666356_76728159 This is one way I juggle working from home!

I love to cook. There are days when I want to just shut off my computer and spend some quality time in the kitchen whipping up a 7 course meal.

I was raised by very good cooks, so I know my way around the kitchen. But, I have had major and I mean major problems with meal planning since I started working full-time from home.

When taking care of the home was my only job, I would sit down for hours and scour through recipe books, make out my menu for the week, clip coupons and then head to the store. I loved planning meals!

Well, times have changed. I now hate planning meals simply because I do not have the time, the patience or even the desire to spend hours on end looking through cookbooks and making out a grocery list. I want to spend my free time either actually cooking the meal or hanging out with family and friends.

Mealtime around my house has not been pretty lately. I’ll be honest. It has been a major stress for all of us. We started going to fast food places a lot more, or I was relying on frozen foods that I could pop into the oven. For someone who loves to cook, that just wasn’t cutting it for me. I have three growing kids and a wonderful husband who deserve and need a good meal.

I have now found a solution to my meal planning woes and I couldn’t be happier. It’s called Menu for the Week. Here’s a little excerpt from the website:

Menu For The Week The Answer to “What’s for dinner?”

The On-Time, On-Budget, Online Dinner Planner

As busy parents we are all too familiar with the mad dash to get dinner on the table. Menu For The Week makes it easy for you to cook and serve your family quick and healthy family meals every night.

What they do for you, is every week you are sent a menu and a grocery list. You know what ingredients to buy (which are already organized for you by grocery store section on the list), you know what meals to cook and you know that they won’t take you longer than 30 minutes.

I decided to try out the free menu and see how I liked it. Try before you buy. You can’t beat that. Not only was I in and out of the store quickly because of the organized grocery list, but I had a full refrigerator and pantry of meals to cook for the next week. The best thing about all of this is, I didn’t have to sit down and prepare it myself and that, to me, is worth pure gold in my busy life. I also happen to have 2 picky eaters. One of my kids will eat anything, but the other two…not so much. The meals that I cooked from Menu for the Week received a thumbs up from all three of my kids and my husband. Success!

In order to join, it’s only $25 for 6 months or $40 for a year. That’s pennies to me when I take into consideration what it is doing for my family and myself. To say I am thrilled with this program would be an understatement! I was asked how I found out about Menu for the Week and it was from Twitter. Follow Meal Planning Mom on Twitter and see how she can help you beat the daily struggle of ‘What’s for Dinner?’

Image Credit: sxc