Grocery Shopping

[Car-Guy]

In the past, we could get an order from Omaha steaks in about 3 or 4 days from when we placed the order. ~2 days to process the order and ~2 days shipping time. The last order we placed was 15 days ago. It just arrived today (Monday) by FedEx. I was a little concerned since we got an email early Thursday morning saying our order had been shipped. That's 4+ days in transit packed in a dry ice cooler.... When I opened it, everything was still frozen solid.... Well, time to fire up the grill....

[harley]

DD just used a shopping service (I don't know the name) where someone did the shopping for her and delivered the food to her. It worked pretty well, they facetimed her about replacements for certain brands and choices, and she just had them drop the food off in the back of her DH's pickup truck. She then took it over to our northern house (nobody is there now) and she cleaned and disinfected everything, and set everything that didn't need to be refrigerated aside for awhile. She's using our house and fridge for overflow. Her total bill (including tip) came to nearly $1000! But she says her family of 4 is set for at least a month, including bread and milk which will be frozen for later. We were facetiming with her while she worked on it, and it was a literal truckload of food.

It probably sounds excessive to most, but she's very scared of this virus. She has pretty bad asthma, and 2 daughters (14 and 3). She can't sleep at night worrying about dying and leaving them. Her husband does essential work (cell tower repair), so he's out most days. But he doesn't usually interact with people much. She makes him shower and wash his clothes as soon as he comes home. And of course telling her it's probably not as bad as she thinks doesn't help. She suffers from anxiety at the best of times, which this is not. So the shopper service is probably worth every cent to her. For now, anyway.

[harllee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Car-Guy In the past, we could get an order from Omaha steaks in about 3 or 4 days from when we placed the order. ~2 days to process the order and ~2 days shipping time. The last order we placed was 15 days ago. It just arrived today (Monday) by FedEx. I was a little concerned since we got an email early Thursday morning saying our order had been shipped. That's 4+ days in transit packed in a dry ice cooler.... When I opened it, everything was still frozen solid.... Well, time to fire up the grill....

I often order from Omaha Steaks too..I sent in an order a few days ago, it has shipped, it will be interesting to see when it finally arrives. When I did the order they were out of at least half the items, I have never seen them be out of anything before. We ordered expensive hamburger because there is no hamburger to be found in our town.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harllee I often order from Omaha Steaks too..I sent in an order a few days ago, it has shipped, it will be interesting to see when it finally arrives. When I did the order they were out of at least half the items, I have never seen them be out of anything before. We ordered expensive hamburger because there is no hamburger to be found in our town.

Try KC Steak. We like their products better and we ordered a bunch of steak last Friday and it showed up Monday at noon.

[Amethyst]

Are they as thick and juicy as the photos make them look?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG Try KC Steak. We like their products better and we ordered a bunch of steak last Friday and it showed up Monday at noon.

[harllee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG Try KC Steak. We like their products better and we ordered a bunch of steak last Friday and it showed up Monday at noon.

I just got on their website, they are also out of most of the things that I would like to order (like hamburger). Like Omaha Steaks, KC Steak appears to be out of about half of the items. I guess everybody is ordering from these 2 companies now.

[ExFlyBoy5]

It's interesting to me to see how this must be regional. Our "big" grocery run last week netted pretty much everything we needed, even plenty of meat. DW stopped by today on her way home from OT (needed milk) and they still have plenty. There was even a small amount of TP and hand sanitizer yet it seems that other areas are hurting for a lot of this stuff.

[harllee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 It's interesting to me to see how this must be regional. Our "big" grocery run last week netted pretty much everything we needed, even plenty of meat. DW stopped by today on her way home from OT (needed milk) and they still have plenty. There was even a small amount of TP and hand sanitizer yet it seems that other areas are hurting for a lot of this stuff.

It would be helpful if folks would tell us what area of the country( at least the state) they are in so we can figure out if the differences are regional, state wide or more local. I am concerned that we are having supply chain problems in my area (middle of North Carolina). Things do not seem to be improving here.

[ExFlyBoy5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harllee It would be helpful if folks would tell us what area of the country( at least the state) they are in so we can figure out if the differences are regional, state wide or more local. I am concerned that we are having supply chain problems in my area (middle of North Carolina). Things do not seem to be improving here.

I forgot that my state isn't on the info bar to the left. I am in central Oklahoma near OKC but have been shopping "out in the country" about 30 minutes from downtown.

[2177V]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retiredtillwepart My DW and daughter are not happy about my doing so. Covid-19 is an act of nature however we know where the blame for our horrible time lapse in response is!

Like to add some comments for our horrible time lapse in our response....

There is a lot of blame to go around but I will pick only a few: South Korea and USA had their first confirmed COVID19 case on the very same day but the South Koreans had a better response. I attributed this to the fact that they are geographically closer to China and they had experience with SARS outbreak. Therefore there was zero complacency by the South Koreans. They have a Korean phase called "bali bali" which means get it done quickly. USA was complacent because China was so far away and it was thought that we had more time to react.

Meanwhile, USA really dropped the ball on testing. When China disclosed the GENOME of the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed a dianostic test for COVID19 which the South Koreans quickly adopted and started testing their citizens IMMEDIATELY without any cost to its citizens. They were the first to adopt a drive-in test so people did not have to leave their cars which isolated patients with COVID19 from patients who did not have COVID19.

Meanwhile, USA did not quickly adopt the WHO test and cited that the WHO test was not reliable so the CDC proceeded to develop a different test. Unfortunately the CDC test was discovered later to be seriously flawed so we lost 2 valuable weeks. Federal regulations also hindered quick approval of tests being developed by individual states so the USA was stuck without producing a diagnostic test in the quantities that we needed.

Now the politics kicked in with a whole bunch of Monday Morning Quarterbacking. In the meantime, the South Koreans used the WHO test successfully and they lowered the curve while the USA curve is skyrocketing. Without a dianostic test except for the rich and famous, the only tool the health officials had was the shelter in place order and the 6 feet social distance.

If William Shakespeare was alive today, he could not have written a more tragic tale.

[MichaelB]

The thread topic is grocery shopping. Plenty of other threads to post general comments about COVID.

[travelover]

Got our Costco order yesterday from Instacart. Most things were in stock that we'd asked for (metro Portland). It did not seem like that many groceries for $370, so I checked to see what Instacart's markup is. As near as I can tell, it is about 25% - more than I thought. Maybe next time we'll shop online from a store that offers pickup, as it seems like the risk would still be minimal

[stepford]

The markup for delivery is indeed pretty high. Enough so that it would dissuade me from the service on a long term basis. For the next few weeks/months though, I consider it a tolerable "cost of doing business" to manage risk.

[fh2000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stepford The markup for delivery is indeed pretty high. Enough so that it would would dissuade me from the service on a long term basis. For the next few weeks/months though, I consider it a tolerable "cost of doing business" to manage risk.

Also, Instacart adds 5% tip on the bill, plus I give few more on top of that also.

I chatted briefly with one shopper/driver. He is doing it part time with another job. It sounds similar to how Uber drivers do by choosing time when they are available. That is probably why one day I kept checking delivery availability. It suddenly opened up for the next 2 hours. After the driver drops off my order, he said he is going home. So, he just did one round of shopping/delivery for 2 customers, then he goes home.

[Dawg52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stepford The markup for delivery is indeed pretty high. Enough so that it would would dissuade me from the service on a long term basis. For the next few weeks/months though, I consider it a tolerable "cost of doing business" to manage risk.

Yep.....I have no problem paying a premium price for the next couple of months. Safety first. I'll worry about saving money later.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg52 Yep.....I have no problem paying a premium price for the next couple of months. Safety first. I'll worry about saving money later.

+1. Paying extra for groceries for pick up or delivery could be my first and only blow that dough post.

In my part of the Bay Area right now, it is getting harder and harder to find any open spots for grocery pick or delivery, at any price. I think the demand ramped up since the White House issued the avoid grocery shopping in the next two weeks warning. The peak here is actually expected to be May, as the early shelter in place order has seemed to help flatten our curve. I have a pick up order in for this week, but in trying to place a pick up order now for next week things are looking pretty booked up.

[easysurfer]

Looks like I'll be plotting my online grocery shopping today.

Never thought this day would come as I'm able bodied and prefer to pick my own fruits and vegetables. But as a sign of the times, the thought of wearing a mask, watching what I touch and making sure to not physically get too close to anyone sounds more scary than anything else.

I already grocery shopped online for the first time about a week ago through a local grocery store. But after some more thinking, looking at youtube and messaging a friend, I'm now leaning towards Instacart for more store choices.

Seems to me there are pros/cons to just using a local store vs Instacart. A comparison I think is a regular grocery store is like booking a hotel directly at the hotel. Might be a better deal, but less choice. Whereas, Instacart is like using Hotels.com. Another comparison is like getting a car via Carmax vs a car dealer.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harllee It would be helpful if folks would tell us what area of the country( at least the state) they are in so we can figure out if the differences are regional, state wide or more local. I am concerned that we are having supply chain problems in my area (middle of North Carolina). Things do not seem to be improving here.

I'm in SW Washington state. Except for TP, flour, yeast, rice, and dried beans our local Safeway store is fully stocked. There are a few items like pastas and soups that are running low, but there has still been enough when I've needed it. Produce, meats, and dairy are all stocked as well as before COVID.

I found flour at a local country store last week. TP seems to come in and sell out quickly, despite quantity limits. I've picked up TP a couple times while it was in stock, so I won't need it for a while.

Ironically, Safeway is still running lots of sales and quantity discounts, 2 for $5 and that sort of thing. I'm sure they are profiting big time from this crisis, though at some point sales will probably be slow as people use up the items they stocked up on.

[Moemg]

I use instacart from Publix which is our local grocery store . The markup seems to be on meat . The rest of the items are not too bad.I like that they text me with possible replacements so I can approve or not . They also show sale prices and sometimes even apply coupons.All in all I have been very pleased.

[easysurfer]

I just signed up for Instacart and after doing some comparison shopping with Instacart at some local grocery stores, put in my first order.

Overall, I found the process kinda stressful. A lot of variables to contend with. I felt like the character played by Ray Liotta trying to get all my ducks in line as the helicopter was tracking him, buzzing above his house .

I shall see how smoothly (or not) the order gets delivered. Can happen anytime between today and Sunday .