I Agree; Everyone DOES Need an Alice!

The other day while discussing how we could probably reduce our monthly spending by limiting our trips to the store (because how many times do you buy more than what you went after?) I discovered Alice, an online shopping sensation!

It’s free to setup an account and they offer FREE SHIPPING!! You can buy many of the items you would at your normal brick-and-mortar at discounted prices and some food items. Plus, Alice will show you competitor prices too! And, oftentimes there are coupons in effect so you save even more!

No, this is not a sponsored post. (But, hey Alice – I’d be happy to do one for you!)

I’ve been wanting to do more online shopping for our random things – toiletries, paper goods, etc. and Alice even has a reminder thing that allows you to set how often you typically buy these products and it will remind you. You can also choose to add your favorite regularly purchased items to “My Products” so you don’t have to search the next time you need to order.

Sometimes the prices are not a TON less, or possibly not at all less than say WalMart, but many times it is and the convenience is definitely worth something. Plus, I figure if I order more things this way it will keep me from lurking around the aisles in person and grabbing random things we don’t actually need, and that can really add up.

I placed my order on Sunday night and came home today to find my box of goodies

nicely packaged

with some freebies!

Here’s what I bought:

• Crest Fresh Mint Toothpaste (6.2oz) $3.06 – $1.00 Coupon = $2.06
• Crest Fluoride Toothpaste (8.2oz) $3.19 – $1.00 Coupon = $2.19
• Secret Deodorant (2.6oz) $3.95 – $0.50 Coupon = $3.45
• Quaker Instant Hot Cereal (8 pack) $4.39 – $1.00 Coupon = $3.39
• Lever 2000 Bar Soap (2 pack) $1.95
• Fiber One Toaster Pastry (6 pack) $2.39 – $0.51 Coupon = $1.88
• Alpo Dog Treats (16oz) $2.15
• Tax $0.82
• Shipping – FREE!

I had $4.01 in coupons and ended up spending $17.89 for these 7 items. I don’t recall specific prices in the local stores, but doesn’t seem to bad to me so far! I just don’t have time to clip coupons, read the paper and plan my trips around town to get the best price on stuff so this works out pretty well for my lifestyle.

I think the website could be a little better to navigate (part of it I think is due to the settings on our monitor?), but other than that my experience has been very positive and I look forward to doing more shopping this way. I want to start paying closer attention to prices on items in the store so I have a better idea of how much I’m really saving.

Oh, AND one of my favorite things…Yep! There’s an app for that! It needs some work as it was crashing for me a bit. But, not only can I do my shopping from my phone but they have a scanner where you can take a photo of a sku on a product and instantly see if they stock it! Fabulous! I’ve been going around the house scanning everything in sight like I am registering for a wedding!

Do you do this type of shopping online? What are your favorite sites from which to shop?