You don't have to be a parent of a Special Needs child, a teacher, or a therapist to enter able2able giveaways. This giveaway is open to the USA. New to blog giveaways, and a little nervous? Check out able2able's Blog Giveaway FAQ's.



The winner is... #20, Donna! You have been emailed and have 72 hours to reply or Random.org will be used to select another winner.

Has your family settled into a routine for the new school year? Are your afternoons and evenings busy with after school activities, appointments, and homework help? Does it feel like you are spending more time "for" your family than "with" your family?

If you are like me, you regularly dread thinking about dinner. Or, also like me, you enjoy cooking for your family, but have little time for planning and kitchen clean-up. I really hope you aren't like me, with a ridiculously tiny budget for take-out, no matter how busy or exhausted you are! E-mealz can help take away a little meal planning pressure during your crazy week, free up more time for you to spend with your family, and help you save money at the same time.


Here's the time saver: You choose either a family-friendly, 7-day dinner meal plan for 4 to 6 people, or a 5-day dinner plan for 2 people. When you print your weekly menu plan you get recipes and a complete, corresponding grocery list conveniently organized by grocery store aisle. E-mealz has their priorities right - you can spend precious time planning, shopping, and cooking, or you can spend time with your precious family.

Here's the money saver: Select your favorite grocery store and the weekly dinner meal plan is based on that store's current advertised sale. Weekly groceries on an E-mealz menu plan for a family of 4 to 6 will average around $75, and around $35 for a two person meal plan. Coordinate coupon shopping with the latest sale and save even more!

Worried about special diets? Well, one of the reasons I wanted to offer able2able readers an opportunity to learn about E-mealz is because there are menu plans for so many different diets, including Gluten-Free. I know how much my friends stress about the cost of GF foods and about trying to find recipes the entire family will eat, so I am very excited about the G-Free E-mealz option.

E-mealz subscribers choose from the following meal plan options:

• regular
  
• gluten-free
  
• vegetarian
  
• low carb
  
• points system
  
• low fat
  

You can choose a meal plan that is coordinated with weekly sales at Publix, Kroger, Aldi, Wal-Mart, or Ralph's (CA). Select the "Any Store" option if your grocery store is not on the list, and you can still save money while saving time.

Concerned about whether your family will like E-mealz food? E-mealz understands that if you are going to take the time to cook, you want someone other than yourself to eat the food! Every recipe has been kid and family tested. No exotic or "weird" foods are used.



Sample menus with recipes are available online for your own free trial. E-mealz is a subscription plan. You pay only $1.25 a week for your membership. If you hesitate at the thought of spending money to save money, than keep in mind that financial guru Dave Ramsey regularly recommends E-mealz on his radio show. More family time, less trips to the store, and less take out are worth $5 a month to many families.

We were blessed to try the E-mealz Publix Regular Plan for a month. Can you guess what the biggest obstacle to E-mealz success was? Me. I was so entrenched in my way of shopping that I had sticker shock!

Barrier #1: If the sale price for the meat used in an E-mealz entree during our review period wasn't the best local price, I didn't want to make it!
Barrier #2: Common pantry items that are not on sale are used in the menus.

I'm a die hard coupon/sale shopper and live within 5 miles of four competing grocery stores. The majority of my grocery purchases are at least 50% off. The only exception is a rarely discounted item, like many pantry staples. I buy meats at several different stores according to who has the best quality for the lowest price. It can take months to accumulate everything I need for a particular dish. No lie - I buy the candy for my Christmas baking at the post Halloween clearance sales (with coupons, of course).

I really had to overcome my own rigidity this past month and look at E-mealz for what it is - a resource. I started looking at my E-mealz menus differently. I could combine my knowledge of local stores sales cycles, couponing, and prices with the E-mealz plan to save even more time and money! I could buy sale items only, build up my pantry ingredients, and wait to prepare the meal until I got the best price on everything. So for this trial, some of the recipes were postponed until a better price on meat and staples popped up, I budgeted to pay full price, or my next Wal-Mart trip.

This is kind of like what I was already doing, but now I was shopping smarter. This mealtime makeover turned into a me makeover! It really worked once I let it work. I enjoyed not going through stacks of recipes trying to match what was in the cupboard. This was a time and energy saver, even when I did not prepare the meals the same week that they were suggested.

There were a couple of nights where I just followed the E-mealz menu without thought or guilt. I was drained and didn't want to cave into my desire for take-out. The recipes were so easy that I was able to make a full dinner in less time than it would take to load up the kids and go to the drive thru. I definitely saved money every time I chose E-mealz over takeout. The food was fresher and healthier than the takeout we can afford with our sad, sad budget.

There is a definite advantage to cooking from a plan instead of from random recipes. The staples are pretty common ones and are repeated regularly. You aren't buying a 12 ounce bottle of something when you only need two teaspoons, then never using that ingredient again. After seeing a month of E-mealz dinner plans, I honestly believe you will still save money even if you followed the plan more closely than I did and stocked your pantry with cooking staples as you went along.



I got a two page printout every week on the Regular meal plan. The recipes were not only quick to make (think of it - 7 recipes on one page, you know they're simple), but they were quick to clean up. My kids are still too young to really help clean the kitchen, so I resent it when cleaning takes more time than cooking. I enjoyed having that extra time to relax with my family.

Our weekly meal plan was mostly quick recipes balanced nicely with one or two crockpot recipes and a meal that needed a little longer to cook (like 30 to 45 minutes). There was a good blend of fresh, frozen, and canned ingredients and the food groups were well represented at every meal. The recipes were simple enough that substituting for personal taste or price was not an issue. We even had leftovers sometimes!

Staying true to the nature of this review, we prepared recipes that we normally would not have - and we liked all of them. The food was tasty! Even my husband, who has Princess tastebuds, enjoyed them! Every week's plan had at least one "keeper", a recipe that will be regularly repeated in our home.



I was given permission to post one of our favorite E-mealz recipes here, but chose not to since this R & G is overlapping with Family Week at E-mealz. Family Day is September 27th. During the Family Week celebration you can download a free family meal menu and see how you like the food. E-mealz is extending Family Day into October, so don't worry about the dates.

Whether you have children or are living with a room-mate, sharing dinner together creates a family feeling. Bring a little extra fun to the table by selecting from Dinner Dialogue starters and other daily Gab and Games from the Family Week section of the E-mealz website. Maybe you might even snap your children out of their usual responses to your attempts at dinner conversation. "What did you do today?" "Nothing." Good times.

E-mealz is also proud to announce the newest member to its family - they just launched a blog this week - Make Time for Family! Make Time for Family is about the most important thing in your life, the reason we all work so hard.

This is a great time of year to start a family focused blog. The Holiday Season is right around the corner. It's easy to lose track of family during that crazy time of year which, ironically, is supposed to be about family. I personally find it extra difficult to plan regular meals when I am planning Holiday meals and activities. I totally forget about dinner several times last year! Since the first goal of E-mealz is to let you spend more time with your family, I have no doubt this new blog will become a year round source of support and information.

One lucky able2able reader will win a 3 month subscription to E-mealz online meal planning resource! (ARV $15)

To enter this giveaway, post a comment following the rules below (scroll to the end of the comments and click on "post a comment"). You have the opportunity to enter this giveaway up to 17 times!!:

All entries must have an email address or a public profile. Email me for directions on how to post anonymous entries without sharing your email address.

Mandatory 1st entry: Become a follower of Make Time for Family, the new E-mealz blog! Post your entry comment here. I will confirm that you are an E-mealz follower before your prize is awarded.

The mandatory first entry must be completed before you can complete any of the following additional entries! You can choose to do one or all of these additional entries in any order.

For 1 additional entry:

• Like E-mealz on Facebook andleave a comment about this giveaway on their wall.
  
• Follow E-mealz on Twitter.
  
• Enter another able2able giveaway and post the name of the giveaway you entered in a comment here.
  
• Follow able2able on Twitter.
  
• Like able2able on Facebook and post a shout out comment on the wall. Current Facebook Fans may post an entry.

For an additional 2 entries (post a comment for each entry):

• Post a link to this giveaway on your Facebook status. Click "Share" at the end of this post to quickly link to FB.
  
• Tweet the link to this giveaway. Click "Share" at the end of this post to quickly link to Twitter.

For an additional 3 entries (post a comment for each entry):
Become a public follower of able2able. Current able2able followers may enter 3 times.

For an additional 4 entries (post a comment for each entry):
Blog about this giveaway! Your blog post must include links to this giveaway and mention able2able and E-mealz. Include a link to your blog post in your comments.

It is very important that you post a comment for each entry. Why? Because a random number generator will be used to select the winner. Each comment will be numbered by Blogger, and I will use those numbers for the drawing. So if you combine entries into one post all your entries will not be counted. There will be no do-overs!

I will verify that the winning entry has met the requirements above, so if your comment for a FB status update is the winning comment then I might ask to see that link, etc. If I cannot verify your entry, then all your entries will be removed from the list and the drawing will be repeated.

This giveaway ends at 11:59 pm (CT) on Thursday, October 14th.

The winner's name will be posted on able2able on Friday, October 15th and I will also email you. The lucky winner will have 72 hours to contact me.

Warning - I have occasional problems with Gmail holding my sent emails then releasing them with a new release date. I cannot be responsible if your email notice gets delayed by gmail so check back at this post or on Facebook to see if you won!

I received a complementary one month trial of E-mealz for use in writing this review. This review was not influenced by any products I received and has not been edited by the sponsor.

Love or hate what you just read? Be social! Post a comment and click on the link below to share this post!