Say MMM or any other recipe organization software?

[Ygle]

Does anyone know of any other recipe/menu planning software similar to Say MMM that doesn't have a monthly subscription? 

I've looked at one tsp, but it doesn't have the menu planning,

pdacookbook live, but it can only be used on one phone and I want my dh to be able to access all our menu plans, recipes, and shopping lists from his phone as well as mine (and any pc, of course!),

Kitchen Monki has a lot of the features I want but you can only text shopping lists so I can't view recipes on my phone and also we do not have a text plan,

I love all the features of Cook'N or Living Cookbook, but I wouldn't be able to access everything from my phone besides emailing an occasional list or recipe (I want to be able to pick out recipes on the fly while I'm out and about depending on what's on sale and also not have to go back to the computer when I am in the kitchen or need to print out recipes or plans)....

Say MMM definitely seems to do all I want and more, but I don't want to get stuck with a monthly (does anyone know if you can back up all your recipes stored there on your own computer?) since it could change anytime and it's more expensive than other monthly services ($3/mo).  

I keep thinking one of these days I will create my own database, but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet and I've been saying it for years... I could just store all my recipes on google docs, but I really want to have my dh be able to have grocery checklists on his phone since he's right next door to the store, but is it really worth $3/ month when I can just email him a list and he can print it out?  Thinking out loud, here...

I'd love to get any feedback from anyone that's used any of these services or others and what they think (especially if my concerns about any of them are wrong?).  I keep thinking there's the perfect one out there, I just don't know where to find it!  I know I can just try a lot of them out, but I don't want to take the time to add in multiple recipes if I know it's not going to work. 

[Ygle]

Now I'm looking at Shop'NCook... maybe that is what I'm looking for?  I can't tell how well it can be used or accessed from a phone though, not sure if I want to have to email things to my phone all the time... anyone use this program? 

[Ygle]

Okay, now I'm thinking BigOven, aaaahhhh!  I think I've ruled out Shop'NCook since I can't do as much from my phone as I would like, but it looks like I can do everything from my phone with BigOven and it still also has all the at home software features... but the price book feature with SayMMM really appeals to me... so I think now I'm down to SayMMM and BigOven... or just using something like Springpad, maybe?  I don't think I can do menu planning with springpad though, or can I? 

[SpuglyRoo]

My two cents- I love, Love, LOVE BigOven.  I like that I can easily input recipes, put them into a menu, and then snag the grocery list from the menu.  I love that I can rate the recipes I've tried, make notes in the bottom, add especially add pictures to it (I'm visual, I need the picture to add it to the meal plan.)  I also like that I can make custom tags, and search for a recipe by any word, not just ingredients or titles.

I don't know that I use it the same way you will, but I am happy with mine.

[Ygle]

Thanks so much for the feedback, SpuglyRoo!  I'm thinking BigOven might not work for me because of the emphasis on the already contained recipes (which seems like it would be all kinds of awesome for most people, it's just that I stick to vegan, no oil, whole food recipes so I really only want to see or have to sort through my own recipes and that's it).  Also, I thought I read someone say when they made shopping lists at home they couldn't access them on their phone from the web... like the two were separate instead of being synced?  That's what I really wanted... to be able to generate shopping lists at home that my dh can access at work on his phone without my having to email him the lists.  It's a simple enough step, I know, but I that's the part that I often fail at since I feel like the list is never done so it never ends up getting sent, and then if that's the case BigOven looses it's advantage over Living Cookbooks for me. 

Mealsmatter.org seems like yet another viable option although you can't check off the shopping lists (unless you print them out).  All the features are out there, just not all in one place unfortunately. 

[Ygle]

So I finally decided to just go with Say MMM but then the whole process of entering in recipes and having to create lists I could see would not be something I would keep on, too cumbersome, if I'm going to pay I don't want to do any work, ha!  Then I went ahead and set up Springpad and adding recipes couldn't be easier and generating shopping lists is even easier than that... and it's free!  But then I tried to drag and drop the recipes into google calendar to menu plan and I guess you can't do that... so I can't figure out any way to back up those recipes or menu plan with Springpad... ugh!  This is driving me bonkers since I decided I would just get this figured out once and for all and yet here it is days later, still haven't gotten it figured out.