Amazon is obviously amazing for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons I love Amazon is the ability to save money on almost anything. This is what led me to their Subscribe & Save feature. Subscribe & Save allows you to set up a recurring order of your household essentials (toilet paper, paper towels, soap, batteries, beverages, gum, diapers, refrigerator filters… So much more!), and save 5-20% off listing price by doing so. You can cancel, modify, or skip your deliveries at any time, so there is no commitment to using the service. Here’s how I have saved!
Add Five Items To Your Shipment
Head over to the Subscribe & Save store. Here you can browse or search for your household essentials. One awesome place to start is at the coupons page. If you’re not picky about the brands you use, selecting the products with current coupons is a great way to save even more! Once you find the product you’d like to add to your subscription, check the box and instead of “Add to Cart” choose Skip immediate delivery and add to subscription.
Subscribe & Save is the most cost-effective if you are able to schedule 5 items per shipment, because the savings jumps from 5% to 15%! You can certainly choose just 1-4 items to subscribe to if you’d like, but I’ve found it easy to think of at least 5 essentials I can put in one shipment to watch my savings climb. Even if I don’t need a particular item at the moment, it is worth it for me to stock up for the extra savings and save the product until I need it. You can also sort all the items in a category from lowest to highest price to find an affordable fifth product if you’re having a difficult time.
If you have children and your account is registered with Amazon Family you can unlock 20% savings on baby essentials when you have 5 items in your subscription. (There are other great savings to unlock with Amazon Family, so check it out if you’re just hearing about it!)
Choose Your Delivery Schedule
Once you’ve selected your items, head to your subscription page by hovering over your account in the upper right, and selecting “Your Subscribe and Save Items.”
Here, you’ll be able to make sure you qualify for the 15% savings, and can manage how frequently you’d like your items to be sent. By hovering over an item, you can edit your subscription settings. This allows you to change your payment method, skip a shipment, change the frequency of delivery, or cancel your subscription all together.
Amazon sends a reminder email a few days prior to your shipment so you can skip or change anything if necessary. I recommend always checking the prices of your items each month, because they can change, which may cause you to want to adjust your order.
Savings Example
The amount of money you’ll save will be determined by the products you choose and how frequently you purchase them. I’ll share one personal example of my savings on toilet paper!
I’m a Scott’s 1000 kind of girl. This is probably because I was reminded by my dad on a frequent (weekly?) basis growing up that it is the best for the septic system… Anyways, if I were to go to Walmart and buy a 27 pack of my toilet paper for $17.52, I would end up paying about 64.8 cents per roll. On Amazon, I’m currently subscribed to receive a 32 pack of rolls for $19.10 (original price $22.47, $19.10 after my 15% savings). This averages out to about 59.6 cents per roll. 5.2 cents per roll might not be write-to-home savings, but I also didn’t need to go to the store to purchase the toilet paper, and depending on the size of your family or amount of TP you use that savings could add up over the course of a year.
Access to Subscribe & Save has also allowed me to cancel my bulk store membership because, aside from perishables, I’m able to get anything I need in bulk right to my door.
How do you save on Amazon? Are you already a Subscribe & Save user? Let me know in the comments!
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.