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October 13, 2010

Food on the Table – Plan Meals, Save Money

When you have a house full of picky eaters to satisfy, it can be nearly impossible to stock a pantry with all the fixings to make everyone’s favorite meals every night of the week. That’s where Food on the Table comes in. The meal planning website helps users come up with recipes based on what items are on sale at their local supermarket that week, making it as easy as possible for large families to spend less money on food and more money on fun things like vacations and group outings.

Unlike traditional meal planning applications, Food on the Table does a lot more than just help you decide what to buy at the store each week. The application actually prompts you to enter the supermarkets you shop at most, and then automatically keeps track of what items are on sale at each store. When it comes time to put together your weekly shopping list, just click onto the site and answer a few basic questions about what your family wants to eat for the upcoming week. The application will automatically come up with a page full of recipes based on the ingredients that are on sale at your nearby store. Once you’ve selected all the recipes you’d like to make that week, the application will spit out a printable grocery list that includes all the coupons you’ll need to save big in the checkout line.

For people who choose to upgrade from a free account to a paid account on Food on the Table, the application offers additional features that let you plan up to seven meals per week—as opposed to just three meals with the free service—while also comparing sales between selected stores in your local area. For families that feel like they’re spending too much money on groceries each week, Food on the Table is an application that can cut costs and give you ideas for new dishes to try.

Practical Uses:

  • Find recipes that your whole family will enjoy
  • Save money in the grocery store check out line
  • Spend less time clipping coupons from the Sunday newspaper
  • Stop wasting money by only buying the necessary items at the grocery store

Insider Tips:

  • View your grocery list on your mobile phone
  • Review your previous meal plans to remember what your family ate last week
  • Add notes to certain items on the list to remind yourself which brand to buy
  • Change your family’s food preferences to get access to additional menu ideas

What we liked:

  • Ability to email the list to a spouse who’s dropping by the store on his way home from work
  • Food on the Table offers up recipe ideas that families may not have tried before
  • Eliminates the chances of forgetting to write down a key ingredient for a recipe
  • Users can add items to their grocery lists that aren’t a part of the meal plan

What we didn’t like:

  • No stores are listed for cities in a number of areas around the country
  • Users with a basic account can only create up to three meal plans per week

Alternatives:

Company Info:

Costs:

  • Basic plan is free
  • Premium plan is $9.95/month

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