Get Help with the Little Stuff—Everyone Needs an Alice

It is 6am, and a storm is about to hit my house. It’s the first day of school for my three kids. After a lazy summer, life is about to get very busy. “Mom’s Taxi” is gearing up again, and we’ll log 100’s of hours behind the wheel this school year, shuttling kids between sports practices and games, after school meetings, and play dates. It gets more than a bit overwhelming sometimes, especially when my busy work schedule doesn’t leave me as much time as I’d like to help my wife at home.

I may not be able to pick up the kids from school every day, but one of the things I have done to help at home is by finding services that help our house run more efficiently and reduce busy work. There are countless opportunities to do so. For example, here are three:

1. Set up automatic payments for bills. We’ve set up automatic payments for many of our bills, and we use Mint.com to help manage expenses.
2. Save trips to the store. Websites like Netflix help you save time and automate your entertainment and fun, so you don’t forget to have it! We get all our movies through Netflix.
3. Create routines. Making the commitment to clear off your desk each day, or sticking to a family cleaning schedule ensures that you maximize your time for things that do matter.

A few simple steps like this can save loads of time and make life a bit less hectic. But what if you could do even more?

Never Run Out of Toilet Paper Again

The company I work for, Alice.com, is out to help eliminate one of the biggest sources of busy work—shopping for our home. Alice allows us to order all of your home essentials—items like toothpaste, laundry detergent and trash bags—online, with 100% free shipping, great prices and automatic coupons. Now, instead of driving to the store repeatedly for the same items, we’ve set up our shopping list at Alice, and we order just what we need, shipped free to our door. Alice also tracks how often we buy things, and reminds us when items may be running low, so we avoid that emergency trip to the store.

Just how much time does this save? Here’s an e-mail our customer service team got a few days ago from a new user:

Just wanted to let your company know how happy this service has made me today. I came across your website on my lunch break while surfing the internet earlier this week. I thought it looked promising so I decided to place an order for the items I had on my shopping list already. I placed this order Wednesday, and have confirmed its’ delivery already this morning. The few items I would have had to stop and get at Wal-Mart this evening are already at my home waiting for me. Your company just saved me an hour this evening by not having to stop to pick these up. I’m going to tell all my co-workers about your company to see who else would like to be able to save an hour or two each week. Thank you for freeing me of the check out line. -Jennifer Wiles

If you are like my family, you probably wouldn’t mind taking household shopping off your to-do-list. I hope you give Alice a try, and get back a few hours to spend on the more important things in life. Does anyone really like driving to the store for toilet paper? 🙂