Amazon – Saving the Lazy Way

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“Necessity never made a good bargain” – who else, but Ben Franklin

Mr. Saver is the guru of all things Amazon.com, and recently he had quite a rewarding, pat-on-the-back experience that made us both glad he is such a diligent planner.

Some time ago, our carbon monoxide detector reached its “end of life” and started to make a unique chime every 60 seconds.  After replacing the unit, he thought that some of our other fire/CO detectors could also be hitting that milestone (if you are a new homeowner, a distinctive chime may mean “end of life” – check the back of the device.  They last 5-10 years).  He shopped Amazon for the latest and greatest and placed some units on his “wish list.”  He checks the wishlist frequently and noticed one day that the price had dropped quite a lot.  He pounced, knowing we could pay for this from our home maintenance fund.

Just this weekend one of the devices in the basement started making a unique chime (and isn’t it fun to try to figure out which one it is?)  He had recently changed batteries, so end of life was the reason for the chime.  He pulled out his new unit, bought leisurely and at a low price, and proceeded to earn that pat-on-the-back.

If you anticipate a purchase in the months to come (back to school?  Christmas?), why not start watching for low prices now?

For Mr. Saver’s other Amazon tips, including a full analysis of saving with Subscribe and Save, go here!

 

Using Amazon Subscribe and Save, Part 2

Mr. Saver is here again to talk a little more about Amazon’s Subscribe & Save (“S&S”) program. You can view yesterday’s Intro post on the Subscribe and Save program here.

First off, let me say that you can save money with the S&S program even if you use it in its most basic form, which is to:

1. order the products that you normally use,
2. set them on a reasonable recurring delivery schedule, and
3. then wait for the products to arrive.

However, you can save more money if you give your S&S account a little TLC.

The simplest way to save money with S&S is to try to ensure that you have five or more products being delivered in a single month in order to get a 15% (rather than the standard S&S 5%) discount.  Regardless of the schedule you initially set up when you first ordered your S&S product, you can easily change the next delivery month for the product by going to your S&S page (you can access this by clicking on “Your Subscribe & Save Items” under “Your Account” on the Amazon home page).

The S&S page displays all the products you are currently subscribed to in the program.  To the left of each product is the product’s next delivery date (e.g. “June 15”) and the delivery schedule (e.g. “1 unit every 4 months”).  By clicking on the “Change” button to the right of the delivery schedule, you can change both the delivery month and frequency.

Once you have a little experience with the S&S program, you will find your own best rhythm to the shipments.  For me personally, I have found that bimonthly shipments work best to keep us well-stocked.  Mrs. Saver may occasionally say these bimonthly shipments keep us TOO well stocked, but we agree to differ on this issue.

In tomorrow’s blog post, I will explain how you can lock in your best price using S&S.

How to Save 15% with Amazon Subscribe and Save

“Honey, the Amazon order is here!”

By Mr. Healthful Saver

It is my pleasure to guest write the Healthful Saver blog today and give Mrs. Saver a day off.  Like Mrs. Saver, I love to save money, but I readily admit that I don’t like to work hard to do so.  One of the easiest ways I have found to save money is Amazon’s Subscribe & Save (“S&S”) program.

If you shop at Amazon at all, you have likely come across items offered in the S&S program.  The program includes household items that one buys routinely throughout the year like vitamins, shampoo, and water filters.

When you purchase your first item through the S&S program (by clicking the “Subscribe” button), you choose how often you want to receive the item (e.g. once a month, once every three, etc.) and which day of the month you want your S&S items to arrive.  You can easily cancel the subscription later or change the frequency so there is no danger in buying something via S&S, even if you are not sure if you will want to order it more than once.

All items ordered via S&S are discounted 5% off normal Amazon prices and come with free shipping.  If you have five or more S&S items arriving in a single month, you instead receive 15% off the normal Amazon prices for all those items.  Amazon will ship all those items to you in one box and they are, in essence, passing the savings along to you.

With the discounts, the prices in the S&S program range from so-so to very, very good.  In general, I find the best deals are on products that I would normally need to buy in a speciality or health food store.

While the S&S program is simple, there are some strategies to help ensure that you get the lowest prices.  I will discuss one of those strategies in tomorrow’s post.