These are the groceries that somebody else shopped for me in the store and then a jovial delivery man drove to my doorstep and set on my kitchen table.
And angels were on heard on high! (Cue celestial music!)
I've been using the online shopping service at our local Harris Teeter grocery store chain for about two years now, since halfway through my pregnancy with Margaret. Back then, I used to feel guilty about it. I remember a few months ago taking my children with me into a grocery store and they acted like people from the USSR who had never seen an abundant American grocery store before: "Mama, there's so much food! I've never seen so much food!" I realized that they hadn't been in a grocery store in a couple of years!
I think this service is well worth it to housewives if it can at all be managed. Already by shopping online, I could shop from the comfort of my home, finally getting off my feet, at night after the children were asleep.
Now that my local store has added home delivery (to a generous five adjacent zip codes!) at no additional cost to its services, I am relieved of additional burdens:
* I don't have to rush the children between mid-morning snack and getting home in time to make lunch (about a 90-minute window) to load them all up, drive twenty minutes away, wait in the car line, and drive back. I don't have to negotiate fights coming from the back seat, nor do I have to risk the toddler falling asleep on the drive home, thereby getting a much lower-quality nap that day.
* I don't have to haul my increasingly rotund pregnant body up and down the stairs from my garage, unloading groceries, asking John (in between my panting) to help me while he complains that the bags are too heavy for him.
* Because the delivery service even has evening hours, I don't necessarily have to find a stretch of time during the day when I am staying home (although I am home much during the week).
All of this for a flat $17 per month (for unlimited trips) or $5 per shopping trip, plus for the admittedly higher cost overall that Harris Teeter charges compared to discount grocery stores . . . extremely well worth it to me! I used to love discount shopping, finding the best bargains like a savings sleuth, and I will return to that during a different season of my life than this one. I spread this information in hopes that it is a relief to some of my local, dear mommy friends who I know don't relish hauling their exhausted little children through the grocery store.
I've often considered home delivery groceries, so it's nice to read your experience with it. If only Costco would deliver...we did our monthly Costco run the other night, and at 38 1/2 weeks pregnant, it did me in, even with Jason there doing the majority of the work!
ReplyDeleteThat's great that you have that! Our delivery grocery service is waaaayyyyy too expensive to justify! But the few times I've used it, I've felt like I died and went to heaven!
ReplyDeleteJaneane: If you have the service and it's not exorbitant, I'd do it! I used to feel guilty about it but NO LONGER.
ReplyDeleteHurray! Which HT do you shop at?
ReplyDeletePriscilla: I've been shopping at Morrocroft, which does not yet offer delivery. This was my first time shopping at the newly renovated Quail Corners one mile from my house, and they launched home shopping and delivery simultaneously. The delivery man (who works for a delivery company, not HT) said that one-by-one all the HTs have been offering delivery, so it should be becoming widespread. Check your zipcode, you don't live too far from me!
ReplyDeleteI thought of you a few months or a year ago when I saw a local business was offering to shop and deliver for busy families! None of the grocery stores around here offer that service (we do have drive-thru pharmacies!), but the boys love grocery shopping and are so well-behaved it's worked out. After new babies, my husband usually does the shopping for me for a few months, but I lately I've been wishing I could relieve him of that this time and just order online!
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