Review: The Six O'Clock Scramble

For the last few weeks, I've been able to try out The Six O'Clock Scramble, a weekly menu planning service.

Every Wednesday, you receive a weekly meal plan in your email. Using this, either you are starting your menu plan on Wednesday/Thursday, or starting to plan your M-F menu on Wednesday.

You can can also go through the site, and search for recipes to add to your menu box. You can search by ingredient or style of meal (slow cooker, sandwich, make ahead) and by featured ingredients as well, which can help you with leftovers or last minute sales items as the website says. I found this to be the most helpful section of the website for my family.

So far, I've noticed the weekly emails had a lot of things we don't eat. Fish, for instance (I'm sure you've heard my rant on how bad this place always smells after any form of seafood in here lol) If your family likes to try new things, or you don't mind certain smells, this probably isn't an issue for you.

If you are on a monthly budget, I feel a lot of the ingredients are out of your league if you go by each weekly plan to your inbox. It comes with a grocery list for shopping each week, but this doesn't allow you to bend your menu plan around the sales quite so easily, unless you use the recipe box and plan it yourself. There are substitutions allowed for some of the recipes, and some recipes are marked vegetarian or veg-friendly alternative, which is great. There are also some meals marked for Scramble Express, meaning the meals can make it to your table in 30 minutes or less (well, for most of us LOL)

If you're constantly on the go, and have a decent grocery budget, The Six O' Clock Scramble might be a great option for you. The printable grocery list is a great part of this menu planning service for sure, and the fact that a weekly menu plan lands in your inbox with no work on your part of searching for recipes is wonderful. The recipes are mostly easy to follow, and most novice kitchen cooks will have no problem with them. It certainly can help get you out of a meal rut!

But if you're on a strict grocery budget, or plan your meals around each weeks sales circular, you may want to forgo this unless the search option appeals to you.

If you're interested in trying out The Six O'Clock Scramble for yourself, enter code TWITTERMOMS at checkout to receive $5 off the 6 month subscription ($24.50 with discount) and $10 off a year subscription ($44.50 with discount). This promo code expires March 31st.

NEW PROMO CODE: Use promotion code GRAD2012 at checkout to receive $2 off a 3 month subscription (for a discounted total of $19.00) or $4 off a six-month subscription ($33 after discount now through June 15th, 2012.