Video Transcript
Man: …Eldridge from Nerds on Call finding out more.
Kinsey: He is going to make our Thanksgiving season so much easier. I feel relieved already just speaking to you for a few minutes.
Ryan: You should be. I’m here to rescue everybody. Okay, so first let’s talk about shopping. Who loves going to the grocery store? Who can’t wait to deal with their kids in the line when they’re like, “Mommy buy me these…
Man: Me. So much fun.
Ryan: …No. Terrible. So Instacart is just the greatest thing in the world especially for people who hate the grocery store.
Kinsey: Absolutely.
Ryan: And if you hate paying Costco memberships…
Kinsey: Wait, what?
Ryan: …there’s a little secret hack here…
Kinsey: What?
Ryan: …is you don’t even have to have a Costco membership. You can use Instacart to shop Costco for you…
Kinsey: What?
Ryan: …and have it delivered to your house…
Kinsey: What?
Ryan: …for as little as $6 bucks. They also have a membership fee, I know you’re freaking out…
Kinsey: I know.
Ryan: …they have a membership fee for $99, kind of like a Prime type thing.
Kinsey: Yeah.
Ryan: $99 a year, you get all your deliveries for free and most deliveries are within an hour to two. So if you’re thinking about shopping for Thanksgiving sometime this week, and you don’t wanna battle the lines or everything, Instacart. $6 bucks.
Kinsey: That’s amazing. That’s amazing.
Ryan: Right to your door. Within two hours. That’s pretty cool, right?
Woman: That is a major insider secret.
Kinsey: I know.
Ryan: One of the other cool things is wine, right?
Kinsey: Right.
Ryan: Who’s gonna get through the Hillary supporter and the Trump supporter both at the same table at the same time? This is how you’re gonna do it.
Kinsey: Everybody’s got that uncle. Everybody’s got that uncle.
Ryan: So this is called Delectable and this is actually getting better ratings than Vino. We’ve talked about Vino before…
Kinsey: Wow.
Ryan: …where you take a picture of the wine bottle and then it gives you user ratings, tells you what it’s good for, what to pair it with, things like that. And you also get prices, so that way if you’re in a restaurant, you can take a picture of that label and go, “Oh my gosh, this is a $12 bottle of wine I just paid $99 for.” I didn’t know that kind of stuff going in, pretty cool. And it’ll tell you, like, when I drink wine it always tastes kind of like dirt to me?
Kinsey: Yeah.
Ryan: But this will tell you the different notes and the different things you’re supposed to say…
Kinsey: Oh my gosh, so that way you can look sophisticated at the dinner table.
Ryan: …there’s a walnut undertone.
Kinsey: Mmm yeah, I really, mmm so fresh, so clean.
Ryan: So when I was a kid if you wanted to cook a turkey, right, you either had to know how, you had to use a cookbook, or you called an 800-butterball line. Do you remember that? No, you’re too young.
Woman: I remember.
Ryan: Now Butterball has its own app and you can go there using your iOS device or Android and it’ll tell you how to cook your freaking turkey!
Kinsey: What if I still want to talk to someone on the phone because I’m lonely?
Ryan: Well, you could, I guess. I think there’s still an 800 line you could probably call. But it’ll give you different kinds of recipes, turkey bacon, all kinds of great stuff.
Kinsey: How cool.
Ryan: It’ll give you conversions, that way if you’re gonna cook for 5 people or 10 people or 20 or whatever, it’ll tell you exactly what you need and the size of turkey you’re gonna need.
Kinsey: Cool.
Ryan: If you’re gonna be timing multiple things at a time, which you probably are if you’re cooking on Thanksgiving…
Kinsey: Right.
Ryan: …this is really cool. It’s called Timeglass. This works for almost every device you can find. You can have multiple timers, you can make it all kinds of different colors and customize it really fancy. It’s about $2.
Kinsey: Okay and let’s get to the embarrassing one really quick.
Ryan: Yeah here’s the embarrassing one. So when I was a kid, my parents would sit us around the table and say, “Okay, Ryan, tell us what you were thankful for this year.” And then I would just sit there and stare at them. So this is called Thankful For, it’s a gratitude diary…
Kinsey: Oxygen. Peanut butter. This is hilarious.
Ryan: This is only on iOS but if you’ve got an Android or a Chrome device…
Kinsey: Courtney.
Ryan: …you can use Bliss. And Bliss is kind of a walkthrough, asks you a few questions about what you’re thankful for and you can answer them and then you can kind of come prepared…
Kinsey: All right.
Ryan: …when your parents ask you, “What are you thankful for this year?”
Kinsey: Ryan, Nerds on Call, you are everything. I’m gonna send it back over to you but I’ve gotta talk to him. I’m going to steal some of his brain for Black Friday ideas, right?
Woman: Yeah. Oh you know he’s got good stuff. Chomping it to bit.
Kinsey: Back to you, guys.
Woman: All right, thanks, Kinsey.
Man: I’ll tell you, oxygen, I’m thankful for that. It’s really high up…
These days, there’s an app for (just about) everything.
And with Thanksgiving around the corner, you’d best believe there are apps that will help you make the most of your holidays.
Whether it’s shopping for food, cooking the perfect bird, or focusing on what you’re thankful for – there’s an app for that.
1. Instacart Food Delivery
Dreading the crowds and stress of shopping for your Thanksgiving ingredients?
Skip the hassle with Instacart and shop online from a variety of retailers including most grocery chains, Whole Foods and Costco.
All you have to do is place your order and Instacart’s partner shoppers will go to the store and pick your items up.
Items are delivered within the same day (often within two hours).
Delivery is free for your 1st order after which there’s a $3.99 charge for 2-hour deliveries.
If you’re going to shop beyond Thanksgiving, consider Instacart’s Express membership club.
The benefits include free delivery on 2-hour and scheduled grocery deliveries over $35 for $99/yr (after a free 2-week trial period).
And there’s a hidden bonus: You can order items from Costco without having to pay their yearly membership!
Here are a few things to keep in mind before you shop through Instacart:
- Prices can be higher
Some items may cost you 15% more online but generally, prices are comparable
- Have substitute items ready
You are given the opportunity to list your preferred substitution if your desired item is out-of-stock.
If you don’t have one listed, or the substitution isn’t available either, your shopper will text you when in the store to ask you for a suitable substitute.
Be ready for when this may happen.
- Your shopper does care about food quality
Users report that shoppers tend to pick good quality meats and produce, equal to those they would have selected themselves.
- Don’t forget about the tip
Factor in a tip when calculating the overall cost of your online order.
2. Delectable Wine App
You can never go wrong with a bit of wine at the dinner table.
Whether you’re a novice wine gifter or trying to pick up something great for a wine snob, the Delectable Wine app is here to save the day.
It helps you learn more about any wine in a matter of seconds.
Just snap a photo of the label on the bottle and get real world reviews and descriptions.
Check out their recommendations for best wines for Thanksgiving.
The app even provides pairing recommendations that help select great items to go along with the wine.
3. Butterball Cookbook Plus
Want to impress everyone with the best Thanksgiving turkey?
Let the masters walk you through how to cook a mean bird with Butterball’s Cookbook Plus.
There are hundreds of recipes to choose from that feature how-to-videos and conversion charts you can follow along with.
The app makes cooking a breeze with accurate thawing and cook times.
There’s even a feature known as the turkey calculator “guarantee.”
It helps you cook proper portions based on the number of children and adults you expect to have over for dinner.
If you love Thanksgiving leftovers, you can even plan leftover portions.
4. Timeglass Timer App
Having a hard time keeping up with the zillion things going on?
Set multiple timers to run simultaneously and monitor all your activities from one centralized location with Timeglass.
You can customize each alert with a different sound or tone so you don’t turn off the wrong one.
Even better? Opt for a spoken alert so you know exactly what the timer is reminding you to do without fumbling for your phone.
5. Start A Habit Of Gratitude
Spending time with family and having great food isn’t all that Thanksgiving is about.
It’s a celebration of all we have to be thankful for.
What better time than to start a habit of gratitude and carry the focus on all that it good in your life beyond the one day?
Studies have shown that having an attitude of gratitude improves physical health, mental health, and your relationships.
The Thankful for – Gratitude Diary on iOS for $1.99 can help get you focused on the good things in life and remind you to take a moment to appreciate them every day.
The app has a database of 100s of things to be grateful for.
You can set it to send you a daily reminder of things to be grateful for.
Over on Android, check out Bliss for Android.
It’s free to download and it helps you become aware of the many things in your life that are worthy of gratitude.
Instead of giving you a “fill in our suggested blank,” it asks you a series of questions.
For example, their Three Good Things exercise prompts you to “describe one to three things that went well recently. Be sure to include how they made you feel and why they happened.”
This helps your answers be personal and focused.
Above all, from our family to yours we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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