At the beginning of the month I commented on Jessie's blog (a fellow blogger and scrapbooker extrordinare)about going to one of those make a month worth of dinners places. She wanted to know what I thought about it so I am going to post my experience so far.
Pros
1. It was fun to go put together the dinners! You go from station to station following directions, leaving the mess in someone else's kitchen, all the prep work had been done. They guy in charge kept calling us "LADIES" and brought out fresh baked cookies.
2. It is SO nice to have so many meals to choose from any given night of the week and not have to worry about dinner.
3. The meals are good! Not as many veggies as I would normally have, and much more meat but they are varied and taste good. There are a few we haven't liked as well, but you can choose not to make the ones you don't like.
4. The meals come in 3 or 6 serving sizes. This helps me regulate when I have eaten a serving. They have all the calories, points, fat grams etc posted on their website so I could keep track of how many calories I am eating.
5. It doesn't hurt my feelings if Darin doesn't like the meal. I just say "we won't get this one next time". I don't know about the rest of you, but when one of the meals I spent so much time and energy on is tossed aside my blood boils at the ingratitude. It's really not fair either since it's just an opinion, and I really do want to know what my husband thinks. I guess this gets us both off the hook.
Cons
1. It cost $218 for 24 meals, that's just dinners. I still have to buy lunch and breakfast items for our family. That puts us way over our monthly budget. I got 24 meals because I cut the 6 servings in half. If you had a family of more than 3 adults you would have to get the 6 serving size which is just 12 meals for $218.
2. Fresh always tastes better than frozen.
3. You do have to block out about 2 1/2 hours to go make the dinners, pack them home in boxes or a laundry basket (they are HEAVY), and have room in your freezer.
The main con for me is the cost. I am going to try to make a month worth of meals and do all the prep work myself sometime soon (maybe not in August because we are painting and still selling soap) to see how the cost compares. It may be worth the extra money to not have the hassle and extra work...or it may not. I guess it will depend on the cost difference. One thing my mother-in-law pointed out was that if doing this keeps you from running for fast food then it will save money in the long run. So that is something to consider. It defiantly helps me be more happy and content at dinner time. I guess that is actually the best benefit of all...a happy mom:)
