About 2 years ago I was brainstorming with my good friend/neighbor about ways for our families to save money. This discussion helped lead me to meal plan and grocery shop for 2 weeks at a time (post about that here), but we were still looking for other ways to save. We knew a lot of families that buy certain items (toilet paper, paper towels, etc.) in bulk from places like Costco or Sam’s Club, but unfortunately those stores aren’t close enough to us to make a membership worth it.

At the time I had been an Amazon Prime member for a number of years and had recently read about their Subscribe and Save program. Subscribe & Save allows you to schedule regular deliveries of Amazon items at frequencies that work best for you. An item can be delivered every month, or every 6 months, or some amount of time in between those 2. You can skip a month whenever you need to, or cancel a subscription item at any time. Amazon emails you a few days before your shipment is scheduled for the month to see if there’s anything you need changed. You can also earn extra savings by subscribing for at least 5 items to be delivered in 1 month to 1 address.

After doing some price comparisons to items at our local grocery stores, my neighbor and I decided to go in together on a few items. We started with bulk orders of toilet paper (48 rolls) and paper towels (24 rolls). We split these items up between our houses based on usage. We also ordered Charlie’s Laundry Soap and dishwasher pods, to be split equally between us. I then added a couple of other items to the subscription, in order to get the extra savings – trash bags and diapers. Once a month, my neighbor would write me a check for her half of the items, or we would do dinner together and she would buy, or something similar. We did notice some savings when doing things this way, although I didn’t calculate an actual amount to share with you.

Now that our neighbors have moved, my Subscribe & Save usage has changed quite a bit. We definitely don’t need 48 rolls of toilet paper every month or so haha! Here’s what my item list currently looks like:

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These aren’t all items that we receive every month. For example, in September we’ll be receiving the wet wipes, Clorox wipes, men’s vitamins, sunscreen, lotion, children’s vitamins, laundry soap and trash bags. The other items might be coming next month, or maybe not for a few months – I have to check our supplies!

I, personally, really like using the Subscribe & Save program. It works well for me while trying to save us some money and reduce the number of items I need to go to the store for. I also already use Amazon like my own personal delivery service (sorry, UPS guy…), so this was kind of the next step in my obsession.

I have seen some people say that the Subscribe & Save program doesn’t actually save you any money because prices on Amazon fluctuate so frequently. If you’re not double-checking the prices on the items coming to you, there is certainly a chance that an item has increased in price since the previous month and Amazon obviously won’t warn you of this. I try to be diligent whenever Amazon sends me my monthly reminder, to check and see that none of my items have increased in price since the last time they were shipped. I’ve also dropped subscription items if the price seems to have gotten too high, or if my local grocery store has an awesome deal and I purchase it from there instead.

Have you tried Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program? Have you ever shopped for items and split it with a friend/neighbor’s family?