Unlike many people, I LOVE going food shopping. I love wandering up and down the aisles, perusing produce, deli counters, and butcher cases. I love imagining all the yummy meals I'm gonna make, and I love the unexpected things I see that give me new ideas for the kitchen.
But there are two problems with this -- 1) the entire process from door to door usually takes me at least 90 minutes, if not more; and 2) I spend WAY more than I should between impulse buys and over-purchases.
Once I had Katy (kid #2), I knew I had to start looking for ways both big and small to start shaving time out of my weekly activities so I could have more time for my kids. (And the pressure of double day care certainly made me want to economize as well.) So I finally bit the bullet and did what I swore I'd never do -- I opened up a Peapod.Com account and ordered my groceries. My objections were two-fold: 1) I enjoy food shopping so why give it up; and 2) I was worried about the quality of produce and meat that I'd get.
Well, it took me one order and I was a convert. And over the course of the next two months, I was signing in the metaphorical choir I loved it so much.
Do you know when I do my food shopping these days? When I'm waiting for a meeting to start. When I'm on a tedious conference call. When I'm waiting in the carpool line to pick up my kids. When I lay down in bed at night and take the last look at my phone before I go to sleep. When I'm stuck in traffic and not moving at all.
How long does it take me? 5 minutes. Once you've shopped about 3-4 times, you've probably already ordered most of the standard groceries you buy at least once a month. They all stay on your master list which you can peruse and quickly click the box next to what you want to buy. To the extend you need anything else, there's a quick and easy search feature.
But wait, you ask . . won't I spend extra money because of the delivery fee and tipping the delivery person? (And YES, you DO need to tip the delivery person -- at least $5). Actually, I find that I save about 40% per week on average when I shop on line instead of the supermarket even with the delivery fee and tip included. When I'm done selecting everything I want to buy, I then have to review my order. When I look at it, I always see that I ordered too much of something. And if the total is more than I want to spend, I simply look to eliminate some things. I can always get my order down to the number I want it to be. Not so easy to do this at the check out line in the store. I also curb my impulse shopping tremendously. Perhaps the savings won't be as big for those of you who are more disciplined and less enamored of the goodies in the grocery store, but I can assure you, this is still cost effective.
And what about quality? What I quickly learned is that everything that is home delivered goes straight from the warehouse to the truck to my house. I don't get last dibs on produce, I get first dibs. It's almost always better and fresher than what's at the supermarket. And yes, there's the rare dud, but that happens sometimes even when you pick out your own groceries. The few times it's happened, I've gotten a credit on my account with a simple phone call or email.
There are a number of services that deliver -- Peapod, Fresh Direct, Safeway in some areas. I'm sure there are others. And though Wegmans doesn't deliver, they do have an online order form and then they'll bag up your groceries and deliver them to you at the curb at an appointed time - -doesn't save quite as much time as delivery, but does save some. And helps impose discipline against impulse buys and over-purchasing.
I thought I'd hate it -- but it's turned out that having my groceries delivered is one of the single best streamlining tools I've put in place. Give it a try for a month and see if you agree!
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