Long story short, last year was a blur for me & I could barely breathe for the majority of it. Some of that was personal stuff but most was dealing with my business suddenly having so many more clients. It was a whirlwind.

Anyway, I happened to grab Less Doing, More Living by Ari Meisel when I was able to squeeze in a library visit.  It’s a fast read about streamlining the mundane parts of life so we can enjoy life more. I highly recommend! A few of the suggestions weren’t great for me but a few worked out really well! I tried to put ALL OF THE THINGS in this post but it’s just too much so I’m breaking it up over 2 posts.

I’m going to start by being negative.  (Not too negative though.)

 

What didn’t work out so great:

Amazon Subscribe & Save

I LURV Amazon but Subscribe & Save didn’t do it for me.  I may not have given it enough time to work out FOR SURE that I would use 4 bottles of shower gel every 2 months exactly but it just felt stressful because I was always thinking “Will 1 tube of toothpaste last for 2 months or 1?  Or 1 and a half?  Then I need to skip it every third month.” Ugh, mental gymnastics – nope!

Automating the necessity of shopping is an AMAZING idea, obviously. While I was still Subscribing & Saving I came across the Shipt grocery shopping app ads on Facebook. I signed on immediately. Since then I have replaced S&S with Shipt.  I’ve used it 4 times now & every time has been great.  It helps me avoid Publix and Target – two places I tend to over-shop in person.  So so good!

If Shipt is available to you & you have better uses for your time than spending 1-2 hours a week shopping & hauling groceries I highly recommend it. I know I get less for my money (because they charge a little bit more per item) but it’s easy to take advantage of the weekly sales & I’m not impulse buying up & down the aisles so I think it shakes out. Also: it buys 1-2 hours back for me each week.  Also also: it creates jobs where there were none before! (I have not been paid for this recommendation ;))

Mint

This is a service that syncs all your accounts – checking, savings, credit cards, loans, what-have-you & it tracks your spending & tries to help with budgeting.  I am obsessive about logging into my bank website & updating my money program manually (like a dinosaur) so I don’t think it helps me as much as it might help others. I can’t deal with just glancing at my bank info.  I must transcribe it so I am forced to look at every entry.  I catch errors best that way.

One Receipt

This is another add-on for your banking. It keeps your receipts all in one place.  I believe it will show you the actual receipt for each entry in your bank account.  I have it but haven’t really used it more than once or twice.  Not a heavy hitter for me.

 

To Sum Up

Amazon lead me to Shipt – I may not have been as open to it before reading this book. So that worked out pretty well.  The others weren’t great for me. Check back for Part 2 about the things that worked like gangbusters!