Planning With Kids Menu Planner App Is Now Available!

by on April 3, 2012 in menu planning

Menu Planner App iTunes Store

It’s here at last! The Planning With Kids Menu Planner App is now available in iTunes ($0.99).

Well it has actually been there for a week or so waiting for the new blog design to make its appearance, but due the techno issues noted at the start of the week, the new design is not yet up and running.

So rather than make you wait, not only can you check out the menu planner app, but you can also get a sneak peak of what the new blog design will look like!

ventiv-logo-ybf
Thanks to the wonderful team at Ventiv who developed the App and made it look so good. They are an absolute pleasure to work with.

The Menu Planner App will make menu planning for your family super easy! It is very intuitive and includes over 100 of the most popular recipes from the blog and more will be added on a weekly basis. The app will notify you when new recipes have been added, so you will be able to deliver plenty of variety in your family’s menu plans.

What does the Menu Planner App do?

It allows you to:

  • Create weekly menu plans quickly, choosing as many meals per day as you would like to plan for.
  • Generate the shopping list for all the meals selected.
  • Modify the shopping list to check off items you already have at home.
  • Email the shopping list to yourself and/or others.

Each recipe lists the ingredients required, easy to follow instructions and photos from the blog.

You can see a full range of screen shots and instructions on the Planning With Kids Menu Planner App page, or head straight to iTunes and buy it!

What’s next?

There are so many things you could possibly include in a menu planner app and we have aimed to keep it functional, simple to use and efficient. There are already things I have added to the “nice to have” list for the next version update, like starting my plan on a different day other than Monday (I just plan as if Mon is Sat, Tues is Sun, Wed is Mon etc and then write those days on the shopping list plan when I print it out to stick up on the fridge.)

So there maybe things you would like to see in the app and we would like to hear about them! The great thing about apps is they are so easy to update and push out new versions.

If we find there is an overwhelming need for a particular function we will investigate the possibility of including it in the next update. You can leave a comment below or email me at nicole@planningwithkids.com with your feedback.

Will it be on Android? Will it be on iPad? We would love the app to be able to go across all mobile devices, but at this point we are concentrating on the listening to the feedback from users on the iPhone app and making it the best Menu Planner App it can be. Once we have this sorted we will look at other platforms.

Can I Add My Own Meals or Ingredients to the App?

EDIT: Lots of people have emailed about this function, so have added my response here as well!

I would like to see this too. Compared to the rest of the app this is a complex addition, but as we wanted to get the app out sooner rather than later, we have released it without this function. We are working to add this functionality as soon as possible.

Free Menu Planner on the Blog

The blog free menu planner will still be up and running. It is very much in need of a recipe update and I will be doing that in April and will let you know when that has happened.

Review on iTunes

If you test out the Menu Planner App and like it, we would love it if you would take a few minutes to add a review on iTunes. Reviews on iTunes are a great way to recommend and promote the app – they can make a big difference to how well the app sells.

Tell your friends about it!

Getting the word out about the app is my next challenge. I would love it if you, the fabulous readers of Planning With Kids would tell your friends about the app. The blog now has in excess of 3,800 subscribers. If each subscriber told just three of their friends about the app, that would be at least 11,400 people who would know about it – that would be so awesome!

Thanks for all the encouragement along the way with my recipes and through out the development of the app. It feels great to have it out in the market place and I look forward to hearing what you think about it.

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  • http://www.phoenix-trading.com.au/web/jacietaylor Jacie

    Congratulations! Hope it does really well for you.

    In respect to what function I would like to see the app have, I think it would be wonderful if we could add our own recipes’ (well, the ingredients at least) to the app, since not all of our meals will necessarily come from this blog, and just the one shopping list to work from would be great.

    Wish you the best of luck with it – if it’s half as good as your book I’m sure it will do really well.

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks Jacie. The ability to add to the planner is on my wish list and I will keep you updated on how we are going with that.

      Thanks for the lovely words too!

  • http://afreshlegacy.net Kyrstie @ A Fresh Legacy

    Congratulations Nic, your app looks fantastic. You are a clever lady! I am off to check it out and give it a go. I love that you are updating the recipes to keep it current.

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks Kyrstie! I love the notification feature so you know that there are new recipes added. Appreciate the support xx

  • http://Www.lifeafterlondon.com Bee

    This sounds fab, what a great idea. Hope it goes really well for you.

  • http://hecallsmemummii.blogspot.com.au Tara @Mum – Ments

    Eeeeeeek how exciting i havnt been able to fibd a meal planning app this is fabulous!
    Thankyou!
    xx

  • http://www.aprilcandice.com April

    I think that being able to add your own recipes would be handy, and even if you could share those recipes with others. Not sure how you would do that though.

    It really is hard to find a good menu planner, so I look forward to using this one :)

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks April. Yes, being able to add your own is definitely something we want to see and so do many others. I have added a note to this post about it as well.

      Thanks for taking the time to give some feedback.

  • Nicola

    If you could save the meal plan (and associated shopping list), that’d be great. When I’m feeling particularly pressed for time I have been known to reuse a previous weekly meal plan. This would also allow people who like doing up a monthly meal plan to plan ahead.

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      I do that too! So I have asked for this to be added in future releases.

      Thanks for the feedback Nicola.

  • http://and-sew-it-seams.blogspot.com.au/ cas

    huge congrats nicole :) how exciting for you. hope it does well. going to download right now! cheers

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks Cas!

  • Rosemary

    Congratulations. I am about to download the app now :)
    Rosie

  • Tash

    Well done, I have just downloaded it, been waiting for it since you announced it last year!!

  • http://nellbe.com nellbe

    As I don’t have an iPhone I cannot check it out but it sounds great, best of luck with it.

  • Jess

    I just downloaded the app and it looks fabulous! Thank you! I have tried to meal plan in the past but never really succeeded. I think this is just what I need. I always find just deciding what to cook in the first place the hardest part, now I have all your recipes at my fingertips :-)

  • Anthea

    I have just downloaded your app and not sure what has gone wrong but I cannot get into any of the recipes just won’t let me use it. Please help. Cheers

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Hi Anthea,

      I have just replied to your email. Sorry it didn’t work for you and I will endeavour to get it going ASAP for you.

      Nicole

  • Anthea

    The app is now working. Thank you for your prompt response and your help. Cheers

  • Cath

    Well done on getting the app up and running!! I too would love to add my own recipes. I’d also really like a function to plan for longer periods of time (I currently do a month) but I wanted to comment here on the shopping list functionality – I was expecting a single value for an item in the list after I had planned the meals (e.g. For the week I’d need 10 cups of flour). Instead, for example, it lists 1 cup of flour, ten times… So then I have to add it up manually – which I can obviously do, but I guess my expectation was that this would do it for me :) (call me lazy!!) Thanks so much.

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Hi Cath,

      Appreciate you leaving the feedback. We did look at a range of ways of displaying these items in the shopping list.

      In the end we went with separate listings as this gave the greatest flexibility when writing up the ingredients lists (eg some may have 1 cup flour, others 150 grams).

      While I am the only one entering the amounts at the moment, I can keep them consistent. But as we want to move to being able to have users enter their own recipes, we thought this would work best long term as it isn’t possible to add 150 grams of flour and 1 cup of flour together for example.
      Nic

  • Cath

    Thanks Nic – I definitely appreciate the need to accommodate future use, as well as all the hard work that goes behind the ‘data entry’. Best of luck with it!

  • http://www.denysewhelan.com.au Denyse Whelan

    Fantastic Nic! Big congrats! Sorry I was only able to say a brief hello at DPCon but am sure you know that you’ve been a great mentor as I’ve taken my blogging journey further. Well done on this app!! Woot! denyse

  • http://raisingplayfultots.com Melitsa

    Congratulations on your new app! Very well done. .

  • jode

    Can’t wait until it is available on the Android platform … hoping I don’t have to wait toooo long.
    PS love your blog

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Hi Jode,
      I would love to have it on Android too, but it is much more difficult to get a stable app to release as Android goes across so many different devices. With a limited budget there is only so much we can work we can at any one stage, but it is definitely on our wish list!

      Nic

  • Mel

    Wow, that’s really cool. Congratulations you must be so pleased! looking forward to purchasing and using the app.

  • Kate

    Love the app – thanks. I can’t think of any additional functions that haven’t already been mentioned but I thought you might be interested to see how others tackle similar tasks – i use the weight watchers recipe builder all the time. It works really well but I assume it requires a large database of ingredients obviously you wouldn’t steal their IP, but interesting from a research perspective.

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks for the feedback Kate. Will take a peek at what weight watchers are doing.

      Nic

  • Luigi

    Planning queen has liberated my handbag!!! Gone are the days of a bag littered with shopping lists and recipes. love the app, its so simple and intuitive. Lots of simple family friendly recipes.

  • Heather

    I was thrilled to hear about the launch of this app – especially as my phone is now my shopping list & not needing to transcribe meal plans & shopping lists makes things easier – I would love to be able to add other items to my shopping list – like cleaning products, pet food etc… I did do this after emailing the list to myself though. I found the products I deselected showed up in the email too – strange. I was unable to remove a meal from my plan once I’d added it without clearing all the meals – it can take me a few goes to work out a suitable meal plan for the family so I’d like to be able to edit it during the process if possible please. Otherwise – HURRAH & THANK-YOU!

    • http://planningwithkids.com/ PlanningQueen

      Thanks for the feedback Heather. I will forward this info to the developer for them to take a look at it.

      Nic

  • Melissa

    Love the menu plan app.
    I agree with pp Heather, re edit.
    I also added chicken schnitzel to my plan, and the shopping list has doubled up the ing somehow.
    Would love to take out ing already in my cupboard.
    Kind regards
    Melissa