Now that we’ve discussed how to help with the mental labor of grocery and personal care shopping along with meal planning for humans, let’s move onto our furry friends.
We are quite particular about what we feed our cat and dogs and prefer to get their food from a pet store. This is another avenue where you can order items online. In my research, I’ve seen many advantages for going this route.
First, it’s nice to have one less errand to run and to save time and gas. Some people live in more rural areas where the nearest pet store is maybe 30 minutes or more from their home.
Second, lugging around huge bags of pet food can be challenging if you have a disability, back issues, or if you’re just plain tired from a long day at work. Through Amazon and other online sites, you can set up a recurring delivery that comes to your front door. You’ll never have to lift heavy bags for long distances or worry about running out of pet food ever again. Remember, automation is a wonderful tool to relieve mental labor!
Third, you’ll find a greater variety of pet food and supplies online and often save money.
Finally, ordering pet food online is a nice way to send a gift to someone or to donate to an animal shelter.
Even with these advantages, I personally don’t shop online for pet food. We only live five minutes from Tractor Supply Company which is literally right beside Aldi. Their prices are rock-bottom because we are members of their Neighbors Club.
Our dogs and cats are small, and we can easily store a month’s worth of food for all our pets thanks to having large bins with lids. The bags of food aren’t too heavy. I enjoy seeing everyone at this store once a month, plus they are great community supporters. This is one load that is quite light for me. With a little bit of research and planning, you can discover the best options to help slash your labor in this area as well.
One mental load that I am working to decrease, however, is prescriptions. My husband John gets three a month from two different pharmacies. Many people are switching to getting their prescriptions via mail or delivery.
This is helpful, especially when you have the same prescriptions from month to month. Most pharmacies, even small local ones, offer this service for free for regular mail or no rush delivery. The advantages include:
- Not waiting in line at the pharmacy.
- Cutting you out of the middle and having prescriptions sent to the pharmacy right from your doctor.
- Easy transfer of existing refills.
- Saving time and gas.
- Avoiding exposure to germs in crowded pharmacies.
With the larger pharmacies, by using a simple app on your phone, you can receive notifications when your prescription is ready, choose a delivery method, upload a payment method, and even track your prescription.
If you’re not tech savvy, you can still get prescriptions mailed or delivered to you and often save money. Many insurance plans allow a reduced copay when ordering a 90-day supply for home delivery. Talk to your doctor and ask for a 90-day supply with the appropriate number of refills. Ask them about generic options as well.
To get things started, you can bring in your prescription to the pharmacy, submit it by mail, ask your doctor to call, fax, or e-prescribe it, or fill out a refill submission form by hand.
I’m working with my husband to switch to this option because it feels like one of us is always running to our local pharmacy at least once every week or two. Even though we get automated reminders of when a prescription is due for pick up, this errand gets old and adds to our load.
By the way, there are similar systems for your pets’ prescriptions. Some sites offering this service are chewy.com, drsfostersmith.com, 1-800PetMeds, and PetCareRx. You may also save money for your furry friends’ medications this way!
Amy Shankland is a writer and fundraising professional living in Noblesville with her husband John, two sons, two dogs and a cat. You can reach her via email at amys@greenavenue.info.