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I used to spend $400 a month on groceries,
just for one person!

What was I buying? Expensive, unhealthy convenience foods. It was easy for me to justify. "I don't have time to cook - and I couldn't make saag paneer or mushroom and brie turnovers if I tried! Besides, it can't be that unhealthy - look, this one's organic!"

And, of course, any visit to the grocery store added more impulse purchases. Sale items, sodas, candy by the cash register, fancy cookies or cheeses, and all kinds of new items that looked good in the store - and a lot less interesting once I got home!

The crazy thing was that I still ended up eating the same things over and over again. I was in such a rut! I spent months eating what seemed like nothing but baked potatoes and Indian food from a box. Or fried chicken, fried chicken, fried chicken. Or grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, all the time.

Why? Two reasons. First, it was EASY. Eating the same comfort foods all the time was easier than thinking of something different I'd like to eat, or researching nutrition, or trying to learn new recipes.

And second, I didn't know any better way to do it. I had no idea how to figure out how much food I could eat in a week or two. I wasn't sure how long food could keep before going bad. I didn't know how much groceries were "supposed" to cost me, so I didn't have a budget to work from. And the rut kept me in a vicious cycle: the more I stayed in a rut around food, the less I encountered new and interesting recipes, so the more I stayed in that rut!

How I went from spending $400 a month down to $30 a week

How? The answer sounds simple: I began planning my meals in advance.

Meal planning is an amazing tool. It lets you make lifestyle changes easily in a few short steps. You can use it to...

  • save money on groceries
  • eat more fresh fruits and vegetables
  • try exciting recipes and new cuisines
  • lose or gain weight in a way that is healthy for you
  • eat healthier fats and carbohydrates, ones that power up your metabolism and lower your cholesterol while satisfying your appetite
  • shop much faster, saving time in the grocery store that you can spend having fun with your friends and family
  • shop less often, optimizing your grocery list so that you can buy everything at once - and save money on gas, too!

    But it's not always easy to learn how to plan your meals to reach those goals - or to get around to actually doing it! Each of those goals takes different steps, from accurately gauging how much the ingredients for each recipe will cost to figuring out which store, and which aisle, they will be in. A lot of them require some balanced information about nutrition, which means weeding out all of the outdated and misinformed books and articles you come across to get to the real truth about fat or sugar or raw versus cooked foods.

    Problem is, most of the information out there about nutrition and meal planning is prescriptive. You've probably heard that if you give someone a fish, they'll eat for a day - but if you teach them to fish, they'll have food for the rest of their life. Well, the books and websites I've seen about meal planning like to give you meal plans that you can use, without telling you how they got there. You get that fish, but you don't know how to get more - without going back to them!

    Hey, I do it too - I make weekly mini-cookbooks that let you spend $20-$30 on groceries per person, try new things, and learn a little along the way. And I know that works for a lot of people. Not everyone is interested in planning their own meals just yet, and even if you are it can be a nice break to have someone suggest a week's worth of recipes for you.

    But what are you supposed to do if you find yourself overspending on food week after week, or consistently getting into ruts around mealtime?

    "Butter Yourself Up" Takes Your Hand
    And Walks You Through Planning Each Week of Meals

    You'll learn not only how to plan your meals around your own schedule, and use meal planning to meet your own personal goals, but so much more too. Including:

  • Six simple ways to immediately cut food costs - without depriving yourself! (And how to determine the best size for your food budget in the first place!) (Page 10)
  • How to create a spending plan for all your expenses, and where to get FREE support around all those pesky money problems (page 13)
  • Seven incredibly simple tips to keep blood sugar steady, from when to eat meals to how much protein we all need (page 17)
  • Why Barbie isn't to blame for all of our eating disorders; what is really at the roots and where to go for all the free solutions you could want (pages 19-22)
  • The exciting truth about which fat increases metabolism, boosts the immune system, and powers up the digestive system (page 23)
  • Three activities and six foods to avoid, and a delightful dozen to indulge in, for an ultra-long life! (page 26-28)
  • Crack the code of your cravings: what they really mean and how you can easily end them (page 28-29)
  • The facts about confusing labels like natural, cage-free, and organic! (And which ones are a surprising waste of your money!) (pages 33-36)

    "Butter Yourself Up: Joyful Meal Planning for Busy People" doubles as a datebook, so you can see at a glance which days you'll have time to cook and when you may already be eating out. You'll save money on groceries and save time grocery shopping, which means you'll have more to spend with the people you love.

    The heart of the book consists of 52 two-page spreads, one for each week of the year. On the left-hand side is a step-by-step guide to choosing the perfect meals for you that week, for any size of budget. On the right is a week-long calendar with generously-sized spaces for anything you want to remember.

    Plus, the spaces for the dates are conveniently left blank - so you can start using it at any time of the year. This is especially handy for those of us who misplace our datebooks or forget to use them from time to time. There are no wasted pages - you can begin again on the very next blank page, no matter when you return to your book.

    Throughout the year, you can refer anytime you like to the seven short, clear, extraordinarily detailed chapters at the beginning of the meal planner for information about nutrition, health, and eating both happily and wisely.

    I've saved $3,380 a year by planning my meals. How much will you save?

    PDF format for instant download!
    Never-ending datebook:
    Print as many copies as you'd like!

    [Book cover! 'Butter Yourself Up: Joyful Meal Planning for Busy People']

    Just $9.95

    Spiral-bound edition!
    A handy everyday companion -
    take it everywhere you go!

    [Book cover! 'Butter Yourself Up: Joyful Meal Planning for Busy People']

    Only $16.95

    P.S. You'll also receive occasional exciting email updates as I add content over time, with great bonuses like sparkling new chapters, cutting-edge nutritional research, and handy writing exercises to help you get more out of meal planning! You'll never have to worry that someone buying it later on has a more up-to-date, better-informed copy of the book than you do.

    Bonus: If you find any errors in your book - whether in layout, grammar, spelling, facts, or anything else - tell me about them and I'll send you a free mini-cookbook with a week's worth of pre-planned recipes along with fascinating stories and gorgeous pictures. I'm only offering this bonus until I'm completely satisfied that all copies of Butter Me Up are perfect, so act fast!


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