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Curious about grocery delivery

overtheedge

Senior Member
Messages
258
Shopping for groceries is probably the most energy consuming thing I have to deal with on a routine basis. People on here and elsewhere that I come in contact with ME patients have mentioned getting their groceries delivered and it got me wondering

Do many of you get groceries delivered?
Does it cost a lot more to get them delivered? Shopping usually wipes me out for 1-2 days so I'd definitely be willing to pay more just not a whole lot more since it is such a frequent expense.
Is it necessary to be on disability or to get referral from a doctor or how does it work and what is the best way of going about it ie. which services are the best etc?
 

fredam7

Senior Member
Messages
153
Check and see what you have locally . Amazon is popular because while foods will deliver but their food looks like plastic now

Do you have local farmers markets that someone can take you to and you go to one stand and get your groceries ? Or someone that can get them ?

Nearby grocery stores usually have delivery options . Fresh direct is another .
 

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
I get groceries delivered. I will never go to a supermarket again. It's RIDICULOUSLY exhausting. People act like its some small 15 minute thing but really:

5 minutes to put on shoes and get green bags and car keys
5 mins to drive and get inside
15 minutes to shop
5 mins to check out and put bags in car and stow trolley
5 mins home and to get bags inside house
10 mins putting groceries away.

That's ~45mins of activity.

I buy rarely but buy lots. They give a discount on delivery when you buy a lot, so it costs maybe $6. Best money you can spend.
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,444
Location
Great Lakes
I do Instacart.com which lets me choose from different stores in my area. The first year they gave me free trial membership which waved all of the fees. I just had to order over $39 at any one store and then if I wanted to tip the driver, which I always do. (You can add the tip to the order total if you don't keep cash on hand.) I don't know if you would be offered free trial but you could try to sign up at their website and see if they offer you that.

This year the membership was $144 or something. I cancelled and figured I would just try to order once in a while and pay the fees on each order but then they offered me $99 for the yearly membership and I signed up again. If you have a Costco membership you can also order through their website but only Costco items, I believe, and the fees are also waived.

I also do PrimeNow.amazon.com which is the same as Amazon and again lets me order from Amazon stock, Whole Foods Stock and another local store. I think it is minimum $39 on the Amazon and/or Whole food and $50 for the other store but you have to have Prime Membership.

Also a local store called Woodmans does delivery for a $10 fee. The store is employee owned and in-store they do not take credit cards so it keeps their prices lower than other stores even with the $10 fee.

On top of that I use Walmart.com for dry goods. I can usually get good prices on those as well as fragrance free laundry detergent, etc. Or I'll use Iherb or vitacost for those type of things.

I've also heard of Shipt which I haven't tried yet. I used to use Peapod a lot but their prices are really high and after my first order from Woodmans, I pretty much stopped doing Peapod.

It does make it much easier to order online.

I haven't needed a doctor's referral. If you mean because of you have ebt, unfortunately that can't be used with any of these shopping services, even when they take ebt in the actual store (like Woodmans or Whole Foods). It doesn't even work for stores like Walmart.com or Meijer.com where you can order online groceries and then pick up at their store. :(

Hope this helps.
 

Carl

Senior Member
Messages
360
Location
United Kingdom
If we knew where you were it would be helpful so that other local members can make recommendations.

I rarely have groceries delivered because I am extremely choosy about certain things like fruit and veg which experience with deliveries shows is newer remotely close to what I prefer. I will go shopping about once every 3 to 4 weeks. I planned on going yesterday but never got there.

Grocery deliveries are available to everyone and not just the sick and ill. Most supermarkets offer delivery except for Aldi food in the UK. I have used Sainsbury but their minimum is a bit high around £40. ASDA have a £25 minimum, Tesco I have never used or any of the other supermarkets.

Deliveries by ASDA, from what I can remember, cost only £1.50 upwards depending upon the time and day.
 
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TenuousGrip

Senior Member
Messages
297
Just something to be careful of:

Some delivery programs not only charge you for the delivery, and not only expect that you give the driver a substantial tip, but also charge you (sometimes significantly) more for many/most items than the in-store price.

This isn't generally understood and can add up to a lot of money compared to in-store shopping.
 

Wolfcub

Senior Member
Messages
7,089
Location
SW UK
I almost always every week, get my groceries delivered.

Where are you @overtheedge ?

I am in the UK, and if you are too, I could recommend which stores are more reliable than others etc.
It is so easy to do my shopping from my laptop. Incredibly easy, and they usually save a list of your "favourites", so you can just click down the list for items you always buy.
In UK most stores charge higher delivery charges at certain times (for instance 2 days before Christmas! Or morning /early afternoon slots.)
But I always choose the cheapest times.
With one store it's £2, with another it's £1, and with another I can get 50p deliveries, if I choose the right times.
It means thinking ahead, and not forgetting stuff, but it is a really good thing to have.
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,444
Location
Great Lakes
also charge you (sometimes significantly) more for many/most items than the in-store price.
This isn't generally understood and can add up to a lot of money compared to in-store shopping.

Lately, the Instacart shoppers have been leaving the actual store receipt with me. So far only Costco is higher shopping this way. If you can get them to leave you the receipt, you can compare. (Costco admits to doing this on their website too but even with the addition, sometimes the bulk items are a lot cheaper than buying other brands.)

Unfortunately, I have to use these services. For me the only time I can manage to store shop is if we have to go out anyway for a doctors appointment. Then I make as quick a stop as possible into the nearest store afterwards but even that is using up more than my day's allotment of energy and guarantees a crash for days or weeks afterward so these services have really been a Godsend.
 
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lafarfelue

Senior Member
Messages
433
Location
Australia
I have my groceries delivered. I’d lose at least 1/5th of my functionality and have a lot more pain and PEM if I went to the store to shop for food. Grocery shopping is the worst :grumpy: :pem:

I order a fair bit of food around once every ~2wks. Having a decent sized freezer helps with shopping less often :thumbsup:

You might be able to easily google ‘groceries’, ‘home delivery’ and your town or suburb to see what comes up!

A lot of standard/big box supermarkets have delivery. Sometimes the cost is set, or at a sliding scale depending on how much you spend and what day/time you book the delivery for. Whomever you order from should have this information upfront on their website and/or at the payment stage.

There may also be other pick-up and delivery options. I know of someone who orders online but takes the option to drive up to the store and have their groceries bagged straight into their car (it’s cheaper than delivery).
 
Messages
63
Location
Isle of Wight
I have my groceries delivered now and wonder why I didn't get them delivered before.
Also I eat healthier as I can just click through my favourites on the list and it's all done in less than 10 minutes. Also I'm not seduced by the BOGOFS. So all in all it's a win win.
So now I can use what little energy I do have to go out occasionally and do something for myself.
I live in the UK and use Asda as they have reasonably priced slots. It saves on petrol too.. :hug::hug:
 

overtheedge

Senior Member
Messages
258
Also I eat healthier as I can just click through my favourites on the list and it's all done in less than 10 minutes.

Now there's a thought, eating healthier due to store choices

I've been shopping at winn dixie but I get the feeling that much of the stuff there isn't selected for how healthy it is, I did shop at whole foods but it's so expensive. I wanted to shop at costco or sams but the stores are so big I'd wear myself out walking around but if stuff can just be ordered that wouldn't be a problem

costco and sams for the price but I don't know how much they focus on the health side of things, wonder if there's a way of getting healthy stuff for more reasonable prices due to more variety of stores what with the wider range of stores that could be shopped at since I've had to limit the range of stores I shop at due to how much energy driving around takes up whereas delivery people don't has such restrictions

For those who have asked I'm in Louisiana

Lot of good stuff in this thread, very dense with details and options, thank you folks, went out to get groceries yesterday and I'm feelin that PEM today, definitely gonna get this going
 

Moof

Senior Member
Messages
778
Location
UK
I'm in the UK, and use Tesco's delivery saver. I pay £4 per month, and often get three deliveries for that. I've had no major problems at all...except forgetting that I need to save energy to put all the shopping away when I do a monster order! :rofl: The driver brings it all into the house for me, and when I buy a lot of frozen stuff, I ask them to stash it in the freezer for me as well (they can do it much more quickly than I can).

I've been using the delivery service ever since it was introduced several years ago, and I'd never be without it. I would suggest you pay attention to the substitutions list before ordering, especially if you have several intolerances. There are a couple of items on my regular list that I ask never to be substituted, as the alternatives often contain potato starch.
 

jesse's mom

Senior Member
Messages
6,795
Location
Alabama USA
Hi, I am from Louisiana. My family is still there. Rouses delivers, it is a bit high in price, but he quality of the food is great! Costco has very fresh fruits and vegetables compared to Sam's in my experience with my aging father.
Costco's dry goods have many more organic and health conscious foods also. You can go to the websites and browse to see what you like better.
 
Messages
13
Location
maui, hawaii
i also use instacart now - grocery shopping was THE biggest energy suck and it helps tremendously to not do that anymore. i was going at night as there was no way i can stand in line but still too depleting. i've also found a helper/assistant i hire to do costco for me - she's way cheaper than the instacart markup but i deeply appreciate all of the services. if there's any hope of not being red-zone energy depleted forever i have to outsource everything possible. i'm 48 years old and also getting meals on wheels now which is even MORE amazing, because i frequently undereat as i cannot cook/clean much of the time. we need to do whatever necessary to have a fighting chance! it costs me money but being a) pem crashed from trying to shop or b) malnourished because i just can't do it any of it anymore was causing worse problems
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,444
Location
Great Lakes
How much do you folks usually tip drivers by the way, is it a percentage?

Sorry, I didn't see this right away, @overtheedge. You can tip within most of the store's apps or websites as you place the order. I think the default is usually 10% but you can edit the setting and choose "other" and then type in your own amount or "none" if you want to hand cash to the delivery driver instead.

To be honest, I usually cannot afford the standard 15% that Ms. Manners probably recommends. My tip usually varies depending on the items I purchase. If there are lots of heavy items or the store they are shopping at is big with many items I will tip close to $6. Otherwise it usually is around $4 or $5. The other day I had a Costco order of only 4 items and most of them in the same area of the store so I only did $3. (Yeah, Ms Manners would probably not be happy with me.)

Do what you can afford. Also I watched a recent youtube video (ride along with the shopper) and learned that a 5-star on Instacart gets them a dollar bonus. Of course, don't give them a 5 star if they did a bad job. (Watching the video also helped me to not feel so badly about my tip. Some other people tipped less.)

A few more things: Be careful with the percentage settings in the app though because if you select 10% say and then add a bunch of items later (maybe you want 4 packages of something instead of just 2), that 10% keeps going up.

Like I said, I prefer to use "other" (or "none" if I'm handing the tip).

Also a couple of the apps/websites are tricky on typing in the other amount. On the $3 tip I gave, this last time I just typed in 3 and saved it because sometimes the decimal won't move and I end up with a tip that looks like 03.00.30. Arrghh. The up and down arrows don't always seem to work either.

One more thing, most of the apps/websites also give you time (around 24 hours) to modify your tip. (I haven't used Peapod in a long time so I can't really remember their system. I usually just handed my tip back then.)
 

overtheedge

Senior Member
Messages
258
So I have it working well now, just got the second big delivery from walmart and can say im happy with it

I used to shop at winn dixie up until i started getting groceries delivered from walmart

i checked the winn dixie site but it's terrible. they don't have their own website, have limited selection, and charge much more than they do in the store.

Now costco doesn't have its own delivery set up in my area, site gives instacart as the way to get delivery from them, at the time i didn't want to set up instacart and costco membership. probly gonna look back on them in coming months and see if costco sets up its own delivery.

I'm planning on trying out other grocery delivery setups at some point to really optimize things, in time anyway, that seems to be the way that has worked for me in living with CFS, it's more important to get things going and then get them optimized later on since optimization often takes as much energy as getting them started in the first place, only with diminishing returns, where as if you just keep getting tasks done without optimizing you can get a lot more done, depending on situation.

So walmart's site is grocery.walmart.com , at least in my area. They have a good selection and good categorization, I really like that they have a favorite button next to each item, I favorite everything i buy then if i don't like the item when i get it i'll just unfavorite it next time. So here on this second order around half of the things i ordered i simply had to look at my favorite menu, select the number of the product i want and click order on it and so i don't have to visit those sections of the site and choose among a bunch of stuff.

Delivery charge is $5 and I give a $5 tip to the delivery driver each time through the email they send me after the groceries are delivered. It's strange though, the site says it charged me $127 but I get auto alerts from my bank on any charges over $50 with the dollars charged and the business making the charge, fraud prevention whatnot, and it said the charge was $134, wouldn't matter much though since I've been using discount codes I got online so the order would have been $137 without the discount this time. Checked it on my banks website and the walmart site and the amount charged is $134 and the walmart site claims it's $127 but for the first order from the other week the number walmart claimed it charged me was correct and I got money off through discount on that order, so, dunno, maybe just a fluke. Here is the site i've been using for the codes: https://www.offers.com/walmart-grocery/?em=7129014 Looks like they have monthly codes, saving $10 a month or so sounds decent.

So the delivery time can be selected through the site in 1 hour increments, wont let you order stuff same day but will allow ordering for next day delivery. It's 8am-8pm seven days a week, and you select the hour you want and they arrive some time within that hour and you get a call on your phone saying they are outside, the dude helps you carry your groceries to where you want them and that's it.

Saves me a good bit of time and a hell of a lot of energy, grocery shopping wouldn't be quite so taxing if you could take a break in between steps, driving there/shopping/driving back/carrying/sorting, it's the nonstop nature that makes it so troublesome, so much more PEM from working without a rest.
 
Messages
70
I like to order directly from Safeway as their system seems to be regular employees and not contract drivers. They don't allow tips and you generally have to schedule 24 hours ahead of time. The fee is reasonable (I think $10?) and once you sign up for one delivery they are always sending discounts to get you to schedule more deliveries.

The grocery pick up option seems like an interesting compromise on effort and price. Some stores allow you to order online and then just stop at the grocery store to pick up the pre-packed bags.
 

overtheedge

Senior Member
Messages
258
Anybody have a store they can still get delivery from?
Walmart hasn't been delivering for weeks, i can still pick up which is much better than going in the store both energy and risk wise but slots to reserve a pickup are getting harder to get, also, having to drive a while to pick up takes a lot of energy
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,444
Location
Great Lakes
i didn't want to set up instacart and costco membership. probly gonna look back on them in coming months and see if costco sets up its own delivery.

I didn't see this before but if you do sign up for instacart and they offer costco as one of the stores they will shop at for you, then you don't have to have a costco membership to order that through them. The only way you need a costco membership is if you try to go through the costco site to order groceries on instacart. I think it works that same way for Sam's Club too. I know confusing.

I've used Prime Now in the past but cannot find open slots at all right now. I was also trying to use Amazon Fresh or Amazon Whole Foods with the same results.

However, another PR person messaged me with the tip to try and order through them early morning. I tried after midnight instead and there were some time slots available but only on Amazon Fresh or Amazon Whole Foods but keep in mind they they limit or change quantities in your cart often.

You need a Prime membership to order through Prime Now. I think you also need the membership for Amazon fresh so it's free with orders over a certain total or they will have you sign up for a monthly Fresh membership if you don't have Amazon Prime. I know also confusing.

Anyway, if you try one of these services then log in and place your order when other people are probably sleeping. Or you could look into Instacart again because they do seem to have more selection of time slots available.

Edit: Also this doesn't apply to your state or mine yet but I thought I'd mention that Amazon currently accepts SNAP EBT in AL, IA, NE, NY, OR, and WA.
 
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