Edit: Increased to $210 from $195

Lately, I find myself using a lot of new apps and startups to make my life easier. In some cases I’ve come across companies that have fundamentally changed how I go about fulfilling basic needs: food, shelter and transportation. So here are some of the ones I use a lot — and a bunch of coupon codes for free credits, too. 😄

What it does: Delivers tasty, organic home-cooked meals. They have different meals each day. You pick a meal, order and they deliver within 20 minutes. Comes with garnishes and a little dessert, too!

Why I like them: They prepare healthy, delicious food that’s also filling. Usually when I order healthy food it’s either overpriced, or too little food, or not so tasty. Last week when I ordered Sprig, I paid about $2 bucks ($12 with a $10 coupon) for a pretty awesome Chicken Bibimbap with Bean Sprouts & Shiitake Mushrooms. As of this writing, they have a Grilled Steak Salad with Fingerling Potatoes, and a BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich with Mustard Potato Salad. Personally, I also really like their mission of making it simple and accessible for anyone to eat well.

About Sprig: Founded by Gagan Biyani, the same guy who started online learning marketplace Udemy. Raised over $57 million to date. Covers mainly the Bay Area and Chicago, but company says they’re expanding nationwide.

Click here for a $10 coupon code.

What it does: Find vetted dogsitters and dogwalkers for your pup. Basically an Airbnb for dogs. If you have a dog and have a trip coming up, definitely check out Rover!

Why I like them: I travel pretty often and used to pay $60 for those really awful pet hotels with cages. I discovered that Rover has awesome dog sitters for $30 per day, with ratings and reviews. They even send photos while I’m gone! Not to mention many sitters have insurance, certifications, training experience and other dogs to play with mine (you can choose whether you want to have your dog be on their own or with other dogs). Most importantly, my dog feels like she’s on vacation and always comes back tired and happy! 🐶

About Rover: Rover has been around since 2012 but has been picking up lots of traction lately. They just raised a large round, for a total of $50 million, including from Petco. I really hope they don’t get acquired by Petco!

Click here to and sign up and get $20 free towards your dog’s first stay.

What it does: Lets you send real photo postcards. For free! Just upload a picture, write a note and send it to anyone.

Why I like it: I like being able to write postcards to my grandma or my mom. Especially if I’m waiting in line at the DMV or on a train and would probably be wasting time on a game instead. It’s such an awesome concept, I can’t believe it’s free! When is the last time you wrote a letter or sent a postcard to your grandma?👋👵

About Tandem Lane: Seed stage Chicago based company with an awesome founder, Chris Lund, who left Bain Capital to start Tandem Lane. I actually know Chris personally and can attest that he is indeed the guy in the picture with the kangaroos. For now, the app is only available on iOS.

Download Tandem Lane here and send postcards for free.

What it does: Packs and ships anything for you for the lowest price in the market. They pick up your item, package it nicely and carefully, compare rates across all shippers and get it to your destination safely.

Why I like it: If you’ve ever had to ship anything, you know how painful that experience is. You have to measure your item, pick and buy a box, weigh your package, and navigate that clunky Fedex website. Oh, then you have to do it again for UPS to compare prices . I used Shyp for the first time to deliver DJ equipment from Los Angeles to Chicago and it arrived intact in 5 days. Excellent work, Shyp Team! Oh yea, it was free with the coupon code.

About: The Shyp Founders used popular crowdfunding site Angel List to raise their seed round in 2013 from investors including the Winklevoss twins. This year, just raised a healthy $50 million round. Founded by Canadians.

Here’s $30 free to ship stuff when you download the app: http://get.shyp.com/ic/twh83421

Help — On-demand personal secretary

What it does: Gives you an instant, on-demand personal assistant. Yes, there’s a real person who will basically do what you ask her (or him) to do. As long as it’s legal and can be done remotely.

Why I like it: I’ve gotten all sorts of tasks done with this. Anything from making dinner reservations, to calling places, to researching stuff online. For example, I’ve asked them to “find me the best couples massage place that’s $45–60 within a 5 mile radius of 60201 and has a slot open at 1:45pm on Friday.” Then I asked my assistant to please “call and make the reservation.” I even asked for birthday present suggestions for my nephew and they found an awesome Bugs Bunny birthday card with free shipping (Zazzle.com has a free shipping trial).

About: I found them on Product Hunt a few months ago and due to their very generic name, I can’t find any more info on them. I located the founder, a Deloitte and KPMG alum, who seems to be keeping his app under wraps, so I won’t publish his name (but you can find him on Product Hunt if you really want to).

Download the app here and use referral code BC5M 7 to get 66 minutes free ($10 at $0.15 per minute).

What it does: Rides on demand. Or black cars. Or carpools. Or ice cream.

What I like it: If you’re one of the remaining people on this planet who hasn’t used Uber yet — well, use it. It’s cheaper than a cab. It is faster than a cab. And to be honest, it’s usually much nicer than a cab.

About: Raised a gargantuan $8.3 billion and valued at $50 billion. Founded by UCLA alum Travis Kalanick and slated to make over $10 billion in sales in 2015.

Click here for $20 dollars off your first ride.

What it does: Lets you book interesting, unique places for great rates. Or, lets you rent your place out and make some extra money.

Why I like it: You can find the most awesome places for much better rates than hotels. Anything from a penthouse with breath-taking views in downtown Vancouver to an awesome house on the beach in Santa Monica, to a guest house at a farm in Wisconsin. I rarely stay at hotels anymore because there’s such an amazing variety of high caliber places on Airbnb. And probably because it’s usually 20–50% cheaper than a hotel with an equal level of comfort.

I also love Airbnb because I can find usually pretty unbelievable rates for very comfortable stays. Last year, I made a road trip from Los Angeles to Chicago and booked clean, comfortable, private rooms in Vegas, Denver, Omaha and in the middle of Utah. All were same-day bookings from my phone using the Airbnb app. Each stay came out to about $30–40 bucks.

About Airbnb: Founded in 2008, Airbnb has raised a massive $2.7 billion and is valued at over $25 billion (almost as much as Tesla). Early investors who passed on Airbnb were recently put on blast by the founder, who published their rejection letters.

Click here to get $25 towards your first stay.

If you have an awesome place or just an extra room that you’d like to rent out, give me a shout and I will get you a $150 referral bonus to list your room.

What it does: Lets you rent a car whenever you want for a few hours. They send you a ZipCard that unlocks ZipCars. I never knew this, but there are ZipCars almost everywhere now. You just book using the app, get in and drop it off before your time is up so the next person can use it.

Why I like it: These things are everywhere. I live outside of the city and found out there are 3 ZipCars within a 4 block radius of my apartment. This was the very last thing I needed to be able to not own a car anymore. Nowadays, if I ever need to go somewhere and don’t want to Uber it, I just rent a Zipcar. It comes out to about $10 / hour. I did the math and for me it’s worth it instead of paying for a car, insurance, oil changes and maintenance, plus parking depending on where you live.

Here’s $25 towards your first car rental: http://www.zipcar.com/referral?promo_code=wgzohwar

What it does: Lets people park their cars for free so other people can drive them. When you rent a car, they pick you up at the airport in a black car and take you to your car rental, which is usually priced cheaper than all the other local rental companies.

Why I like it: I’ve rented cars from FlightCar at SFO and the experience is pretty awesome. First, you text FlightCar to let them know you landed. They send a black car to pick you up. A few minutes later you’re at the lot picking out your car while an attendant checks you out on her iPad — that means no standing in line. I also like that the rates are usually really good for the type of car you get. I’ve been able to rent a 2005 Accord for $20 / day. Not bad!

Get $20 off your first car rental here (should be good for one free day)

What it does: Lets you book a professional cleaner from your phone for super cheap.

Why I like it: I’ve had 2 cleaners come so far and they’ve been great. The second time, I left detailed notes on what to clean (I am super picky) and she did everything, including scrubbing the bath tub, cleaning behind the toilet, and detailing some decorations. All with a big smile and a wonderful attitude. Will definitely book her again! You can also hire a handyman or other services, though I haven’t needed that yet.

Get a free $50 coupon here(2 hours of free cleaning). I think this is the best deal right now, not sure how long it will last.

About Handy: Started in 2012, this company has raised over $60 million and already acquired 2 startups.

What it does: Gives you new phone numbers. You can use them like any phone number — make and receive calls or text. The difference is that you can “burn them” to get rid of the phone numbers, or get new numbers whenever you want.

Why I like it: This can come in handy for all kinds of things … One of which is referring yourself to the same app to get free credits. If you do that, know that you’ll be breaching terms of service and can get banned. I’ve also seen people use it to buy or sell stuff on Craigslist when they don’t want random people to know their number.

Click here to download. First number is free (no coupon needed).

What it does: Shows you the cheapest way to fly somewhere. Also shows a handy little graph so you can see how the price fluctuates over time — this is my favorite feature.

Why I like it: So I don’t have a coupon for this, but it’s saved me so much money so far that I had to share it. This startup made the news by surfacing “hidden cities” to find cheaper flights. Basically Skiplagged would find connecting flights and show them to you as a direct flight, for a fraction of the price. United Airlines was so mad that they sued the founder but lost (take that, big corp!).

There are other sites similar to Skiplagged, but I love how simple the interface is. I have the app and love searching for flights on a Tuesday (often the cheapest day) and finding gems like a $280 round trip flight from Chicago to Puerto Rico. No joke! Let me know what deals you find :)

To use Skiplagged just go to skiplagged.com

That pretty much sums up this post. Note that the offer amounts may change or disappear over time, since a lot of these are limited time offers. But I’ll do my best to keep this post up to date. So which apps do you like that I didn’t include? Let me know!

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with any of the apps or companies, except for in the cases where I’ve said that I know the founders. In some cases, the link for the free credits also gives me a free credit. I use these apps pretty often and genuinely hope they are useful to you. You can follow me on Twitter @dalarossa for more startup related stuff.