For those
who aren’t familiar with subscription services, there are online companies that
you can pay for a subscription for a given type of item like food, makeup, and
clothes. The items are sent directly to
your door. There are so many
subscription services out there now that you are bound to have heard of one
them.
I have
used two subscription services – Hello Fresh (food) and Stitch Fix (clothes).
***
Hello
Fresh is a subscription program where you get meals sent to you. To be clear, YOU have to cook the food. They send you recipes and basically all of
the ingredients needed for each recipe and you make the meals yourself.
This is
great for people who may know how to cook but never know what to make. For chronically ill people, this doesn’t
exactly help if you don’t have the energy to cook. But if you have a spouse who can cook, this
saves time by not having to go to the grocery store.
They have
both a classic box and a veggie box. You
can get three meals for two people or three meals for four people.
I got a
Groupon for this, so it cost me $20 for three vegetarian meals for two people,
which would normally cost $59.
Overall,
it was a fun experience getting to try random recipes. We knew exactly what we were eating for three
days, which was nice.
At $20,
this was a great value. I am not sure
how much of a great value it is at $59, other than the convenience of it. At
$59, it basically averages out to $10 a meal per person. While that’s cheaper than eating out, we
definitely can make meals on our own that cost less than that per person.
Like I
said, this can be a great option for chronically ill people, depending on what
your specific situation is.
The only
thing you have to be careful of is that when you sign up, Hello Fresh
automatically schedules your delivery for once-a-week. You can change it to twice-a- month or you
can deactivate your account. But if you’re
like me and you just wanted to try it once for fun, make sure you change the
schedule – that is – unless you fall in love and want to receive a new box of
food and recipes every week.
Stitch Fix
is a subscription service that sends you clothes. You pay $20, which is applied to any items
you buy – so if you order and don’t end up buying anything, you are out $20 –
and you get five different items. If you
end up buying all of the items sent to you, you save 25%. They provide a return package that you can
use to send back any items that you don’t want.
If you’re
like me, and you are prone to getting stuck in clothes in the fitting room of
stores because RA limits the range of motion in your arms, this takes that
anxiety away.
My first
fix was a total bust. None of the items
fit right nor did I really like them.
Stitch Fix was nice enough to send me the next fix for free (they gave
me a $20 credit), which was awesome.
Based on the things I really liked, and for the price, it made sense for
me to purchase all of them the second time around.
They sent
me a pair of skinny jeans. I have been
wanting a pair for a long time, but I hate jean shopping. I won’t do it. So even though the jeans were pricey, it was
worth it to me because this is the only conceivable way I see getting
jeans. Plus, I’m petite, and lengthwise
the jeans were perfect, which is saying a lot.
I also got
an amazing asymmetric sweater that can be either causal or fancy, and I have
been wearing it everywhere. It’s made of
a really soft material and is heavy enough to wear as a spring jacket. It also just looks really flattering.
The
clothes, even though I said I wanted the cheaper, the better, are pretty
pricey. But again, you are paying for
the convenience of not having to go to the store, not having to potentially get
stuck in an item you don’t want in a fitting room, and you can be upset in
private if none of the items work for you.
I think
the best advice is to provide a lot of feedback about what you are looking
for. You can put Stitch Fix into
Pinterest and see what other people have gotten. You can pin things and provide Stith Fix with
the link, and they can send you items very similar to, or sometimes even the
same as, the ones you pinned. At the
very least, they get a better idea of what styles you like. Not to mention, there is an extensive profile
that you fill out for them with your sizes and they provide groups of clothes
that you can rate by what you like and don’t like.
The other
nice thing about Stitch Fix is that you can schedule them whenever you want and
aren’t married to getting one every week or on a specific schedule.
This is a
great service. I can’t say enough about
it. The quality of the clothes is high,
the stylists really listen to you if you provide them with feedback, and you
don’t have to leave your house to shop.
Dangerous, I know.
If you’re interested,
please use the following link –
https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/4484877
– as I get referral credit on my account.
.jpg)
***
I hope that this
post has been helpful. I know that many of
us chronically ill people don’t have a lot of disposable income. But subscription services may just be worth
the extra money for the convenience of it all. And I know that many chronically ill people
look for ways to make life easier. These services definitely do that. Why do something that someone else can do for
you?
_4.jpg)
_6.jpg)
_5.jpg)
_7.jpg)