May 21, 2018Are We Adults Yet

Subscription Services We Think Are Worth It

Our calendars are generally pretty packed and our to-do lists almost always overflowing. Because of that, we’re big fans of being able to automate lots of parts of our lives. Subscriptions services seem fairly new to our lives, but have for sure filled a void and made it a bit easier to “set it and forget it” for myriad daily tasks.

We did an audit of all our subscription services, from TV watching and meal kit deliveries to gym memberships and investing platforms. Here’s a rundown of all the ones we’re sticking with and think are worth the fees.

Entertainment

  • Spotify: This is our favorite music service. Spotify premium is ad-free and we love the listening experience. It also pairs perfectly with our home sound systems (we both have Sonos speakers and love them!).
  • Netflix: A staple, for sure, Netflix is like the best friend you’ll keep around forever. Beyond the greatness of being able to binge some old favorites (Friends, Gilmore Girls, Breaking Bad, etc.), we’ve come to love lots of their originals (The Crown, Gilmore Girls Revival, Orange is the New Black, Queer Eye Revival, etc.) and will definitely be checking in on everything they put out in the future!
  • Hulu: Another equally great for nostalgia (The O.C., The Good Wife, Friday Night Lights, and The I.T. Crowd to name a few) and original content (The Handmaid’s Tale, Difficult People, etc.), Hulu is a go-to for our nights and weekend couch-potatoing needs!
  • Audible: This service makes a perfect carpool buddy for your daily commute. They have a huge selection of books to download and do a great job of recommending new ones based on your previous listens.

Lifestyle

  • Corepower Yoga Monthly Membership / DoYogaWithMe.com / Class Pass: Whatever it is that motivates you to get out the door and get moving, we’re all for it! We’re both CPY enthusiasts but have also ventured into the land of online yoga classes as well as other studios in our area. We’re all about the free week trials wherever we can find them!
  • Lola: Not having to remember to buy tampons is pretty much the best. Coupled with the fact that Lola only uses 100% organic cotton and is committed to transparency in both their products and business, and we couldn’t sign up fast enough!
  • Amazon Prime: If you order more than a few times a year on Amazon, Prime is definitely a service you should be looking into. With free two-day shipping, you can recoup the service fee pretty quickly, and Prime also comes with a plethora of extras included like video and music streaming, free books, unlimited photo storage, and early access to deals.
  • Dropbox: We can’t push harder on the photo backup struggle because you never know when your phone is going to bite the dust. Dropbox offers 2 terabytes of data for $150 per year, which feels a little steep until you think of the peace of mind it will deliver! Free photo storage also comes with Prime, and if you’re looking for a 100% free option there’s always Google Photos.

Food

We love meal kit deliveries and have tried a ton of them. They all have some aspects that are better than others, and we keep a few on rotation every month or so to keep introducing new recipes, flavors, and techniques into our repertoire! These are our favorites and why we love them.

  • Sunbasket: Always sure to please with some new-to-us ingredients, Sunbasket does a lovely job of packaging each individual meal components together without overdoing it on the plastics.
  • Blue Apron: A staple and the first meal kit delivery service either of us ever tried, Blue Apron is still impressing us by teaching us new cooking techniques in almost every recipe!
  • Home Chef: With a plethora of recipes to choose from every week, Home Chef always delivers on tried and true staples and expands on them by making them easier or more efficient to make, or by introducing a new flavor or two to some old favorites.
  • Marley Spoon: It wouldn’t feel like a Martha product without the fancy touches and embellishments that Marley Spoon is always sure to deliver. We’ve lost count of the myriad new cooking techniques learned through all these fantastic recipes!
  • HelloFresh: Generally heavy on the veggies, everything from HelloFresh always feels exactly that, fresh! Recipes from them are always fun on the palate while delivering all the nutrients you need.

We also love to order groceries, cleaning supplies and life things online. These two services require a subscription but we love them both and save so much money by paying for the subscription.

  • Thrive Market: We love this site for healthy pantry items. It is a great place to start if you are trying out Whole30 or Paleo diets or just want to have some healthy options on hand.
  • Amazon Pantry: Coupled with Prime is also Amazon Prime Pantry that indexes household essentials at cheaper-than-grocery-store prices! We have had a lot of the Kool-Aid, but definitely, think this is worth it.

Finance

If you’ve read some of our finance posts, you know that we are big fans of robo-advisors. These are the services that we pay for that have given us great returns and justified them staying in our subscription roundup.

  • Blooom: Offers 401k management for your retirement accounts. Blooom keeps track of where your money is invested, helps minimize fees and watches the market.
  • Wealthfront: Offers free management on your first $5,000 invested and their fee after that is only 0.25%. The proof is in the pudding with Wealthfront’s direct indexing service that adds as much as 2% to annual investment performance for eligible accounts.
  • Betterment: Offers free management for up to a year and their fee after that is only 0.25%. With no account minimum, Betterment is also the largest independent robo-advisor.

And a freebie for good measure: we use Personal Capital to track expenses and watch investment progress!

Blogging

  • Bluehost: When we made the move to self-host on WordPress, there wasn’t a lot of hemming and hawing on which web hosting platform to use. Bluehost makes a myriad of blog-related tasks so much easier and provides excellent customer service!

Are you subscribed to any monthly or annual services? Have any that you’re looking to replace or cut back on?? Let us know in the comments!

Let us know what you think!