Safeway Grocery
Delivery/Instacart/Amazon Fresh
Go outside? Are you kidding me? Have you seen what goes on out
there? You're way better off staying in the safety and comfort of your own
home. And thanks to the power of the Internet, you too can enjoy the best of
what the outside world has offer without having to wade through all of its
undesirable byproducts.
To ensure that the only strangers you come in contact with are
couriers and service technicians, you'll need to cover all of your domestic
bases. That includes feeding, bathing, clothing, and entertaining yourself.
Here's how to do it all.
A Well-Stocked Pantry
Feeding yourself is the first step towards your reclusive goals
and also the easiest. In fact, you've probably already been doing it for years
by ordering takeout. The tried and true method of ringing your local pizzeria
still applies, of course, but online options such as Seamless and Eat24 are quickly becoming the
delivery norm. While their restaurant selections are limited, in part, to which
companies choose to use the services, you can routinely score 15-percent-plus
discounts on your orders without having to open your front door to get the knob
hanger coupons.
In more of a snacking mood? NatureBox will send you a monthly delivery of
five sizable healthy-snack packages for $20 a month. It might not be as fun as
the Bacon of the Month Club, but
it should help keep the scurvy at bay.
Delivery is handy and all but it deprives you of a very
rewarding indoor hobby (and, believe me, you're going to need a lot of them if
you're never going outside again): cooking. Luckily, in recent years a number
of fresh grocery delivery services have sprung up around the country.FreshDirect was the original, but more recent
services can score you everything from farm-fresh ingredients to just-laid
eggs. Many cities of all sizes offer similar, hyperlocal deliveries.
If you want to get extra fancy, however, take a look at Plated.
This delivery service—currently delivering in select major cities, check here for availability—will send you all
the fixins necessary to whip up gourmet meals in the privacy of your own home.
And if you're lucky enough to be holed up in California (especially the
northern half). Who knew being a recluse could be so delicious?
The reason we have so many different services listed is that
their availability varies greatly by the region of the country you hail
from. If you’re in more rural towns, Safeway Grocery Delivery is going to be
your best bet. They have been doing it the longest, and, as such, have the widest
maps of serviceability. That said, if you can go with Instacart or Amazon
Fresh, the increase in inventory selection is substantial enough that the
wait is well worth it.
You can sign into Safeway.com to get started with grocery
delivery today (plus, your first delivery is free). Rates go
anywhere from $6.99 to $9.99 after that, depending on the delivery window you
choose and the amount of food in your cart. Instacart keeps the same fee
schedule, and even has the added benefit of same-day delivery, unlike Safeway
which requires at least 24-hour notice.
Amazon Fresh delivery is free with a
Prime subscription, or variable depending on how much food you order if you’re
not a part of the Prime club.
Netflix/Amazon
Prime/Hulu Plus
No wonder Blockbuster went out of business.
Nowadays, you don’t even have to have a cable subscription to
amass enough media content to last anyone through the nuclear holocaust.
Whether you’re watching from a bunker 100-feet under the surface or just want
to veg out on the couch after a long week at work, online streaming services
like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime have massive catalogs of movies, TV
shows, and original programming that can reduce even the most stoic individuals
into an amorphous blob of blankets and half-eaten Ben and Jerry’s by the
time Monday morning rolls around.
Hulu Plus is the cheapest of the three at $7.99
per month, while Amazon Prime works out to about $8.33 every 30
days, but still needs to be paid on a $99 annual basis.
Netflix recently changed its streaming prices to account for more content,
rounding out at $8.99 per month for the non-4K plan.
Amazon
Though it shouldn’t come as news to anyone who’s owned a
computer in the past 15 years, Amazon is the absolute easiest way to get
anything and everything you need in life dropped on your doorstep in two days
or less. Lightbulb just went out? Buy a pack of 30 on Prime. Kids need a new
backpack, a pencil box, and notebook? Amazon’s got a back-to-school sale for
that. What about that obscure Chinese tea that only your bodega on the
corner carries?
Yup, Amazon’s got it.
I won’t have to tell anyone twice just how good the deals on
Amazon are compared to local stores, and as long as you keep your Prime
subscription active, shipping costs are 100% free. A Prime membership also comes
with the added benefit of the company’s video service, which means all you’ll
have to do is pop on a few episodes of Alpha House while a
robot in a warehouse does the heavy lifting.
Minibar
If you’re lucky enough to live in either Dallas, San Francisco,
New York, New Jersey, or Chicago, forget about going to to the bars. Who wants
to sit in a loud, overcrowded dive with sports matches blaring off the TV
when apps like Minibar allow you to order up
all the alcohol you can stomach that shows up within an hour or less?
Like pizza delivery for alcoholics, Minibar is a service which
will bring any booze you and your Netflix marathon needs to really kick things
up to 11 on a Friday night. The selection is plentiful, and as long as you
aren’t a total beer or wine snob, it’s likely that their warehouse will be
stocked with whatever your heart desires most.
Get the party started on iOS or Android now, with
free delivery for your first order (save for the mandatory tip), which raises
to $5.99 after that.
Postmates
So, we’ve got our food, our movie, and a 2003 Suavignon
Blanc poured and ready to go. What’s left?
Toilet paper! Phew, could have been a disaster if we forgot that
one. Well, have no fear, becausePostmates is here. Postmates is an app and an
online portal which gives you the luxury of ordering food from local joints
that might not deliver on their own (Chipotle is a standout selection), as well
as picking and choosing random essentials for daily living from the Postmates
general store. Basics like toothbrushes, ibuprofen, baby diapers and toilet
paper can all be tagged onto your burrito order or picked up on their own, all
at a price which isn’t more than a few cents more what you’d pay down the
street at the local Walgreens.
The delivery fee will vary anywhere between $3.99 and $9.99
depending on how far your house is from the business you order from, while a
service charge of 9% will be applied to the total order. Postmates is in 60+
cities in the US now, and growing rapidly.
Working from Home
But of course, how are you going to keep paying for that monthly
Hulu subscription if you don’t have a steady income rolling in? Even the
laziest among the homebodies still need to put in a hard day’s work, and now
with the help of the Internet, there are more ways than ever before to earn a
living wage from the seat of your computer chair.
Websites like Elance, oDesk, Freelancing.com,
and even Craigslist all have plenty of jobs that
you can do without taking your pajamas off. Popular options in these fields
include contract gigs like programming, coding, software development,
freelance writing, graphic design, and 3D modeling.
With enough contracts and employment recommendations under your
belt, you can keep your wallet full and your vitamin D levels to a minimum at
the same time.
All Dressed Up, No Place to Go
Just because you aren't going out anymore doesn't mean you don't
have to change your undies on the daily. In fact, with all the online shopping
options available, you'll be able to swap ensembles three times a day.
Obviously, you've got the big box stores like Sears, K-Mart, and Walmart all offering online shopping
and home delivery, same with the outlets like Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, American
Eagle, or Anthropologie.
You can get anything from outerwear to unmentionables and any layer in between.
But really, who has time to think about coordinating outfits
when there are GMOs in the food chain and brain-eating amoebas in the water
supply? Thankfully, online services such asManpacks and the Trunk
Club will
do the heavy thinking for you. Manpacks offers home delivery of grooming
essentials including underwear, undershirts, socks, razors, and condoms (a
perfect augment to her monthly Lady Box delivery) while the Trunk Club employs
a personal stylist to hand-pick trendy couture outfits—shirts, pants, sweaters,
cardigans, scraggly beards, and waxed mustaches—before delivering them to your
home for a 10-day fitting trial.
All the Comforts of Home
Look, you're going to run out of toilet paper at some point.
It's just going to happen. And unless you want to start sacrificing precious
manifesto pages to the porcelain gods, you'd better get a home supplies refill,
stat.
You could simply order a few rolls from Target, sure, and hold it
until the package arrives but what if you've got to go right
now? If you've signed up as a beta tester for Google Shopping Express, you are all
set.
This prototype service aims to beat Amazon Prime and eBay at their own games by offering
same-day delivery from a number of local grocers and big box stores. I use it,
it's awesome but unfortunately, Shopping Express is only available in select
West Coast markets at the moment and probably won't be expanding to India for
some time. In which case, you're going to want to use some leafs to wipe that
up until you can get back into town.
For any other odds and ends—to make sure that your yard remains
weeded and your windows remain spotless—sign up for TaskRabbit or Zaarly.
These services allows you to outsource basic home errands and repairs to a pool
of local bidders. You may not enjoy all that human interaction, but it's still
better than fixing your own roof.
Hi, I am Designer of computer solutions. I am CEO/Founder of computer hardware and software solutions. I am Creative Art Director, Web Designer, VHDL Programer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
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