off of your meal plans!
BONUS: How to Save Money with Meal Planning
Saving money is so vital to most of us. Food is a necessity, that we have to spend money on. However, with some planning, you can learn to save lots of money with meal prepping, whether you opt to do it with a program or on your own.
Double Your Meal
One of the easiest ways to save money and time is to simply double or even triple the recipe.
Whether you decide to eat the second meal the next day for lunch, or freeze it and eat it later, making 2-3 meals instead of just one will help will stretch your dollar and save you time, too.
Stick to Your List The Easy Way
When you use the shopping lists with Eat at Home Meals or one you’ve created, you will know exactly what you need to buy. This will help prevent those last-minute purchases because you can’t decide what sounds good. Shopping with an easy-to-follow list is going to save you money and time.
If you decide to try and make your own meal plan, you might be interested in this list of 100 cheap and easy 15-minute meals.
Stock Up On Sale Items
Whenever I come across a great deal on an ingredient I know I will use the future, I stock up. For example, if my local grocery store is running a special on chicken breasts, I will buy 15 to 20 pounds, and freeze the bulk of it to use over the following month.
The Eat at Home Meals Honest Review Conclusion…
If you want to stay on budget with your groceries, meal planning is the best way to do it. And if you’re like me and are just super busy and frazzled all the time and barely have time to stay alive let alone make food for everyone and stay on budget, then you need some extra help.
That’s where the Eat at Home Meals come in.
Thankfully, Eat at Home Meals will make your life so much easier by taking one BIG stressor off of your plate (that was a dad joke… I’m not sorry 😉 ). It’s one less big thing that you have to worry about for your family to keep you on budget and keep your family fed.
You don’t have to be Super Mom all the time. Getting help with this would mean that you can be Super Mom in other places that matter a lot more.
Get rid of the stress of dinner for good and make some amazing dinners that will save you time, money and a lot of stress. Grab your Eat at Home Meals for 25% off with the code CAROLINE25 at checkout.
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