Smartlife

Whether you’re buying a new gadget or taking a trip, comparison shopping for a product will save you time (information on different brands and products is compiled for you in one convenient location) and money (price ranges and product reviews allow you to make smarter purchase decisions). Without using comparison shopping sites and reviews, you could find yourself trawling through hundreds of sites for scattered information and missing out on the best deals. As with any decision, it’s smart to consult many different sources for expert information and varied opinions before making a choice; in the end, you’ll have saved yourself hassle of an ill-informed decision.

Coupons can save you cash. According to the Promotion Marketing Association’s Coupon Council, consumers saved nearly $3 billion last year using coupons. Getting a chunk of those billions is worth the effort — but it can be a very time-intensive process. In order to save just $1,000 over the course of the year, you need to spend 20 minutes a week (or 17 hours for the year) clipping and organizing coupons. Rather than hunting down coupons in the newspaper, mailers, and other paper-based mediums they seem to pop up, you do have a couple of options to streamline your coupon-clipping operation: you can get them online or outsource the whole process all together to someone else (such as your virtual assistant or personal grocery shopper).

How often have you looked into your refrigerator and noticed that it was empty? That you didn’t have anything to eat and no ingredients to cook? I don’t know about you, but this happens to me way too often, forcing me to make an unproductive run to the grocery store or eat yet another overpriced and unhealthy meal out of the house. If only there were a method to make sure you had enough food, always. Fortunately, with the increase in personal outsourcing options, now you can even outsource the most basic of tasks: grocery shopping.

Traditional, in-store grocery shopping consumes 269 hours of your life per year (assuming you’re the “average” American grocery shopper). Online grocery shopping and home delivery, on the other hand, only takes up about 13 hours total, if that. Throw in other benefits such as money saved on driving (IRS’ most-recent estimate on the cost per mile of car travel is 58 cents) and impulse buying (4% of all groceries purchased at stores go to waste), online grocery shopping is a smart way to save yourself some time and money.

I hate shopping. I hate the lines, I hate trying on clothes, I hate the sheer number of options, but most of all I hate the crushing indecision facing you as you’re overwhelmed by warehouse-sized spaces taunting you with too many products to sift through and not knowing what to buy — whether for yourself or for others. Even worse than that is the feeling that you’re wasting so much time and energy, with little return.