My husband likes a certain kind of bread that not all grocery stores carry. My son likes a certain kind of cookie. Some things consumed a lot in our house are better bought in bulk. (For us, peanut butter, maple syrup, and loose tea.)
If you have a Costco near you, and you don’t mind grocery shopping in a warehouse, you can schedule your trips to buy bulk goods. For more specialty items, you can shop at your local market (or markets, if you’re like my family).
Grocery shopping can take a chunk of out your day.
Putting grocery shopping off because of a busy schedule often leads to running out of things or eating out more often than you’d like. If you’re lucky, you have a grocery store in your area that stocks the items that you need, hires cheerful employees manning short check-out lines, and has reasonable prices. Also, you have lots of free time to both shop and cook.
Not the case for you? Well, you’re hardly alone. If you live in a more rural area, then grocery shopping may even mean a scheduled trip to a larger town.
Many are turning to online grocery shopping. It’s convenient, it’s a time saver, and it may even save you money.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can take a look at Amazon Fresh. Google Express and Instacart offer a similar service, but they use local stores instead of shipping from a warehouse. Their stores may include Costco, Whole Foods, Target, Walgreens (Google), CVS (Instacart) and other regional stores. Google Express focuses more on packaged goods, so don’t expect to find meat and fresh produce there.
Can you expect to pay the same as in-store prices plus the delivery fee?
It depends. Instacart has been criticized for charging a mark-up plus the delivery fee, but it depends on the store that you order from. Whole Foods, for example, is available through Instacart without markups. If you go with Google Express, the interface allows you to search for an item and compare prices.
If you have limited time to cook as well, there are services that deliver ingredients and recipes for entire meals.
Blue Apron is the best-known service for this. You may have other local options as well. If you’re in the SF Bay Area, you can check out Good Eggs.
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Great time-saving tips! I love Amazon Fresh!
Good suggestions for shopping at grocery stores. There are also people who like the Farmers Market, such as myself. At one time, i had organic vegetables delivered nearby, and another time to my door. The later service always had one bad item.
thanks for the great links.