I’m under no illusions: This post and topic are lifestyle-specific and will not apply, at least incompletely, to many people. However, if you are in the same situation as me, I hope it can be helpful.
So, what is our situation?
John has a full-time job currently/temporarily from home. He has set working hours, co-workers, meetings, and deadlines that don’t allow for flexibility. Thankfully, he doesn’t work weekends.
I’m self-employed, which means I have the flexibility and can focus my efforts on keeping my 3-year-old and 1-year-old alive. For most of last year, I woke up around 5:30 to work for a few hours before they woke up. (This whole month, though, I opted to sleep but needed to restart my 5am alarm in March). I also work on Sundays and sometimes Saturdays.
Take care of all my other responsibilities – DWAA, CWA, animals, appointments, various Astrid therapies, our sign language classes, keeping the house clean and functional smooth, feeding four people and three animals a million times a day, etc. I stretch very thin. By the time the girls were asleep, I rolled out of bed exhausted.
Is anyone else feeling this way?
One way I tried to find time in my day last summer was to streamline and minimize errands. None of us want to wander around the stores right now, and I especially don’t want to take Astrid (she’s under two years old and can’t wear a mask), so I’ve automated everything that I can. can think.
I don’t know how much time it saved me, but I confidently say A LOT. Plus, it saved us a lot of money as most places offer discounts on repeat/automatic delivery and free shipping. Quite clearly, though, I’m more concerned with saving time than money at the moment. So some of these might be more expensive than the hands-on work option, but I simply don’t have an extra minute in my day. Like I said, these ideas are purely lifestyle-specific.
In this post, I’m breaking down some of the pet-related subscriptions that have saved me the most, and I’ll include some non-pet recommendations at the end.
Please Note: Many of these services offer referral links or discount codes, so I’ll share those below. If you order from these links, you can get a discount (I’ll be sure to show where) and I can get a referral credit.
Let’s learn about savings, shall we?
Register for dog food
Fresh food delivered on schedule. Here’s another important point, actually: 100% auto-signups (they send you your next product before you run out) are worth in gold. Our brains are for processing, not for storing, and having that little thing to think about will save me time and money. I recommend The Farmer’s Dog because it’s healthy food delivered automatically in pre-divided quantities. We’ve always turned it around with The Honest Kitchen, but Cooper has developed some sort of weird reaction to the THK formula he’s been using for years. We actually have a recommendation for another dish that I’ll share in a moment. BUT! If you are looking for healthy, complete meals delivered on your dog’s schedule, portioned in advance and ready to serve, sign up at this link for 50% off a trial box Farmer’s dog.
Additional subscriptions
The cats take daily vitamins, joint supplements, and probiotics. Cooper was supplemented with joint supplements, probiotics and allergy medication. Mammal aquariums and fountains need a new filter every month. All of this is set up as an automatic form of delivery from Petco every eight weeks. We also added a snack, Taste of Wild Ancient Grains, to Coop.
Repeat delivery convenient because it’s automatic, but this is the least seamless of all the subscriptions. Why? For example, each supplement comes in bottles with different quantities, so I needed to calculate the total we needed for each for eight weeks, and we ended up with too many of these and not enough. another until it balances out. Then all of a sudden Petco didn’t send the kibble once (although they refunded the amount they never told us) and then this time they ran out of cat vitamins (they gave us a credit) BUT it was still in the store, so we actually had to go to Petco to get it. Of course, not a big deal, but still more complicated than I hoped to register.
Automatic delivery for cats
Every eight weeks, we receive two boxes of cat-like grass from Automated delivery for natural pets only. Seamless, no issues, save money on items and shipping, can’t go wrong with this.
Sign up for Sanitary Supplies
I order tissue, tissue, and plant-free toilet paper from Who Give a Crap? We LOVE their products and the ease of delivery. Even when the world faces stock shortages, they still respect subscribers’ orders. We never had a gap. All automatic, all eco-friendly. This link gets you $10 off your first order.
Same goes for detergents. Guys, I can’t begin to explain how much laundry a baby and a preschooler and a dog and two cats and two adults dump and exercise. I wash a lot of clothes. It’s basically my part-time job. I signed up for Dropps and appreciated that it was plastic free and came here without thinking about it OR. We tried the dishwasher tabs, but they didn’t work with ours. We have super hard water, so I guess that’s the problem, but the cleaners are great. We don’t smell because of Coopsie’s skin allergies! This link gets you $15 off your first order.
Toys and Snacks (OPTIONAL!)
No discussion of pet registration is complete without a mention of BarkBox. TBH, we canceled ours for a while because we tried another box with the “hard” toys, but Coop destroyed those easily and each month had almost the same products. same. We’ll go back to BarkBox because, even if he’s going to shred the toys, at least they’ll be cute and fun. This link gets you a free month to try it out.
Register for Humanity
Obviously, we benefit from Who for crap? and Dropps, but for us humans, I have two others that I recommend:
Quote: Okay, I stumbled across this, and it wasn’t necessary, but I can’t really remember buying or replacing a toothbrush. We always run out of floss and it never makes it to the shopping list etc. I saw this in the aisle at Target. After you buy one, they’ll send you a refill (and a replacement battery!) every time you’re due to buy a new one. Your mouth will thank you. This link helps you to top up $5.
Instacart: We’re being extremely cautious about COVID here. We like to go into stores as little as possible. So I turned to Instacart for our weekly Aldi order. It saved us a ton of money (who knows how many grocery store purchases we made?!?!) and a lot of time. No driving to and fro, no finding a parking spot, no struggling with two greased alligators, uh, kids, etc. They just messed it up in one go. Usually, they are good at messaging with questions, substitutions, etc. If you haven’t tried Instacart yet, this link earns you $10 for your groceries.
I also set up ink subscriptions for my printer (seriously, friends… HP automatically mails ink when the printer is low… how?!?), BUT I paused it StitchFix check in because I obviously never have to leave the house so I’m always sweating.
Finally, I know subscriptions aren’t for everyone.
Some of you might really enjoy going to the store! I recently heard a friend say that going to the grocery store gives her life because it’s her only outing with other people. We all need to figure out what works for us and our lifestyle, but in case you’re like me… feel like you’re drowning, like there’s never enough time, just like you just something fell off my list… I really hope this helps.
And if YOU have found a trick to save time or money, or if you have discovered some kind of automation, feel free to share in the comments. I would love to hear your opinion!
Or if you think these are total cheaters, share it! We can all learn from each other, no matter where we fall on the subscription or shopping-IRL spectrum!
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