Grocery Shopping

[Dtail]

Did 3 weeks of shopping today at Walmart/Publix/Walgreen's. Finished at 8:30am.
One advantage of being a senior.
By us, there are no more real shortages of TP/Paper rolls/Eggs/Meats.
However, still have shortages of gloves/Vitamin C/hand sanitizers.
About 60-70% were wearing masks.

[dd564]

My wife went shopping today. (MPLS suburbs).
Got everything she needed including toilet paper!
We weren't low but getting low and today there was some which will take us through (or well into) May and probably through this demand period for TP and other paper goods.

[aja8888]

The only thing I have not been able to get is bleach.

Today at the local HEB grocery (Texas), I picked up pork chops, hamburger, pasta, pasta sauce, cheese, frozen meatballs and breadsticks, a loaf of bread, bananas, apples, and a few toiletry items. Store was full of grocery items except for the bleach. Even TP shelves were stocked.

[LOL!]

Did take-out of 3 lbs of brisket yesterday evening, plus sides. That's enough for a few days of eating with what we have around the house, so no critical need to go grocery shopping. Last shopping trip was a week ago, so maybe I go again on Friday morning?

[travelover]

Placed a pickup order from Fred Meyer (Kroger West) today and it will be ready in one week. I like that they have no extra charge for either pickup or surcharge on the groceries. I kinda feel like I wasted money at Instacart on a previous order as the risk between delivery and curb pickup seems insignificant.

[easysurfer]

Just placed an online order with my local grocery store for delivery next Tuesday. After yesterday, spending pretty much the entire day and afternoon on Instacart, decided best to just stick to the local store's ordering system.

No good on Instacart, trying to get a shopper for a store with cheaper prices if no delivery time slots open up .

[jim584672]

Walmart started making people wait in line to get in. The workaround is order online and do in store pickup. They let in store pickup right in.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim584672 Walmart started making people wait in line to get in. The workaround is order online and do in store pickup. They let in store pickup right in.

"workaround?" Isn't there a reason for limiting people in the store?

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer Just placed an online order with my local grocery store for delivery next Tuesday. After yesterday, spending pretty much the entire day and afternoon on Instacart, decided best to just stick to the local store's ordering system. No good on Instacart, trying to get a shopper for a store with cheaper prices if no delivery time slots open up .

DW's Instacart try was a failure. She's been very happy with the local store ordering. The only problem is it is a week out, like yours. You have to plan and anticipate.

[jim584672]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras "workaround?" Isn't there a reason for limiting people in the store?

Social distancing. Also they have arrows on the floor for traffic flow.

[Accidental Retiree]

I just placed my first delivery order with Costco/Instacart at 6:35 am, and I received a text at 7:05:

Mark H just started shopping! We'll notify you if there are any changes. Your perishables will be temperature controlled while in-store and carefully handled by your driver until delivery.



Let’s see if the ever-elusive TP actually makes it into the order.

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras DW's Instacart try was a failure. She's been very happy with the local store ordering. The only problem is it is a week out, like yours. You have to plan and anticipate.

My plan is to order about once a week from a local store so at least I have fresh fruits around. Along with each order, I'll some stuff to add on that I may be running low on along with the order.

Though my local store is not the cheapest as far as price, their drivers do not take tips. Whereas, from what I've watched and read about Instacart, that is tip driven. In that the shoppers depend heavily on tips and pick and choose what "batch" to shop. So, if you don't include a big tip, an order might just sit and sit. Another way to put it is that Instacart is like an auction, the bigger tipper the better chance of having a shopper. Whereas, my local store, if there is an open time, just reserve that slot, then shop.

[Alan]

Did our weekly shop today plus some. The car hadn’t been started in 3 weeks so I took the car to one supermarket while DW walked to another one. (It is only 1 person per household allowed in a store so this has become the new normal for us). Once again there was no line at the store I went to and the shelves were fully stocked including the beer, wine and liquor shelves so I took advantage of that since my list included heavy items that we only need now and again such as washing powder/liquid, fabric softener etc.

There didn’t seem to be a shortage of anything at all. Lots of staff about ensuring that throughput is very quick. DW said there was a short line to get into the supermarket she went to but the wait to get in was only 5 minutes. Since she walked and I drove I looked at where she was when I had the car loaded, saw she was still in the store so drove around to meet her and give her a lift back which was appreciated as she had her backpack plus 2 grocery bags all full. (I’m all heart)

[ncbill]

From comments yesterday by our governor we're afraid our state will start requiring no more than 10 people in any store at one time.

So far we've avoided crowds by not shopping at the local Costco/Sam's/SuperWalmart but now we fear we'll be stuck outside waiting in line at even our local grocery stores.

From what I've seen people are not maintaining social distance in those lines outside stores...so we're out early today & tomorrow frantically shopping before the above rule is imposed.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ncbill From comments yesterday by our governor we're afraid our state will start requiring no more than 10 people in any store at one time.

I welcome the governor's actions. It is going to slow down the casual isle cruiser looking for something to do.

[youbet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

I've found the cost of having delivery from Amazon Fresh to be acceptable in these times. I believe the order is actually fulfilled by Amazon subsidiary Whole Foods. Here in NE Illinois, stock is good with only the usual "unobtainium" items being unavailable. Prices are similar to shopping at Whole Foods with little on sale, but no signs of gouging at all. Delivery times have been fairly easy to schedule so far. Things are very well packaged with fragile items well protected, refrigerated items in insulated containers with ice and everything else in heavy duty paper bags that are never too heavy to easily handle. There is no delivery charge if your order is at least $35, although they suggest a $5 tip which is included in your bill unless you delete or edit it.

We have an adequate supply of long term non-perishables on the shelf already so about once a week I order fresh fruits and veggies, milk, bread, yogurt and odds and ends and have them delivered.

The only freezer we have is the one incorporated into our normal size kitchen fridge. So, we've missed some opportunities to reduce the number of deliveries by freezing milk, bread and other space eating items. What we do have is plenty of protein. We fish as a hobby. When this COVID-19 thing hit, we were noting that we still have a LOT of last autumn's frozen fillets of various fresh water game fish (At least 40 lbs) taking up a lot of space in the freezer. Now we're solving that problem by serving fish (walleye pike, northern pike, crappie, perch, bass) at least twice a week.

[Jeffman52]

Since its just DW and I, we can survive for a few weeks on a full fridge. We picked up enough groceries to carry us through the next 3 weeks. No plans to go to the grocery in that time. We did get fresh veggies and fruits but alas we know it wont last that long so we also got frozen to tide us over.

My beer fridge is full
My wine rack is full

We still do some carry out for lunch once in a while and did a nice dinner carry out with wine, to support one of our favorite non-chain restaurants.

[jollystomper]

For years when shopping I would have the shopping list on my phone. Either a memo app to create and save it, or DW would send me a text of items needed if I was out shopping. These days the less I touch my phone when out of the house, the better. So I have reverted to the ancient ways of keeping a paper shopping list, that I can discard when done.

[gwraigty]

I just watched a brief interview featuring the CEO of Baldor. They primarily serve the commercial markets and they've started shipping direct to consumer. Their delivery area is quite limited, but maybe we have some forum members here who qualify to take advantage of their service.

https://www.baldorfood.com/baldorhomedeliverymap

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jollystomper For years when shopping I would have the shopping list on my phone. Either a memo app to create and save it, or DW would send me a text of items needed if I was out shopping. These days the less I touch my phone when out of the house, the better. So I have reverted to the ancient ways of keeping a paper shopping list, that I can discard when done.

Same here. I also use the camera to take photos when DW wants something very specific. My previous grocery run I brought a paper list, which immediately got wet in the produce section. For my grocery run this morning I used an old iPhone, and just set it aside after I got home.