For people that want to get food, makeup or other random things but don’t want to spend time going to a store and deciding what to buy, subscription boxes can be a great idea.

Subscription boxes are services where, for a monthly fee, a box of items is delivered each month. There are many different types of subscription boxes, such as candy, makeup, snacks and jewelry.

Junior Libby Woodson subscribes to Birchbox, a monthly subscription box that sends its subscribers four to five sample-sized makeup or other beauty products for $10 a month.

“You put in all your makeup preferences like what color your hair is, skin tone and stuff like that, and then they send you makeup samples every month,” Woodson said.

Senior A.M. Roberts subscribes to a similar subscription box, Ipsy. Ipsy also costs $10 a month and each box includes five sample or full size products in a cute “glam bag”.

“I think it’s a good value because some of the stuff I’ve gotten is really expensive and I would not have bought it if I didn’t get it from ipsy,” Roberts said.

For both of these subscription boxes subscribers don’t get to choose what they receive in the box.

“Some of the stuff I really like, some of it I don’t like, but it’s nice because it’s just a sample so you don’t get a ton of it but if you really like it it’s really easy to order a larger size of it,” Woodson said.

“I’ve found products that I will definitely continue to buy and I’ve tried stuff that I won’t buy again but at least I know. I think it’s helpful but there are products I don’t use at all so that is kind of a waste but I still think it’s worth it.” Roberts said.

Upper School Science Teacher Mallory Schmidt used to subscribe to BarkBox, a monthly subscription box that includes two bags of dog treats and two dog toys.

“I thought the value was good, I got a lot more for $12 than I would have if I had just gone to a pet store,” Schmidt said.

BarkBox costs $18 dollars a month if ordered on a monthly basis, but only $12 a month for a 18 month subscription.

“It was worth the 18 month price but not the month to month price, even though the month to month would have been easier,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt cancelled her subscription after 18 months because she was accumulating too much stuff.

“The problem was they give you pretty sizeable bags of treats and I just don’t give my dogs that many treats so I still have a whole drawer of treats and I stopped my subscription about six months ago. For me it was just too much, the toys were great but I kept building up stuff I didn’t use,” Schmidt said. “I got sucked into the cost, I kept getting stuff I wouldn’t buy on my own so I was spending money I otherwise wouldn’t have. I thought I was getting a deal but I was actually spending more money than I would have.”