Pick-Up Grocery Shopping

I am very excited.

I have discovered pick-up grocery shopping.

I'm nearing the tail end of this pregnancy, which is hard and uncomfortable anyway. Now my consistently very low blood pressure has made a significant jump in the systolic number (and I suspected so because of all my recent ill feelings and certain symptoms), so I'm trying to find various ways to cut back and relax. High blood pressure in pregnant mamas is not good.

Here in Charlotte, we have two or three grocery store chains at which a clerk will do the grocery shopping for the customer. I have signed up at Harris Teeter for the service: there are about twelve store locations in town that provide the service and the nearest location to me is only five miles away (not my regular, slightly closer store, but that is okay).

I do my grocery shopping online. The online program is excellent and easy to use. I found that I was more apt to buy items on sale because of the ease of finding them. If I search for "bread, whole wheat," I see a chart of the couple dozen brands available. The chart shows me unit size, price, and price per unit. Items on sale are in red, so it is exceptionally easy to compare price per unit. This is easier than when I am meandering up and down three aisles of bread, hoping to spot the "on sale" tags, and squinting at the little numbers to see the prices per unit.

I can add any notes to any product, such as "I like my bananas a little green."

I place my order between four hours and six days in advance and I choose my half-hour pick up window from a wide variety of time options. I know a close estimate of my total cost, but the final cost won't be available until pick-up because of small variances like the exact produce selected for me.

I receive an email and a text message when my order is ready for pick-up. Today I had scheduled to pick up between 11:00 and 11:30, but my order was ready at 10:15, so I received notice that I could pick it up any time. I also received a personal phone call that a cereal I had ordered was out of stock, and did I want another kind?

I drove to the Harris Teeter, pulled under a canopy to protect customers from inclement weather, and pushed the call button. The friendly clerk came out with my groceries and loaded them for me. I was able to pay from the comfort of my own vehicile because the clerk has a portable credit card scanner.

The kids and I sat happy as clams in the comfortable van. Because of Chris' work schedule, which involves so much travel, it simply has not worked for us to get into a routine of my shopping alone while he watches the kids. Therefore, each week, I haul both kids to the store and push them around in one of those massive kiddie carts that looks like a car, and I can barely maneuever it with my big pregnant belly. Meanwhile, I'm entertaining them and demanding good behavior from them the whole time, and it can be really trying. Now I can take a short 20 minutes and never get us out of the van!

I know that for several months postpartum, my grocery shopping looks like this: nurse the newborn at home, load us in the van, nurse the baby in the grocery store parking lot, do my shopping, sometimes if it is taking too long I'll nurse the baby in the grocery store itself, get back in the van and nurse the newborn there, drive home, and nurse the baby again before unloading the groceries. Think of how this pick-up shopping would transform such an arduous chore!

Think of how many fewer illnesses we will get (we get a lot) by not touching grocery cart handles!

Think of the rather large reduction in spending because of my not buying items spontaneously that are not on my list! And think of the benefit to our waistlines and self-discipline because the kids and I won't be buying junk food treats to scarf on the drive home!

All of this for a flat service fee $4.95. If I did this every week, that would be about $20 per month, and I believe I saved more than twice that this week alone by not buying items spontaneously because I wasn't in the store to see them.

I am tickled pink and think I will probably continue using this service in the future, well beyond this pregnancy.