Saving Time and Money on Grocery Shopping without Entering the Supermarket

Do you ever find yourself walking up and down supermarket aisles, hopelessly bored, wondering how you got there? Do you long to be freed from the tyranny of grocery shopping? I did, until yesterday.

If you'd been walking down our street yesterday around 5PM, you would have heard the sounds of cheering and clomping on our wooden porch. If you walked up to see what in the world was going on, you would have spotted Juliette and I dancing like possessed witches around a tower of cardboard boxes.

You might have thought that we were keeping the Halloween fun going, dancing off our Halloween candy sugar high, but you would have been wrong. We were celebrating our Peapod grocery delivery.  

Joy! No Grocery Shopping Today!

Yes, I know, it doesn't take much to get us excited. But I actually think that Peapod grocery delivery is exciting, definitely front-porch dance-worthy.

Any service that allows me to avoid spending a painful hour going up and down fluorescent-lit aisles hunting for bleach, paper towels, and flour is definitely worth celebrating. And that one hour estimate is a kid-free hour. If I have to shop with one (or, God forbid, more than one) of my kids, the experience becomes a very public display of my poor parenting skills as my shouts to my wild children echo throughout the supermarket.

Did I mention that I hate grocery shopping? It seems strange to admit, almost like a foodie confession, but it's true. I hate grocery shopping with a passion. I hate it almost as much as I love mingling with local farmers at our farmers' market on Saturday mornings. The two are completely different experiences, probably a symptom of the many things wrong in today's food production.

Yesterday was my first Peapod shopping experience, and it will be the first of many. This post wasn't sponsored in any way. It was just born out of my rapture over finally being freed from the extreme dullness of supermarket shopping. Feel free to drop by our porch next Monday for a repeat dance performance.

Packaging for Peapod Produce

If you've never tried Peapod, here's a step by step review of the process:

• Easy to Navigate Website: The Peapod website is easy to navigate. The cart is on the right hand side and visible through the entire order. No check-out surprises await you. The cart total and savings total are updated as you add each item in your basket. 
• Encourages Saving: Before adding the items on my shopping list, I spent 5 minutes going through the specials and adding those items to my cart. When in the supermarket, I never have time to go through the circulars, and if I do, I can't find those items in the store. Online, it was so much easier to take advantage of the savings. And thanks to the easy navigation, I wasn't tempted to throw in random extras like the latest Ben & Jerry's flavor or Super Pink Princess cereal, saving me more money.
• Delivery Times: I should have locked in a delivery time as soon as I started shopping. I will next time. Instead I waited until I was done with my cart to pick a window. I had the option to choose attended delivery or unattended and select long or short windows. Delivery is free for the first 60 days you join Peapod (for orders over $100), I imagine that the cost varies after that depending on which delivery option you choose. Next time I shop, I'll set up a small basket to lock in a delivery and will add to it as I go along the week.
• No More Return Trips to the Store: Normally, I end up making at least 2 quick trips back to the supermarket to get items I forgot. I was able to add to my basket up until midnight the day before my delivery. Love this feature. Going forward, I'm just going to keep a running grocery list straight on the Peapod website.
• Coupons: I'm not organized enough to be a coupon clipper. But If I were, the delivery guy would take them and credit my account.
• Delivery: My order came 30 minutes after the beginning of my 4-6PM window. As instructed, the driver did not ring the doorbell and left the groceries on the porch.
• Quality: Everything in the boxes was in plastic bags, as I would have brought them home from the store if I forgot my reusable grocery bags. All the produce was in good quality with the exception of one apple that was bruised. Customer service credited my account without any questions.