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The Stress of Caring for Elderly Parents
Caring for elderly parents at home or long distance can be so time consuming! Throw in helping with grandkids, a job, or other responsibilities and Yikes! How to get everything done! Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don’t. But we keep plugging away. And we keep looking for ways to help us while we are taking care elderly parents. Here’s one of my favorite caregiver tips! Take full advantage of the great shopping online options that are now available. Two of my favorites are Amazon and Walmart! They are such a blessing! I’ve proven that true in my own life, that’s for sure! Both as a caregiver caring for elderly parents in my home (first my mom and dad – now it’s just my mom), as well as caring for aging parents and relatives at a distance.
Help Caring For Aging Parents Near or Far
With my senior mom living with me, I generally just run to the grocery store for our regular needs. But when a sweet grandchild shares a flu bug with us or my work schedule piles up, I make great use of online shopping. I’ve bought everything from ink cartridges to kleenex to paper towels to room deoderizer to rubber gloves for gathering UTI samples and more.
Of course, overseeing the care of one aging relative living across the country from me is definitely more of a challenge at times. There are many things I can do from my home. But I can’t run to the store, then simply drop off the items at her home. Thanks to online shopping, however, I can often send her a book to pick up her spirits, soup and kleenex if she gets a cold, and other day-to-day items to cheer her up.
I enjoy Prime membership with Amazon which gets all my purchases to the delivery address within 2 days. If it’s for me, I can often qualify to get it to my house the next day or even the same day. Occasionally I’ve enjoyed that with the free coupons they offered to introduce the service. Now, it’s usually only if I spend $35 and once in a while I’ll still take them up on that. 😉
Happily, you do NOT need a prime membership to get 2 day shipping. If you spend $25 or more, you also get that option. However I really appreciate the extras that come with Prime membership including free music for my iPhone and free shows Wild Kratts shows my grandkids and I enjoy that are currently available for free. And whether you get it via Prime membership or by spending $25, two days shipping is VERY awesome, and one of the biggest reasons they were number one on my list. They’re still in the top 2 BUT guess what! They’ve got some competition for our affection!
I was very pleased to learn that Walmart is Introducing FREE 2-Day Shipping at Walmart.com!
All you have to do is spend $35. It used to be free shipping if under $50 and that was sometimes hard to do. Plus it often took a week or more. But $35 is much easier. If I need to buy something, and I’m not quite at $35, I just check my grocery shopping list. Between caring for elderly parents at home and long distance, there is always something that I can use to make it at least $35. And NOW it’s often 2 days, same as Walmart! Awesome. Not all products come in 2 days, though. So be sure to look for the green words “2-day shipping.”
Special Perk To Share with Grandkids!
One more thing. I definitely have to share one of the unexpected perks that may come when shopping for bigger items, like paper towels and toilet paper! At times my bigger deliveries arrive in large boxes that are perfect for playhouses, pretend trains, and hide n seek forts for the grandkids. That leads to many fun squeals and giggles of delight! And THAT puts the BIGGEST smile on my elderly mom’s face as well as mine! We’re talking sturdy re-useable boxes that also come in handy for mailing packages or loaning to neighbors or real estate clients for moving. VERY cool!
How about you? Do you shop online for normal everyday items? What’s your favorite place to shop online? We’d love to hear. 🙂
Kaye
P.S. While Amazon and Walmart are great, they don’t always have the specialized equipment we caregivers need when caring for elderly parents at home. If you need something more specialized, particularly when caring for elderly parents with dementia, The Alzheimer’s Store is another excellent option. I bought the one-button radio (above) for my senior mom and was very pleased with their service. At the time I’m writing this, they offer free shipping for items under 15 pounds. 🙂 You can click here for their website.
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