How much time do you spend grocery shopping every week? And how many things do you buy that aren’t on your list? Personally, I like to get myself a treat as a reward for being grown up and going grocery shopping. It’s usually in the form of a candy bar or chocolate milk because apparently, I’m still a little kid.
The grocery stores in my town recently started offering grocery pickup. My little sister started using the service and raved about it. I personally wanted to roll my eyes and tell her to stop being lazy. But she talked it up so much that she piqued my curiosity and I finally had to try it out for myself.
Oh my goodness! It’s the best thing ever!
The Benefits
Now before you roll your eyes at me, let me tell you all the benefits I found from using grocery pickup.
Planning
First, it forces me to meal plan. I have to sit down and plan out what I’m going to eat so I can add it all to my cart. This alone saves me so much time throughout the week and helps me feel more prepared.
Secondly, all the sale ads are right in the app, so I can easily plan meals around what’s on sale.
Money Savings
Another benefit of planning my groceries from home is I can double-check that I’m not buying something I already have in my pantry. Do I have basil? I don’t know, let me go check.
I love that the app totals up my groceries as I add them to the cart. It helps me stay within my budget. I can easily substitute out cheaper items or eliminate things altogether if I’m over budget.
One of the obvious perks is that it stops those impulse purchases. Even when I do get tempted by things on the app just seeing how it affects my cart total is usually enough to deter me.
Time Savings
I’ve used Smith’s (aka Kroger) and Walmart pickup. Both have a great feature where on the homepage it’ll show you your most common purchases so it’s easy to quickly add to your cart those things you buy weekly. And helps you to not forget any kitchen staples you may need.
I’m usually pretty fast at the grocery store but even so, you can’t beat the speed of grocery pickup.
The weeks that I’m not on the ball enough to preorder my groceries for pickup, I still add them all to the cart in the app because it helps me to plan out my food. The Smiths app organizes everything in your cart by the store aisle, so by shopping in person with the app, I can run through the store really efficiently.
Grocery pickup not only save you time, but I’ve found that I save money because it forces me to meal plan, helps me to total up my groceries as I go and prevents a lot of unnecessary purchases.
Have you tried grocery pickup? Do you just think I’m being lazy, or have I convinced you to give it a try?