FREEZER SHOPPING FIRST  –  Part 3 of 5 in series  –  Click for Part 1

Soooooo…You have printed your Eat Sheet™ off CityLine’s site or our site under the Grocery List tab – then clicked Blank Eat Sheet™! You’ve done that right??? Remember my phrase…Ideas Inspire – but Doing Transforms!!!

So, if you really, really want to completely change the way you feel about dinner-making and completely chop down your grocery costs…Print out an Eat Sheet™!

Now…I want you to take that Eat Sheet™ and go to your freezer. What’s in there? A freezer-burned hunk of meat? (from 1967 as Tracy said on her show LOL, she is sooo funny!) Is there a box of something premade? Is there a pack of chicken breasts? All freezer sizes are different and all budgets are different so each freezer will be quite individual!

As a professional Meal Planner working with families, here is what I see all the time! I go into a family’s home, the parents are stressed out about food costs and the cooking process, I open up their freezer and it’s stuffed full of all sorts of recognizable as well as unrecognizable items! When I tell them they are sitting on a goldmine of food they say things like, “But to look in there is so overwhelming.” I say, “Only if you’re not working with an Eat Sheet™”! When I have worked with some of the most stubborn, nonbelieving parents in the past, they would fall over when I said I would save them their entire cost of my meal-planning fee in three months! (…and if I couldn’t I would give them back the difference) I would have a biiiig smile on my face when I hit an overstuffed deep freeze…because I knew I would likely save them my fee in about 6 weeks flat!

The fact is…if you start your next three Eat Sheets™ FREEZER FIRST – you will never again pay full price for the most expensive items on your list – meat! This can literally cut each of your grocery bills in half! Continue reading Eating Like A King On A Shoestring Budget – Part 3 →

SAVE TIME & MONEY : EAT SHEET™ vs GROCERY LIST – Part 2 of 5 in series – Click for Part 1

Can the way you write your grocery list actually save you time and money? It sure can…and I mean a lot of both! Many years ago when I grasped the idea that in order to keep my weight down, feed my kids food they liked, aaand afford both – it meant I had to meal-plan! Even the words meal-plan caused me to break out into a cold sweat! Doesn’t that mean hours and hours of work each week! But I don’t have hours and hours!

I knew me and there was no way (no matter how enthusiastic I was at the start) that I was going to stick to something that gave me extra work each week! I was destined to fail if it meant I had to continue to do this week after week. If I was going to meal-plan I had to create a system that would give me back time – not take it away!! What I needed was a forever meal-plan! One that I could re-use! One day, after grocery shopping and returning home to unload my purchases, as I tossed my now unneeded grocery list away something hit me like a bolt of lightening. I was throwing all my brain work away! And after wrapping my head around how to change that…Alas…The Eat Sheet™ was born!

So what is the difference between an Eat Sheet™ and a grocery list? Aaaand more importantly… how can an Eat Sheet™ save you time and money?

Well…let’s start with the grocery list! I used to keep mine on the fridge with a magnet pad.

When a person is ready to go grocery shopping, they grab the list. At the store the list is then filled in by memory. Conversations in your head like, “Johnny likes this, so I’ll buy this sauce to make Johnny’s favorite chicken!” I need you to answer the following question honestly…How many times have you spent 300 buckaroos on your grocery bill only to realize you forgot to buy a key ingredient for the meal you’re making? Now answer this honestly…How many times have you then popped into the store to pick up that one ingredient only to walk out with a whole lot of extra stuff you don’t need? Chaaa-Ching…another 50 bucks. The grocery list knows only what you have and do not have at a current moment in time! Allowing your mind to finish the job is just well…crazy…oh ya…and expensive!! A grocery list is simply a tally of items you have run out of!

The Eat Sheet™ on the other hand will never fail you! You see …the Eat Sheet™ has no idea what you have in your house this week or next. Continue reading Eating Like A King On A Shoestring Budget – Part 2 →