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Just ask or make the call

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I order our milk from Amazon. We only drink 2 ingredient almond milk. And I know it’s expensive, but it makes a difference in our health and our options for healthy options in our tiny town are very limited. I’ve done it this way for several years now.

I get a case of 6 individual pints (I think that’s their size, about 1/2 a 1/2 gallon) or maybe it’s a quart. I don’t know. When I see we are down to the last two containers, I order more. (I used to have a subscription that came like clockwork, but we just don’t use it like that anymore.)

Elmhurst Almond Milk

When I went to eat some cereal a few weeks back, a brand new box, I had found on sale. A real treat for me. I spit out the first bite thinking my milk had gone back. It was terrible. Come to find out they had sent us Cashew milk instead of our normal Almond milk and I noticed too late after the return date. (In my defense the containers look exactly the same.)

2nd and 3rd milk order

Fast forward, I ordered a new case. And waited anxiously for it’s arrival. Because I wanted to eat my cereal! Then I got notice, on the day it was to be delivered, that it was undeliverable. Ugh!

So I ordered another case…third time has to be the charm, right?!?

It arrived. Packaged differently than any other case I’d ever gotten. I opened it to find at least one of the containers had busted. And not only that, but they knew that and just wrapped it in plastic and sent it. It smelled so disgusting.

So I immediately get on Amazon, well in my return window, and it says this item is not available for return. What!?!

The only me, would probably have sucked up the loss. And at this point stopped ordering almond milk from Amazon. But I’m broke and I don’t have anything to lose. I got on the phone expecting a fight to get my money back.

Nope, he returned my money immediately. And said that I didn’t need to repackage the contents to return them. Thank god, because it was gross.

But I got to thinking, I need this milk. I still wanted to eat my special cereal (special because I have stopped buying cereal because it’s not healthy and it’s so expensive.) I found this box on sale for $3. Which I know is still high and still unhealthy, but it was a treat.

I dug through the gross. Dealt with the sour smells. Washed each of the 5 containers that had not busted. And damn it, I have milk. I’m going to be cautious when I open them to use them, and make sure they haven’t soured per se. Does almond milk sour? I mean, the busted one was so gross, but in general?

The moral of the story is that sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and call. Even if at first, they say this “item is not eligible for return.”

Subscription Costs – Cancel or Try to Hold On

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For my own personal business, I have several tools that I use OFTEN when I have work. Tools like Canva Pro, Social Curator, Elementor Pro and so on and so forth. I’ve had them for YEARS and they have paid for themself every year, up until now.

Here’s my dilemma.

This past week as I was working on my current bill pay schedule ie budget for the next month, I decided I would just cancel Canva as I haven’t used it at all this year and frankly, finding has been harder than it’s ever been. My thought was I can cancel my annual subscription (currently $119) and renew later when I have work.

I logged on to do just that and take that $119 back into my every day budget. And then I realized that if I cancel, yes, it will save me $119 now, but re-upping will put my rate at $145 annually (or higher if they go up in price.)

I’ve got pretty decent and in some cases, substantially good annual rates because I’ve had these tools so long and have the rates locked in. While Canva is just a $25 difference, some of them are hundreds per year in savings. And yes, that’s per tool.

What do I do?

Canva is the only one that will renew in the next month so I have to make a decision on it. The big ones all renew in the December/January time frame so I do have some time to turn things around. But I hate to lose that savings. Ugh.

I’m kind of inclined to let Canva go, it is just a $25 difference and I can use the free version in a crunch. But the others…not so easily replaceable and the savings loss would be significant if I cancelled and then renewed.

Sidenote: there are other subscriptions that I have;

1) Transitioned from annual to monthly for the time being. This helps with my monthly budgeting even though I am paying a premium. I will go back to annual as soon as I am able.

2) Cancelled – these are mostly entertainment subscriptions. But I didn’t think twice about them.

3) Am looking to replace. I changed my Dropbox subscription to monthly versus annual and am considering other options to replace it for the long run. Google One, Apple Storage, etc. are both being evaluated. I want to make sure they offer the security and integrate well with my current tech stack, in addition to the pricing before I make a move.

I’d love to know your thoughts, specifically on subscriptions where I would love significant savings if I end up cancelling them and then needing to re-subscribe down the road.