Dear Sir:
I have been reading your blog for several years but have not been able to convince my dear husband to stop laughing at me until very recently. We are very busy people with full time+on call sort of jobs, three busy kids and I’m also a full time student as well. We consider our time as important as our money. I know there are others reading that haven’t started yet due to lack of ‘spare time’.
I have begun utilizing the ‘Subscribe and Save’ feature on Amazon.com. This feature allows me to pick out items we need to add to our storage, schedule when and how much I want delivered directly to my home. As an item nears the quantity goal we have set, I simply deactivate that item and select something else from our master list. With this tool I get to add to our storage when I have time. It also allows me to track our inventory with ease. I also stay on budget because I know ahead of time exactly how much I’m spending.
Could I find it cheaper elsewhere? Maybe. But this feature also offers buyers a 15% discount on all items purchased each month over 5. And frankly, I’d rather spend what little time I do have learning with, or teaching, my kids new skills or honing the ones we already have.
Should I worry about tracking? First, do I care if how many rolls of toilet paper I’m buying is being watched by some faceless entity somewhere? Not really. In this day and age, unless I’m buying goods off the back of a truck in a dark alley with cash, it can be tracked.
Our main concern is that our time has value. We are doing more and more with our spare time to meet our goals. The truth is, there are only so many hours in a day. If others out there are putting off stocking up because they don’t have the time to clip coupons or search the web for the best deals, this little tool might be the difference between getting started and waiting for schedules to lighten and getting caught in a tight spot unprepared at all.
Thank you for the excellent blog. – Mary in Nebraska