If you want to show a busy parent some love, skip the chocolate and flowers.
Instead, give us literal hours back in our day and we will be yours forever and ever amen.
Here are a few ways to set your life up so you can cut corners and take back a little bit of time — some of these will save you money too!
1. Set your bank up to automate regular bill payments.
Most banks offer some sort of bill pay as a free service. And while there are plenty of bills that have a different total every month — making it hard to automate — there are also many that are the same total every time.
Netflix, car and house payments, phone bills and the like are usually in this category. Tell your bank to set it so you can forget it!
2. Ask BillCutterz to negotiate lower monthly bills for you.
Send all your monthly bills (cell phone, cable, internet — everything) to BillCutterz and they’ll call your providers to negotiate a lower rate on your behalf.
If BillCutterz isn’t able to save you any money, you don’t owe them anything. If they successfully negotiate a lower bill on your behalf, you’ll split the savings with them for the first year only. After that, the savings are all yours.
3. Pay using Sam’s Club Scan & Go to avoid standing in the checkout line.
At the end of any warehouse shopping trip, I’m like a zombie waiting in line to check out.
Except now when I go to Sam’s Club, I can just hold my phone up and the cashier will scan it and I’m done.
To use Scan & Go, just scan your items with your phone as you put them into your cart and the app keeps a running total of your balance.
4. Use Walmart’s free Grocery Pickup and avoid going into the grocery store.
This one is a no-brainer. You can order your groceries online at least one day before you want to pick them up. Then drive up to the “Grocery Pickup” stall at Walmart and call them to tell them you’re here.
A Walmart associate will bring your groceries out and load them into your car. You don’t even have to open your door if you don’t want to.
5. Throw your Rosé into Kroger’s wine chiller while you shop.
Need your white or blush wines to be cold for dinner in a few hours? Kroger has a free wine chiller — toss your bottle into it while you shop.
You just saved yourself at least an hour of waiting for Rosé when you get home.
6. Use BrickSeek to find inventory at other stores.
Ever find a great deal on exactly what you want but there aren’t enough to make a complete set?
The old way to solve this was to ask the store to call around for you (or call around yourself!) to check inventory elsewhere.
But now, BrickSeek can do it all for you as long as you have the UPC code for your item. It’ll tell you where to go and how many are left of your item.
7. Never wait in line at a restaurant again with OpenTable.
Download OpenTable and you can “check in” to restaurants before you even arrive.
And then try not to swagger past everyone waiting in the lobby when you arrive. I mean, you can’t help that you’re such a smartypants!
8. Use Filleritem.com to meet Amazon’s $35 shipping minimum.
If you don’t have Amazon Prime or you otherwise don’t qualify for free shipping, enter the amount you need in order to reach Amazon’s $35 minimum shipping threshold. Filleritem.com will show you a list of things you can buy on Amazon for that price.
And look at all that time you’re saving not searching for an item yourself.
9. Sign up for Paribus to get help with price adjustments.
Most stores have a price adjustment period where if something you bought goes on sale, they’ll honor the sale price and give you the difference.
Clearly, the worst part about this is being on the lookout for sales after every purchase! But that’s where Paribus really shines. When you download the Paribus app, they’ll monitor all your online purchases (for free!) and help you get the difference back.
Paribus compensates us when you sign up for Paribus using the links we provided.
10. Let Hopper monitor flights and tell you when it’s the best time to book.
For real, who has the time to constantly check flight prices and make sure you’re getting the cheapest price possible? Not me.
I find the flight I want and then I ask Hopper to “Watch This Trip,” which means I’ll get notifications when it’s a good time to buy tickets.
11. Put items like diapers and paper towels on autopilot through Amazon.
Through Amazon Subscribe & Save, you get a percentage off for setting up a regular monthly shipment of items.
Save up to 15% with Amazon Subscribe & Save.
No more midnight trips to the grocery store for full-price diapers!
12. Hack a store-bought cake to skip out on baking.
Need to cut corners on baking a cake for a birthday party or baby shower?
You can usually find a basic cake at Costco, Kroger or another local grocery store. Add cookies, candy flowers, and toys to personalize your cake and cover up whatever decoration was there previously, like this Peppa Pig cake below.
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