I don’t say this lightly: Cook Smarts changed my life. In January, 2019, I knew I needed to fix something. By around 4pm, each day, I had to get dinner going if I was going to feed my family. Except, 4pm also = my kids’ whiniest hour. They needed me, and I could never manage to get through making dinner without yelling.
Enter Cook Smarts. I’d done a free trial before, thanks to somebody else’s recommendation. But had done NOTHING with it. This time, thanks to the spirit of transformation inherent in Januaries, I logged in, took advantage of their New Year sale, and paid for an entire year.
You guys, it was the best decision I’ve ever made!! (Ok, maybe marrying my husband and deciding to have kids with him is up there too…)
Wondering why you need it in your life?
1. Cook Smarts helps remove the mental load of meal planning
Mental load is a buzz word lately, and for good reason. So much of the invisible planning to keep a home running falls on women. We are constantly thinking of what to do, when to do it, scheduling, and planning. Doctor appointments, school schedules, extracurricular activities – chances are if you’re a mom, those are all your arena.
Meal planning was a huge drain on me. I am not a planner. I don’t have a plan. I don’t even have a pla (Eh?? Friends fans!? Recognize that reference?)
Without planning my meals I was setting myself up for difficult evenings every.single.day. That old adage “failing to plan is planning to fail” rang true every time.
Cook Smarts fixes that!! They email me a menu every Thursday (it’s absurd how much I look forward to that email). Which gives me plenty of time to look it over, swap meals from the archives if anything doesn’t look right, grocery shop, meal prep if you’re into that sort of thing, before starting the week awesome on Monday. I LOVE IT. Combined with grocery pick-up, my life is 200% better than before.
2. Cook Smarts Saves Time
All of the meals are thoughtfully broken into steps you can do ahead of time and what you need to save right until you’re cooking. That means, you can prep on Sunday for quick weeknight meals. Here’s an example from this week’s weekend prep:
Even if you aren’t a prepper (ahem, like me), the meals are mostly 45 minutes or less to throw together! They know they’re saving your butt on a weeknight. You can even search the archives for quick and easy meals. And, here’s the great part, they ARE actually quick and easy. Not just quick if you are a fast chopper. (Looking at you, Rachael Ray and your pretend 30 min meals).
Plus? There are videos that show their chopping techniques to save you time! I’m still learning new techniques when it comes to fruits and veggies.
3. The meals break you out of your meal rut
If you’re anything like me, you fall into a pattern of making the same things over and over and over! Our go to is pasta. But, here’s an example of this week’s menu:
Doesn’t that all look DELISH!? But – best part – if none of that actually looks delish to you or your family, you can search the archives to swap some meals around. And check out how organized that grocery list is? Checking off those boxes is so gratifying!
4. The archives are full of goodness
Speaking of the archives…Any time I’m not craving something offered in the meal plan, I just scope out the archives to swap with something else. I love that I can filter by “whole30,” “low calorie,” “quick and easy,” “budget,” “minimal heat needed” and many more. I can do a simple search or just filter by protein choice, cuisine, user ratings, etc. I am OBSESSED with the archives. My most frequent search is for budget friendly since our grocery bill has gotten higher and higher.
5. Cook Smarts is affordable
I am cheap as all hell and I don’t resent this annual bill EVER. If you’re wanting to just do a month, it’s currently $14.99/mo (please check the website to get current fees!)
If you want to test it out, use my code!! It gets you 20% off (and I get a $10 Amazon gift card, woohoo!). I pay annually, which gives the most savings (instead of $14.99/mo the annual breaks it down to $7.49/mo).
Have I convinced you!? What are you concerned about when it comes to a meal plan service? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve tested this out!
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