Instacart
I’ve been resisting ordering my groceries online. It’s more expensive, and I don’t like what it represents about modern life. I’d like to think that weekly trips to the grocery store are meditative and that they reconnect us with the essential parts of being human.
But it’s been a really hard year for me and my family. Matt has had to take on a ton of extra things to support me in my work. I’m trying my best to keep my stress to a minimum so that I can be a good mother, a good wife, a good friend, and a good daughter, but I’m barely keeping my promises on any of those fronts.
And so I ordered my groceries online using Instacart. I’m a list-shopper (versus a “browse shopper”) anyway, so I simply pulled up my Excel list and made our purchases. I ordered enough supplies for four meals instead of five because we have a meal left over from last week, but our total bill ended up being about $50 less than normal. I’m not sure what that’s about, but I’ll take it! I received free delivery because it was my first time ordering.
Since my bill was cheaper than it normally is, I’ll probably have to try this again next week. Twist my arm!
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3 Comments
Hannah
Don't feel bad about ordering groceries. It was something I struggled with but my mother recently told me that my grandmother never went to a grocery store once in her life. She called the grocer, butcher, fish monger and gave her orders and they delivered. Peapod and Instacart are just an upgraded granmotherly experience.
Anthropolochic
During an intensely busy period in my life, I did this. At the time I was working in three different NYC boroughs every day, I lived on the 5th floor of a walk up a few avenues removed from any grocery store and I routinely got home right when they were closing. I placed an order once every two weeks or so, and then picked up smaller items as I commuted from one job to another. They'd deliver in the early am. I'd receive the delivery, and head off to another day of traveling three fifths of the city.
When my schedule let up, I started ordering only ahead of special events. When I moved the following year and could access groceries at 7 am, after a 2 minute walk, I stopped ordering altogether. The carbon footprint this particular service in New York leaves is outrageously high. In the city, the trucks idle for hours, the food is over packaged. The packaging issues got worse over time. It used to be I'd open a cardboard box and there was my food rolling around in perfect condition. I stopped ordering the day I got an order packed with packing peanuts and each individual fruit item packed on a styrofoam back to boot. I suspect this is a FreshDirect-specific issue.
But I did what I had to do and left it behind when I could. I'm quite sure that you aren't facing the same issues of refrigerated trucks idling for hours and hours on Austin streets. If this makes your life a bit easier, don't feel guilty. This is about sanity. It's not a luxury.
Sasha-Ingenue
We all do what we can to make it through the day. No judgement here mama!
And that video of Tate !!!!! AWESOME! Except the title should be Tate feeds spaghetti to the chicken and Hoss. Love it.