Meijer Meal Box

Thanks to the Meijer website (and the fact that their prices are usually the best in the area), they have redeemed themselves from the previously posted Meijer Mayhem. I started exploring this great part of their website last night called Meal Box. At first I was just using it to find coupons, but I started to play with it and thought I would share a few of the things I found.

NOTE: You can't use the back button. To go 'back' when you are exploring the little Meal Box window, click on the "X" within the box.

Printing Coupons: In the box on the right you can click on the "Specials" tab to find a list of current coupons you can use in the store. You can print as many as you want and need. They aren't the easy to print as I wold like. You have to click on "Print", which brings up the coupon in a new window. Then I right-click on it to print. Sort of a pain, but worth the end result.

Finding Recipes: Under the "Recipes" tab there are several sub-tabs. The one I like the best is the "Meal Type" sub-tab. The first choice you'll find is "Top 25 Budget Meals". I LOVE this feature. It will show you a list of recipes that feature this weeks specials and coupons. They tell you what ingredients are on sale and yo can click on them for more details.

Shopping List: You can click on the coupons or selected items in the recipe to add them to a shopping list. I haven't used this feature yet, but I will probably try to next time.

Meal Planner: I haven't used this feature yet either, but it allows you to drag an image beside a recipe and add it to one day of the week. You then pick whether it is breakfast, lunch, dinner, or other. When you do this, it instantly creates a shopping list for you. Now when you click on the shopping list tab you'll find every thing you need.

There are still a lot of areas for improvement on this site, but it's a nice tool for now. I did see a note that Chicago and Indianapolis areas may have different "sales weeks" then the rest of us. Our area resets on Sundays. I think there is an archived section for shoppers in the other two markets.

Couple Additional Notes: Meijer always doubles coupons up to $0.50. They do not price match on grocery items.

Here are a couple more links for people who use this tool. I haven't explored them fully yet, but you will probably find additional information there:

Courier Journal

A Full Cup

Stretching a Buck

As I explore these sites, you'll likely see these (and others) added to my blog list below. Enjoy!