Have you ever wished for a personal assistant? Someone to buy the toilet paper, make sure you eat right, pick up your favorite face wash, and keep your underwear drawer stocked? The internet can be that PA. Just log on, put all your needs on autopilot, and the goods will come to you on your schedule.
You probably already know that Amazon's Subscribe and Save service will deliver household goods on a schedule. But what about bacon? Are you still hitting the big-box store for toilet paper and stopping by the grocer for razors, toothpaste, and wine? Your PA is out there, ready to give you back your time. This sort of luxury isn't expensive. It might actually save you money. Here's what you can ask your new PA to take care of for you:
Toilet paper
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Enough of the toilet paper burden. No more hauling it home and stashing it in a cupboard. No more running out of it at exactly the wrong time. For about the same money per roll you spend going to a big-box store and lugging it home, Who Gives a Crap will send you 48 rolls of TP every 8, 12, or 16 weeks. The rolls are decoratively wrapped and made out of environmentally friendly bamboo, so you won't mind getting so many rolls at once because they are so pretty. You can stack them like presents in the bathroom. Your guests won't have to dig around in your cupboards and you just got an hour of your life back. Bonus: Fifty percent of profits go toward building toilets for people who need them.
Meat
Did you just stand in line at the butcher's only to be told they don't have the cut you want? You have a freezer, right? Maybe it's not big enough to order meat in bulk. But check out Butcher Box. Set your box preferences up once and the meat shows up every month or two. Plans start at $129 for 24 meals. Do you eat a mix of beef, pork, and chicken? Order the mixed box. Love your steak? Go for the All Beef. Trying to manage a special diet? Customize your own box. The beef is grass fed. The chicken is free range. The bacon rocks. And it just shows up at your door, on a regular schedule, so there is always something for dinner.
Shampoo, household cleansers, and linens
How much time did you spend in the shampoo aisle looking for the right formula? How about household cleansers? Soap? Candles? Now head over to linens and get some towels. It's a lot of work, right? And you don't always end up with products you love or that look good in your home unless you drop some serious coin. Sign up for an annual subscription with Public Goods ($59) and let someone else do all that hard work for you. And, since there is no retail or distribution chain to pay for, you pay a lot less money for these carefully chosen, high quality goods. They all have the same, simple, black-and-white design to declutter the look of your home.
Unmentionables
Put down the tighty whities! Reclaim the hours you planned to spend shopping for a thong you can stand! Just open your mail box once a month to a wonderful, soft pair of new underpants from MeUndies. Pick the style (thong, bikini, cheeky brief, boxer brief, or whatever you like) and the pattern (they range from solid colors to wild patterns) and your underwear drawer will be forever loaded with underthings you want to don. MeUndies offers underwear subscriptions for men and women. It also offers bras, socks, and loungewear from the same soft fabric.
Razors for men
Why is shaving so insanely expensive? And just when you think you have your handle/blade situation sorted out, they launch a new model and you find yourself standing in the razor aisle (It's an entire aisle!) again trying to figure out how not to drop $20 on something that won't work with what you already dropped $20 on before. Don't even. Just go to Harry's, choose a color for your slick, German-engineered handle, sign up for a blade subscription based on how often you shave, and get on with your manscaped existence. Lots of women use the service, too. And female-friendly depilatory products from Harry's can be found at Flamingo (shopflamingo.com), though that site does not offer a subscription service.
Razors for women
Everything that's annoying about shaving for men is multiplied for women. First, we have to master a crazy yoga pose and execute it while holding a sharp object. And that object is never sharp enough. We shave more square footage to cover than men do. Yet the people who make razors think the feature we're willing to pay extra for is the color pink. Stop it! We want sharp razors for a price that doesn't make us hesitate to replace them. Billie is a new entry into the subscription shaving services world. This one gets what we women want. For $9 you get a handle, four five-blade cartridges, and a magnetic holder to store it in the shower. (Yes, there's a pink handle. No, it doesn't cost more.) For another $9 you get four replacement razors, delivered automatically on your shaving schedule.
Wine for everyone
Do you wish you could offer a glass of a something better than box wine when your neighbor stops by? Having a unique selection of wines on hand and the knowledge to pair them with foods was once the exclusive territory of snooty wine snobs. Then the internet happened. Now you just take an online quiz at First Leaf, offer up your credit card, and study the wine cards that come with your bottles. "The coffee notes in this Syrah will be delicious with that chocolate," you might say casually when she stops by, offering the brownies she made. She won't know you are quoting from the card, written by a wine expert, that came with that Syrah. You did your research. That research is just insanely easy. She probably got the brownie recipe online, too. But now you are both living large.
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