In a Tough Economic Landscape, DinnerBeat.com Saves Money and Time for Struggling Americans

Dec. 17, 2008 - PRLog -- Recently released from beta testing, DinnerBeat.com is a website that helps individuals save time and money when planning their meals. Budgeting limited resources for food has always been the toughest challenge that people face, now even more important in these troubling economic times. According to the latest study by the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the average American family spends roughly $820 per month on food. With shrinking family incomes due to lay-offs or pay-cuts, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to cook healthy, inexpensive meals. Statistics prove that planning meals ahead of time is one of the most effective ways to save on food expenditures.

DinnerBeat.com is a free meal planning website that helps users generate menus ahead of time by organizing their recipes and printing shopping lists. The website makes family meal planning almost effortless. Unlike other recipe sites, DinnerBeat.com adds a social aspect by allowing members to add friends, exchange recipes and create and receive recommendations.

Liz Jimenez, a former finance professional turned entrepreneur, created DinnerBeat to assist other busy individuals who disliked making last-minute dinner decisions. Jimenez, a mother of two, decided to get organized using a simple meal planning spreadsheet to help her plan out meals up to weeks in advance. “I knew that other people were also struggling to provide consistent, healthy dinners for their families, so I decided to turn my spreadsheet into a website,” says Jimenez, who coded most of the site herself. “DinnerBeat is a great way to get meal preparations under control, on budget, and to just make planning dinner fun again.”

The website’s tools are simple and easy to use. The Calendar, which is the heart of the system, creates daily, weekly or monthly meal plans. An electronic Recipe Box functions as the keeper of a user’s favorite recipes.  Members can also import recipes from their DinnerBeat Friends or from the Internet. When a recipe is added to the Calendar, an ordered Shopping List is automatically created, which can be printed out and brought to the supermarket. The Automate function can be activated at the click of a button. Users who are too busy even to plan individual meals can use this feature and let DinnerBeat arrange menus for them. The system selects dishes from the Recipe Box and places them on the Calendar. All the person has to do is print out the shopping list (which can also be sent to other people) and their meals are set.

“Thanks to DinnerBeat I no longer stress at the end of the work day about what to make for dinner,” raves Kathy, from Nashville. “With just a little effort on my part, my dinners are planned for weeks at a time, my shopping lists are organized, and I can relax knowing that each morning I'll have an email reminder about 'What's For Dinner!'

DinnerBeat is now available to the general public. Interested parties can sign up for free at http://www.dinnerbeat.com.

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MIT graduate Liz Jimenez founded DinnerBeat.com in 2007 in Newton, MA, to help people plan and schedule meals through its easy-to-use interface.
A personal project which developed into a public website, DinnerBeat.com quickly grew into a large community of members who use, create and share recipes.