Why give somebody one thing when you can give somebody lots of things, over and over and over again for an entire year? That’s a good question and the only answer I can parse out would be: “I HAVE NO IDEA.”
Mouth
Subscriptions:
$50/month box: Jerky
$55/month box: Vodka
$56/month boxes: Pickles, Gin
$60/month boxes: Snacks, New Indie Releases, Cookies, Chocolate, Cravings (for Pregnancy)
$70/month box: Indie-Gredients
$74/month box: Bourbon
$75/month boxes: Wine or Whiskey
$94/month box: Cocktail Hour
I’M OBSESSED WITH MOUTH. Mouth aims to get the best, most delicious and most interesting indie food products into your mouth while helping indie food makers stay in business. There are gift sets like “Vegan Holiday Treats,wp_posts“Grilled Cheese, Please,wp_posts“Hot Stuff Tasterwp_postsand “Bringing Home the Bacon.wp_postsThere are subscriptions like “Bourbon Every Monthwp_postsand “Chocolate Every Monthwp_posts— or “Cravings Every Monthwp_postsfor your pregnant girlfriend. They’ve got your birthday in a bag, your cocktail party in a bag and a hot toddy in a bag. You can also pick up individual food items, search by dietary restrictions or flavor profile or check out the plethora of spirits (also sold at their brick-and-mortar location in Brooklyn).
Harry & David Fruit of the Month Club – starting at $89.95/year
This is the original subscription club. I asked for this every single year of my life but have never received it, perhaps because nobody related to me can afford 12 months of pears. Anyhow there’s a million options available for all tastes and price ranges and is an especially nice thing to do for a college student who could probbaly use some Cara Cara Oranges, Rainier Cherries, Hony Mangoes, Royal Riviera Pears, Strawberries, Apples and so forth on the reg. There’s also nuts, cheeses, sweets and other edible situations. When my Mom sent me Harry & David boxes at boarding school, we’d all skip dinner and have a feast and it was AMAZING.
Graze – $6.99/box
I did the thing where I signed up for a free month of Graze and then intended to cancel it because I can’t afford it but I keep ‘forgetting’ to cancel it because IT’S SO GOOD. I work from home and snack a lot, but finding new, interesting and healthy (read: not just empty carbs) snacks is hard! Graze does that work for you, and works with small independent food-makers to bring you “exciting flavors and create delicious new combinations that will delight your taste buds.”
Nerd Block – $19.99/month
Nerd Block’s team of “uber-nerds” carefully selects and extensively tests a grab box of quality, fun, collectible licensed merchandise for you to have and hold every single month. Each block contains 4-6 epic items and a t-shirt. Boxed brands include Star Wars, Adventure Time, Doctor Who and Marvel, and you can pick from three different kinds of nerd blocks — Horror, Classic or Arcade.
BarkBox – from $19 – $29 /month
If you know your gift recipient’s dog’s size, then you’ve got all the info you need to sign them up for BarkBox. Every month a box containing products and presents for the dog will arrive, containing “anything from toys, bone and all-natural treats to hygiene products and innovative new gadgets!wp_postsPlus 10% of BarkBox profits support animal rescue groups. Plus you can save 10% on any new subscription with code SANTA10.
Boxerfy – $26.99 – $29/month
A “girl panel of style experts” pick the best boxers in the universe and mail you some every single month. This is obviously a service intended for women to gift heterosexual cisgender males but YOU CAN QUEER THAT SHIT. You give them your size and you choose your first pair of underpants, at which point “our female panel of underwear experts take control, and ensure their handpicked designer drawers are perfect for you!” You also get free socks your first month.
Friday Tieday – $35-$45/month
From the same people who brought you Boxerfy, Friday Tieday delivers a brand-new designer tie, based on the giftee’s preferences. Isn’t that NIFTY.
Craft Beer Club – $39/month
12 exceptional craft beers from small-production, independent brewers for your girlfriend / father / roommate to enjoy on the couch or on the porch or wherever the day takes them. Each pack of 12 features four beer styles.
Farm Fresh To You – $35 – $110/month
If your special someone lives in the Bay Area as so many of you do and doesn’t already get a CSA Box or order from Good Eggs (which is basically an online farmer’s market, my girlfriend works there, it’s awesome), perhaps they’d enjoy a box of certified organic fruits and vegetables on their doorstep on the regular! Choose from Mixed Fruit & Veggie, Fruit or Veggie only, an Office Snack Pack or a Traditional CSA Box and support smiling families and their independent farms.
HelloFresh (groceries) – from $9.08/week
HelloFresh does the work for you, delivering fresh food and healthy, 30-minutes-or-less recipes to your doorstep every week. The chefs create the recipes, you pick what you like, they go shopping for you, sourcing only the very best fresh food from local suppliers.
A+ Gift Membership: Bronze, Silver & Gold – $60 – $240 / year
Obviously everybody needs an A+ Membership and YOU KNOW IT. This is the absolute best way to show a person that you love them. Nothing else comes close except maybe those pears I talked about earlier.
NextIssue – $9.99/month
NextIssue gives you digital access to pretty much every mainstream magazine in the universe for one low monthly price. If your giftee subscribes to the digital editions of any of the magazines included in this app, they might as well have this app! Plus it’s got magazines like The New Yorker that I’d never be able to afford regularly, and you can basically pick and choose the best recipes from the best food magazines every month. There are just a lot of advantages to this situation, is what I’m telling you.
We don’t have an affiliate account with these guys but you should check them out anyhow because they sound SUPER COOL:
SprezzaBox – $28/month
You get several high quality Dapper accessories and grooming items every month. The boxes are worn and curated by stylists and although the products are ostensibly aimed at men, a dapper lady undoubtedly would enjoy 3-4 lifestyle products and one grooming product a month, amirite?
Birchbox – $10/month
Birchbox is the mother of subscription programs. Their women’s boxes contain five beauty samples from high-end brands and the men’s boxes include 3-4 grooming samples, plus a stylish accessory or gadget. Neat-o!
“box lunch” – monthly subscription to
Example #897578975 that Riese &the team are mind readers.
Even though the wording of this is not meant for people like me (I’m a bisexual Autostraddle reader and my life partner happens to be male and I don’t have a lady friend at the moment) I really appreciate the gift ideas I can get for my dude. Thanks as always for a great gift idea list.
PICKLES EVERY MONTH PICKLES EVERY MONTH
I love my Graze box! I’ve got one on my desk right now, with a new cocoa and vanilla flapjack to try for breakfast tomorrow. I also love the fact that if you’re a regular customer you get occasional discounts and special offers, but also they give you offers if you leave for a while, AND you can spread your deliveries out so you can afford them (it’s great for students!).
I too signed up for graze just for the free box and I cannot cancel my subscription because I want to try everything! I love snacking and can actually feel good about eating their snacks, and love that you can skip weeks when you need to without having to cancel.
I’m a huge fan of birchbox. I’m a beauty junky, so it’s right up my alley. Plus, the staff in their new NYC store are so nice.
I love birchbox (the ladies’ one) but I can’t decide between birchbox man and sprezzabox for my significant other. My significant other currently subscribes to bespoke post and loves it. Thoughts?
I get the mens Birchbox and it is my favorite mail to get (besides Autostraddle merch). The trial sizes of high end grooming products are great for travel and throwing in my gym bag. I’ve gotten a tie, solo cup shot glasses, whiskey stones, grilling apron; all kinds of cool stuff. Plus, it makes me feel like a damn fancy genderqueer.
With any luck, I’ll be coming back to this post to use the affiliate link for a Bark Box. I’m glad pup adoption agencies do their due diligence, but it’s a long process. Will this affiliate link still work after the Holigays?
Yes it should!
Harry and David pears!!!! Mmmmmmmmm! So juicy and sweet , your girl friend will have to give you a good washing, after you eat one!! Mmmmm again.
A box subscription for neckties? Where have u been all my life.
I can say that harry and david pears are REALLY DELICIOUS.
Right? Seems too good to be true
I wanted to sign up for Graze but just seems to good to be true! I am way to skeptical to try
Do it! I have loved everything I got except one thing with bananas… and that is only because I loathe bananas! I t is totally worth giving it a shot though
I kind of want to try that boxer subscription for like a month or three. It sounds like a solid idea, but sadly they aren’t neutral enough for my taste. It be nice if they had a queer option or something.
Now I have a bunch of tabs open here. Must not reach for credit card
I’m awaiting my third installment of Birchbox (lady edition), & I am definitely a fan. I’ve been bringing out more of the femme side of the tomboy femme this year, & it’s been a non-intimidating way to try that business out.
I think I’m going to have to try Graze next. If I’m not at work I’m at the movies, and some snacking variety would definitely come in handy in both of those places.
I have asked every single human that I know to donate toward an A+ membership for me. It’s how I inadvertently came out to my grandfather. I almost sent him a link to the scissoring sweatshirt but then decided that would be too much to throw at him in one day. Maybe next year!
awww!
I love Ipsy and it only costs 9.99
I’d never heard of NextIssue, but now I’m super excited about it! Going through the affiliate link seems to lead me to a page that wants to install programs on my computer, though… Does that link look correct, is there an alternate AS affiliate link?
riese every year i hope that i make so much money working at autostraddle dot com that i can buy you a decade’s worth of pears in the mail.
I feel like Friday Tieday should be the name of a column on here. Sort of like Sunday Funday, only instead of news-related stuff, it’s all about different kinds of ties.
The fruit of the month club sounds brilliant. My first thought was “but I’m too poor for that!” but it comes out to approx $1.70/lb of fruit, which isn’t really more than what you’d pay at the grocery store for most of the fruits on there.
I misread, and thought it was a monthly box of pickles and gin, which would be, like, the most niche-perfect monthly gift box.
YES, I am eagerly waiting for my first ArcadeBlock. I have also signed up for Lootcrate and I hope both will be epic.
Just a head’s up — Next Issue seems to have some offers that may be sketchy. Unsure how to interpret them, but they ask for a lot of personal info (and not for the subscription, for the “special offers” that takes you to a different site).
Another subscription box (or bag, rather) that I really liked was Ipsy! It’s kind of like Birchbox’s women’s boxes and is also $10/month, but Birchbox gives more skincare products and Ipsy gives more makeup products. I ended up canceling my Ipsy subscription after a few months since the price was adding up, but I got quite a few products that I really like/use and will probably keep buying after they run out.
Wait a second! There is a bourbon AND a craft beer box subscription! I need to let my friend know! He recently published a list of his favorite box subscriptions and I don’t think he mentioned it! http://www.mywebroom.com/blog/monthly-box-subscriptions-that-you-have-to-try/
Please take a look at GrandBox, http://www.mygrandbox.com/, a personalized subscription box curated for the older loved ones in your life. You can order a one month gift box or a monthly subscription that will arrive every month. It’s the perfect gift for your grandparents.
If are looking for mens accessories then check out Broni&Bo, they offer the latest in accessories and they specialise knitted accessories http://bit.ly/bbsubscription