The average American spends on average 10 – 15 hours per week on tasks like doing laundry, picking up the dry cleaning or grocery shopping. And of course, this in addition to their regular “40” hour a week career, and this is frequently even more! This is more than just about work/life balance; it’s about taking back your time!
Let’s just zero in on those grocery store trips, for example. How much do your grocery visits cost? Let’s put a number to it.
Data suggests the average person goes to the grocery store 1.6 times a week and spends 43 minutes there. As everyone knows, the grocery store can be quite headache with overcrowded aisles and the long lines to check out. Then there’s the travel time, which according to what I found is 15 minutes or less for 87% of people. For our estimating purposes here we’re going to use a travel time of 10 minutes each way door-to-door.
10 mins there + 43 mins shopping + 10 mins back = 63 minute grocery store trip
63 Minute Store Trip x 1.6 Trips Per Week x 52 Weeks/Year = 87.36 Hours/Year
How many dates could you have gone on with that time? How much would your relationships have been improved? How about time with the kids?
Remember in our earlier post where we used the calculators to estimate how much your personal time is worth? Go find out right now if you haven’t already.
If you value your time at even a very cheap $10/hr, for 87 hours that’s $870 of your time you spend going grocery shopping each year. At $25/hr that’s $2,184/year of your time. This doesn’t include the cost of the groceries either, this is just the time you spend on it.
Let’s add on another layer of going to the store. The more time you spend in the grocery store, the more money you will spend? If you have 15 items on your store list, you’ll likely come home with a few more items you found which were such a great deal, or something else you came across which looked cool, or you thought the kids would like.
Is there a way to break out of this time and money wasting cycle? Get your groceries delivered!
These services started to pick up steam around 2010. I’ve been getting groceries delivered since 2014. Here’s what I’ve tried, what I know, and resources I’m happy to share. Overall the change has been worth it. I only go to the grocery store maybe once or twice per year, the rest get’s delivered
Amazon Fresh
Best experience so far. Amazon Fresh Free Trial Referral Link: https://amzn.to/2InrRc1
Came to Washington DC in 2018, I quickly switched to give it a try. I haven’t looked back. Amazon Fresh is a service available to Amazon Prime members, for an additional $15/month. Unlimited deliveries included on orders over $40.
Pros:
Orders have never been late…ever.
Produce has been well picked. Have never had a product which I had to throw out
Orders have been correct
Many prices cheaper than competitors like Walmart and Giant.
Delivery drivers in most cases have followed directions (ex: leave groceries outside my door, call me when you arrive to let me know the groceries are here if I don’t answer the door)
They deliver the full lineup of Whole Foods products, so many of the generic brands are reasonably priced (Amazon just slashed prices on whole foods products)
Delivery windows are in 2-hour increments from early morning to late night, can even deliver the same day, rarely have windows not been available.
Cons:
Some items are Prime, some are Fresh, which are 2 different programs. Some are Prime Pantry, which is yet another program. Prices differ, need to pay attention
Peapod
I used Peapod from 2016-2018 up until Amazon Fresh arrived, because it was the best option I had at the time.
Pros:
Had full stock of all items available from Giant grocery store for the same price as available in the store
Had decent selection of delivery time frames, though they weren’t always available, sometimes had to order 2-3 days in advance
Cons:
Delivery drivers often over worked, tired, and sometimes irritable
Rarely did full order arrive as requested,
Only 1 out of every 10 times did the driver arrive within the specified delivery time window.
No way to resolve issues (ex: wrong item delivered, one of my eggs is broken, etc) automatically like amazon through the website, you had to email, then wait one business day for a response. You could also call but the wait was long on hold.
Instacart
Have tried this twice. Pricing on the app isn’t always the same as in the store, it’s sometimes inflated pretty drastically. Instacart is is currently the best option for Trader Joes delivery, though they drastically inflate the pricing. If they would match the price in the store, I this I would use Instacart as my go-to option more frequently and might even pay their monthly fee to get unlimited deliveries, but between the inflated prices, AND the delivery charge, I’ve stayed away and made do with other services.
Why do people say they don’t do this?
In my workshops, the most common response from people who were not on board with grocery delivery, it’s generally for 2 main reasons:
Only I can pick good produce.
Okay, I understand this mentality. Here’s 2 thoughts on this though.
a) if you had a friend who worked in a grocery store, and handled the produce all day, would you trust them to pick good produce? These are often the type of people that are picking your produce with these delivery companies.
b) These companies know if they bring you bad produce you’ll leave and never come back, there’s incentive and motivation to get it right for them. This is exactly why I left Peapod, it happened one too many times. With Amazon Fresh I’ve never had a problem.But I really enjoy going to the store.
I don’t want you to think I’m taking this away from you. If this really is your favorite part of your week and you absolutely love to shop at the grocery store, then I support you, I want you to do the things you love and enjoy! The reality for many people is there’s too much on their plate, they don’t have time, and something has to give, and if they’re going to sacrifice something, the grocery store run is lowest on the priority chain. For some (not all, just some) participants in my workshops, when we dug a little deeper we found out that they’re overwhelmed, and going to the store was one thing they felt like they were good at. They felt successful when they did, so it was more of a pick me up, and by taking it away, it was like taking a “win” off the board for them, which didn’t feel good either. It’s been intriguing to see the reasons why there’s more to this when you dig a little deeper.
Conclusion
This isn’t meant to be an all inclusive list of grocery delivery services, I just wanted to share a little of my experience with it to get you thinking about it. If you want to read about all the different grocery delivery services, here’s a thorough Lucie’s List article from 2019 which does a great job digging into many more of the options you may have available. Try commiting to getting your groceries delivered for a month, see how your life and schedule feel different without the regular pressure of getting to the store. I recommend you try one service with their free trial offer. Then another. Then another. You’ll learn as you go. Each time you’ll get a bit more savvy. Pretty soon you’ll not only be saving money from the cost of groceries in the store, but you’ll be saving the time to go and get them.
If you find you miss going to the store, you can always go back to doing it, but if you have too much on your plate, try letting someone deliver your groceries, see if it changes your life!
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I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that I was going to have a harder life that was likely 10-20 years shorter than normal. I’ve lived my best life every day since then, because you only get one chance to live it. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made to share small and specific actions you can take right now, right away, to achieve better work life balance, be more productive, and live your best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. I want you to start doing the things you WANT to do, not get stuck chasing what you NEED to do. If any of this resonates with you, send me a note. It brings me joy to share this passion with you.