You asked, so you got it! {Part 1}

The alternate title for this post is "How I do it in 1000 words or less".

I've had several people ask me what I use to plan our meals and I'm so excited to share it with you!!

The hardest part is trying to tell you about it without overwhelming you with its awesomeness.

All I can say is just try it - you'll LOVE it! It's a tremendous time saver and money saver for us.

My friends, let me introduce you to a dear friend of mine:  

That's right. Saymmm.

First of all - I'm not being paid to say any of these things about Saymmm. I just love it so much that my analysis may come across as gushing and overly positive. Truth is, the only downside I've found so far is that you can only store 100 recipes for free. Now before you click away, the fee is only $3.00 a month. They charge you $9.00 every 3 months. It's totally worth it.

Ok back to it.

After you've gone to the website and created your account, you'll see this page:

The first thing you'll need to do is start adding recipes.

 (Notice that I have 132 recipes saved so far.)

The adding process is pretty easy. There are two ways to add a recipe:

1. Manually from your recipe books or cards.

2. From a website that you frequent.             

 

First, here's how to manually add a recipe of your own.

MANUALLY ADD A RECIPE

Step 1: Click the Add Recipe button

Step 2: Enter the recipe name and recipe.

It's totally up to you on how you want to format your recipes. I find it easiest to stick to the standard and enter the ingredients at the top with the amounts. You'll see why I do this in a minute.

Step 3: Click Continue to pull ingredients to shopping list.

The cool thing about Saymmm is that when you add a recipe, it automatically generates a shopping list for you. This means that any time you choose to cook this recipe, it will automatically pull over these ingredients to your shopping list.

Notice in the shopping list above some of the ingredients were translated into ounces instead of what is listed in your recipe. You can click Edit beside each ingredient and go back and fix those the way you want to see them.

You can also click on the Area beside each ingredient and change the area of the store if yours is laid out different that the standard. For example, if I'm getting frozen chicken, I'll change it from the Meat area to Frozen.

Step 4: Move items between the "Get" and "Check" sections

Look at the shot above at the ingredient Grated Parmesan Cheese. Notice that it's in the "Get" section. If Grated Parmesan Cheese is something you keep on hand regularly, you can click Move above and move it down to the "Check" section. (I'll show you later how to move stuff back if you check your pantry and you are out.)

Step 5: Once you like how everything looks, click Continue.

Step 6: Select a category and rate your dish.

Place a check next to any categories that apply. To rate your dish, click the M that applies. Obviously, the most M's equals a really good dish!

Step 6: Click Finish

ADD A RECIPE FROM A WEBSITE

Step 1: Click the Add Recipe button

Step 2: Go to your recipe online

Step 3: Copy the link for the recipe

To do this, go to the recipe, click the link three times to select the entire link OR click at the end of the link and drag to the beginning of the link. Right-click the highlighted link and click copy.

Step 4: Paste the link to Saymmm

On the New Recipe page, add the recipe's title. Then, click Link in the next section.

Right-click in the blank link line and click Paste. Your page should now look like this:

Step 5: Click continue to pull in the recipe ingredients

Step 6: Copy the recipe

Go back to the recipe's website. Click at the end of the recipe section and drag up to the beginning of the ingredient list to highlight the entire recipe. Right-click on the highlighted section and click Copy.

Step 7: Paste the recipe into Saymmm

Click the Recipe link to make the recipe block appear. Right-click in the blank block and click Paste.

Step 8: Format recipe and ingredients

Step 9: Click Continue

Step 10: Select any categories that apply

Step 11: Rate recipe

Step 12: Finish!

Next up, I'll show you how to combine your recipes to make meals. Once that's done, all that's left is to plan the meals and use the shopping list. Is it wrong that I'm excited about showing you guys this??