When it’s the end of the work day and it’s time to think about dinner, it can often feel like your energy is gone. And your brain can’t even fathom making one more decision, even for something as essential was figuring out what to eat.
Data shows that we make thousands of little decisions throughout the day. Among those decisions are those about food logistics.
What am I going to eat for lunch? Should I have that last bite? What about that snack in the break room? Is my stomach hungry?
All day long, your brain is flipping between what you need to get done and what choices you need to make about food. The food noise has grown so much in our world that it makes it tough to not think about food. In fact, research shows that the average person makes over 200 decisions about food each and every day.
So once you get to dinner, the idea of making one more decision seems harder than much of what you conquered throughout your day. Perhaps your fridge is full, after a well-intentioned trip to the grocery store over the weekend. Nonetheless, your brain can’t handle deciding what recipe to use.
That’s where a meal planner with grocery list can come into play. The decision? Done. The food? In the fridge. The prep? In progress.
Why Traditional Meal Planning Feels Like a Second Job
I used to spend my Sundays going through my binders of recipes. Once I’d find a few that sounded good, I’d pencil them into my handwritten meal plan. Typically, I tried to plan about two weeks a time – adding in a variety of meats and cuisines to keep it interesting.
This process would take me hours. From picking out the best recipes to then building the grocery list, my Sundays were reserved for the kitchen table. And not in the way that I’d prefer – filled with chatter from family and friends over a good meal.
Once I did get to the point that I had a grocery list, going through the grocery store was annoying at best. I didn’t organize the list very well, so that meant that some of my veggies were at the bottom of the list. And one thing I dislike more than that 5 p.m. dinner decision? Having to backtrack at the grocery store.
Like many, once life got busy where Sundays couldn’t be dedicated to the tedious process of meal planning manually; I happily threw the habit to the side. But then, the 5 p.m. dinner decision crept back in.
Best Meal Planner with Grocery List: The Features You Can’t Skip
Nowadays, meal planning has moved to the digital world – along with many of our recipes (of course, except for those favorites from grandma’s cookbooks… that’s a topic for another day). As meal planning has become more technology based, there are several different options and types on the market.
Many rely on using AI to help you generate your recipes and your meal plan, which can work for some families. For others, it can add complexity and challenges as AI may have the taste buds of a house cat. TBD.
If you are in the marketing for meal planning technology, check out these four features to make sure it’s hitting the mark and helping you end the mental load of what’s for dinner.
Dynamic, Automated Grocery List Generation
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say backtracking at the grocery store has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in life. The best meal planning technology makes it so this isn’t even an option.
After compiling the recipes and the plan for the week, the system will generate a grocery list for you at the click of the button. And the best part? It’s organized by how you shop the grocery store. All of your fresh fruits and vegetables together. The dairy organized more orderly than cows walking into the barn for the night.
Believe it or not, this orderly list does more than just simplify the grocery shopping experience. It helps your brain to relax. The lack of clutter and chaos means that your nervous system can take a breath and focus on the task at hand.
Macro-level Meal Planning
Yes, planning your macros (carbs, fats, protein) is super important and an amazing feature to you have in your meal planning technology. But in this case, we’re talking about macro as the ability to view the weeks you’ve planned at a glance.
Everyone’s days look a little different, and that means that people plan in ways that work best for them. Some people prefer to plan out a week; others may like to do the entire month. Plus, with travel and busy schedules, having the option to plan out as far as you’d like can be helpful.
The best meal planning technology offers the ability to schedule the week ahead, but also further ahead to accommodate your schedule and plans. Plus, they offer a view so you can see exactly what’s on the menu next – helping you see how you may need to update it or revise it.
One Click Meal Plan Generation
Manually creating your meal plan at the kitchen table takes so much time, meaning that many people have turned to technology to help them plan. But even so, many meal planning tools save some time – but still make it complicated to generate a meal plan.
The best meal planning technology offers an option to generate a meal plan in one click. Yes, one click! Imagine that – all of your favorite recipes in one place, and your meal plan created from those recipes. Of course, having the option to revise as needed helps because you never know what life may throw your way.
Digital Recipe Box
Speaking of recipes, I don’t know about you; but my recipes live in so many places. My old cookbooks. My Pinterest board. In the pictures on my phone. And some, in my brain.
When it comes to meal planning, this becomes really difficult. How can I get the recipes I love into one system so that I can actually plan and cook for the foods that I enjoy? This is where meal planning technology can help. With a digital recipe box that makes it easy to pull in recipes from multiple sources – URL, PDF, photo – it means that you can finally make those recipes that have been buried in the cookbooks in the back of your closet.
Why Weekly Table is the Best Monthly Meal Planner with Grocery List
As we built Weekly Table, we focused on what drains us the most: the 5 p.m. decision fatigue. The tool was built intentionally. To eliminate the chaos at the end of the day, and give you more time building connections with your families and those that you love.
That’s why Weekly Table tops the list as the best monthly meal planning technology. Because it was founded by moms, who understand that while the days are chaotic; the years are short (even in the chaos). And, it’s time to get your time back and reclaim the time you have with those you love.
Ready to get started? Subscribe to Weekly Table for free.
