Tag: grocery shopping

For sixteen years, I had Peapod deliver groceries to my home. It started when our son was an infant and we lived in a condo on the third floor. There was no elevator. How was I supposed to go grocery shopping and lug it up three flights without leaving our son unattended in a car seat? That’s a no-no, right?

So every week I’d open the app and place an order. Then I subscribed to their “Pod Pass”, which for $120.00 a year, I could have as many deliveries as I wanted. I was hooked. Time was precious. And my grocery bill was pretty reasonable.

Don’t get me wrong, there were times I’d go to the store for a few things, but I no longer did any large grocery shopping trips. That was for Peapod. Until I vowed it wasn’t.

The trouble started last year when Stop and Shop ditched their trucks. They hired Instacart to deliver instead. I tried it. Once my groceries were delivered to the wrong address. Another time, they were left at the bottom of the driveway. And frequently, the driver was an hour late.

A little digging proved that the Stop & Shop dispatch was sending our orders to a store 40 minutes away instead of the one that is only 20 minutes away. I called customer service for them to look into the problem and fix it. Nope. Didn’t work. Then I emailed corporate. No response.

So, I called and demanded a refund for my Pod Pass, vowing never to use Stop & Shop again.

The problem became how to get groceries delivered to our home.

Yeah, I know. Some of you are thinking “Why don’t you just go yourself?” Time is still a struggle. And now, our state is a ‘bring your own bag’ state. Grocery shopping is a stressor.

First, I tried Amazon’s $10.00/month for Whole Foods and Weiss. We still eat junk food so just WF wasn’t going to cut it. While WF was great, Weiss was not. My grocery bill went up nearly $100.00 per week.

Then I tried Target. They have the junk food and will deliver up until 11:00 PM at night. But their drivers unpack your food and leave it on your front steps. Bags not included. And I didn’t want to purchase another membership. I tried Target pick-up, and was surprised that I needed to bring my own bags. I did that only to be chastised by the kid behind the counter that I didn’t have the Target App. Target is less expensive than Weiss.

Shoprite had good prices, but they will charge $10.00 a week plus you need to tip of course. Wegman’s is using Instacart, which charges higher prices then if you go yourself.

Grocery shopping has become a HUGE stressor.

I ordered from Stop& Shop again. The driver arrived within the window. My grocery bill is still much higher than it was 18 months ago, but almost everything was there. Another week went by. WF & Weiss: but Weiss couldn’t deliver that day or the next. Stop & Shop could.

You see where this is going.

My black and white thinking about Stop & Shop had blended into gray. It’s still this way today. I still love WF delivery, but will find myself ordering from Stop& Shop about six days later. In case you’re interested, if you order $200.00 worth of food, delivery is about $7.00. And of course, you need to add the tip.

You may be thinking I’m lazy for not going to the store myself. Besides time, if I order the same stuff from an app, I don’t go wondering down the aisles gravitating towards specials and picking up things we really don’t need, or that I would like to try. It does help keep the grocery bill down… a little bit.

Now that’s a prickly topic isn’t it.

To me, it’s worth the extra money to have someone do my grocery shopping for me. It may be excessive, and a little expensive, but it does help me destress, just a little.

Let me know if you use delivery. What has worked for you?

Happy shopping!

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