Grocery Shopping a Whole New Way | InstaCart Review
– Hi there, it’s Laura
here from I Heart Planners,
and today I’m gonna show you
how to do online grocery
shopping, you know,
the kind where you order from
your computer or your phone
and the groceries just show
up a couple of hours later
at your door.
And if you haven’t tried this before,
your life is about to be changed,
and you’re gonna save so much time.
So I can’t wait to show
you exactly how to do it.
Now, before we dive in,
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just go ahead and take a second
and hit Subscribe and like
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And let me tell you how
I got started with this.
So a couple years ago,
I realized that this type
of shopping was an option.
I personally use Instacart,
and that’s what I’ll show you how to use.
And so I kinda looked
at it. I wasn’t sure.
And then one time, I
think our whole family,
most of us were sick,
and I was taking care
of a couple sick kids,
and it’s very hard to get out
of the house, go shopping.
So I just put
and it showed up right
away, within a couple hours,
and it was amazing, and
I was somewhat hooked.
And as another advantage
is during a pandemic,
if you do this type of grocery shopping,
you never have to have
contact with anyone.
They’ll just leave it
right at your doorstep
so you’re having less contact,
and that’s just a super advantage
of this method of shopping.
And this is pretty much
all of the shopping
that I have done since
the pandemic started,
just to avoid being in the store
since I don’t really need to do that.
I just get my groceries at my doorstep.
And I know it can be a little bit scary
if you haven’t tried it before,
but it’s so much easier than you think,
and there’s some little tips
and tricks I’m gonna share along the way
to show you some things you
might not have thought about
about how to make this type
of grocery shopping a success.
So I am getting ready
to do my weekly grocery shopping here.
And you can see in my area,
there’s several different
stores available,
which I think is really cool.
Even Sam’s Club and Costco,
whether you have membership
or not, you can use those.
And personally, most
weeks, I order from ALDI,
and then occasionally I will
also order some bulk items
from Sam’s Club,
especially paper products.
And sometimes if ALDI
doesn’t have everything
or I need a specialty item,
I’ll do Kroger, Target,
something like that.
So let’s go ahead and do our ALDI.
You just select the store
that you’re ordering from.
If you want to order from
multiple stores, you can do that.
You would just keep
switching between the stores,
and you check out with
each one individually.
So that’s how that works.
You’re not searching through a database
of all the different stores at once.
So here I am in ALDI.
And for ALDI, I have the
choice of delivery or pickup.
I always do delivery.
I just want it to show
up right at my door.
And it tells me right there
that it will be available
within two hours,
so that way I kinda know
how quickly I can get it.
And for me recently,
almost always they’ve
come within two hours.
Occasionally, and
especially at the beginning
of the pandemic months
ago, it would take longer.
And I can scroll through here,
and it’s showing me things
that I have already purchased on here,
which I think is just
super, super convenient.
So those are things you’re most likely
to wanna rebuy and buy again.
So kind of what I do is I
usually just go through this list
and really quickly add the things
that I know that I want to my cart
before I even look at
my list or plan a meal
or anything like that.
So I’m just gonna go
ahead and do that now.
It just adds it right there.
You don’t even have to open them up.
Now, you can if you wanna
look at more details,
nutritional label, something like that.
You can also do this easily on your phone.
I usually do it on my computer.
But there’s a lot of
things that you can see.
And then if you wanna add more than one,
you just keep clicking to up the quantity.
So I want two of these.
Was able to do that.
If you mouse, if you click this,
and you wanted to take
it out of your cart,
you would do it like that.
So it’s really easy to
add things to your cart.
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All right, now that I’ve gone through
and just kind of looked at the items
that I have purchased in the past
and just to see
what I wanna add to my cart,
then I go through my shopping list,
and I just check off
anything that I’ve added.
I know this might seem kind of backwards,
but I can remember what I just added.
And I just like getting
a whole bunch of stuff
off the list at once.
Okay, and then I’m gonna go through
and just search for the other
things that are on our list.
And these are…
We just kind of keep a list up as we go.
If there’s something we need,
we add it so I always know
that whatever we need is there.
And some of the things I’m skipping
because I already know that that’s an item
that ALDI does not sell.
I do think keeping your
grocery list up with our Alexa,
that works really well for us.
We can just say, “Hey, add
this to our grocery list.”
But even if you don’t have that,
keeping an ongoing list is
just a huge sanity saver.
In terms of time, you already
have that ready to go,
and also in terms of
not forgetting something
that you really need.
Can’t remember if ALDI
has coffee pods or not.
I think they do.
So these are their version
of RO-TEL tomatoes.
And then he wants just diced tomatoes.
We need chili powder.
So it’s so much faster to do this
than it is to go throughout the store.
And I feel like you can actually look
at their selection better
because you don’t have
other people around you,
and you’re not trying to hurry,
and you can just look at
everything that they have.
Now, ALDI has much less of a
selection than most stores,
but still I like that.
Okay, so once I have done that,
then I will make a meal plan.
So I will just write down,
usually on my chalkboard in my entry.
I’ll write down the meals
that we have planned for that week.
And I will go through
my recipes and make sure
that we have all the specific ingredients
that we need for that.
So for this, I know I already
have a lot of the ingredients,
but I need the carrots and the celery.
I wanna point out that
you can also kinda browse
like you would in the store.
So if you just wanna look
for all the different snacks,
you can still kind of look
through the same way you would
in the store.
You can view everything together.
So that’s still an option for you.
I feel like most people kinda know
what theY want already and just search,
but if you’re just wanting to browse,
hey, what snacks do I want, you
can totally do that as well.
So now I am ready to check out,
so I just go to the shopping cart,
and and it brings up everything
that I have in my cart
so I can do a quick review
and make sure these are
all things that I want.
I can see what my total is
and adjust it if needed.
This all looks good to me, so
I just click Go to Checkout.
Sometimes it’ll give you
other recommendations.
And again, it’s kind of saying,
“Hey, are you sure you have everything?”
A lot of times it’ll put things like,
“Other people who added these
to your cart also added these.”
Sometimes I look through.
Most of the time I don’t
need anything else,
but a couple times it has
alerted me to something
that I actually forgot to put in my cart,
so that’s been kinda handy.
Then you can choose your delivery time.
And so you could do this in advance, like,
hey, if you know I want my
groceries delivered in two days,
you can schedule it out.
Or you can just choose
the quickest option,
which is most of the time what I do.
If you have any special
delivery instructions,
like a gate code or something like that,
you can leave them here.
During the pandemic time,
they default to just they
leave it at your door
so you don’t actually
have to have any contact.
And they’ve always for me,
actually they leave it at the
door and ring the doorbell.
Plus, it notifies me in the app
so I know that they’ve left it
so it’s not gonna sit out there.
So then I just click Continue.
I’m double-checking my
personal information,
and then I click Place order.
Now, as soon as I have done this,
my order will be on its
way and be coming to me.
But a little tip that I have is
to take it to the next step.
So it’ll tell you how
many hours you’ve saved.
It says I’ve saved 43 hours,
and I can actually believe it.
It really does save a lot of time.
And I’ve used this quite a bit.
It still is giving you an
opportunity to add things.
So you can actually add things at any time
until they start shopping your order,
and they’ll let you know when that is.
So that’s one thing, if
you place your order,
and then 20 minutes later you realize,
“Oh, I wanted to make
this,” or “I forgot this,”
you can totally add them in.
So I find that that is super handy,
and sometimes I just like
browsing through the things
that they have suggested
to see if there’s anything
that I might enjoy
that I didn’t add to my cart.
And then the most important
thing here is to click Next,
and this is the beauty of Instacart,
and this is something that if
you’re not familiar with it,
you might overlook, and this
will save you a lot of trouble.
All right, so when your
shoppers are shopping,
both before and during the pandemic,
but even more so during the pandemic,
things would be out of stock.
Just like when you go to ALDI,
something may be out of stock.
And they will do their best
to replace it with something
that makes logical sense.
So if you had regular mozzarella cheese,
they might replace it with
an Italian blend of cheese
or something like that.
And usually they do a pretty good job,
but sometimes there’s not
really a good equivalent.
So what I like to do is take
the extra time and go in here,
and I can say,
“Yes, definitely replace
this with the Mexican blend,”
or I can look for what
my other options are.
So these are the two things
that they have for me.
Yes, I would take organic
if they were out of that.
So I’m able to customize this,
and then if I like it,
I just click Approve.
I’m gonna show all the items.
This really doesn’t take long.
And the other thing that
you can do if you’re like,
“I don’t wanna go through and
do that for all the items”
is if there’s something that you know,
hey, I really don’t want this substituted,
then go ahead and say, “Don’t replace.”
Like this one is defaulting
to just don’t replace it.
If that’s the only kind
of mini snack packs
that my kid likes, I can
say, “Just don’t replace it.”
And in this case for this one,
we only want the ones
with the green chilies,
so I’m gonna say, “Don’t replace it.”
If they don’t have it, they just…
They’ll refund it.
This I would be fine with.
These are automatically approved.
Yeah, I’d be fine with this one.
This one I do not want to be substituted.
You can also do this
on your phone as well,
so you don’t have to just
do it on the computer.
I think it’s also defaulting
to things that I have chosen in the past,
so it kinda knows that.
I don’t think that ALDI has
any other types of water,
so just plain water,
so I wouldn’t want them to replace that.
Yeah, and it’s definitely choosing,
defaulting to the things
that I have already
told it in the past to,
if they don’t have sour cream,
always replace it with
nonfat Greek yogurt.
So it remember what you’ve done
and saves you so much time.
And then this one, I think
it’s saying, “Don’t refund,”
because in the past I said,
“Nope, that’s all I want.”
Now, this, I would take
another type of potato
if they did not have russet potatoes.
So I just think this is an
amazing feature of Instacart
and something I did not know at first,
and so it’s been super helpful.
And again, if you don’t do this,
they’ll still shop your
order and do their best,
but this is just an optional step,
especially if you feel
like you’re fairly picky
about what you get.
This one, I know that
there’s another vinegar,
so I would be happy to take
that instead, the larger one.
And then I just say Looks Good.
Perfect.
I also think it’s interesting
they’ve recently done gift cards.
I think this would be an
amazing gift for someone,
someone who can’t get out as well,
maybe you just had surgery
or something like that,
someone who can’t get out as
much because of the pandemic,
someone who just had a baby
or something like that.
It’s hard to get out and shop.
I think this would be amazing.
And for anyone, it’s just nice
to have someone bring your
groceries every now and again.
Now that I’ve done this, I
can still go in if I want to,
and I know that I have another
store that I wanna shop at.
I’ll just click there, and
I’ll go shop the next store
and get that delivered as well.
And it’ll also tell me what the status is.
And on the app, it tells me that as well,
and it will pop up with
little notifications
whenever they’ve started shopping.
Whenever they do make a
substitution, it’ll pop that up.
And so if I had forgotten
to go do that step,
I could intervene right then
if I’m watching my phone
and say, “Hey, please don’t do that.”
You can actually
communicate through the app
with your shopper directly.
So if you see that they
substituted something
and you don’t want that,
you can communicate with them directly,
which I think is super useful.
It’s not like you can never talk to them,
and so that they can get you
exactly what you would like.
I hope this has helped give you some ideas
on how you can grocery shop from home.
If you plan to try this method of shopping
or if you’ve already tried it,
why don’t you leave me a
comment and let me know
that you’re gonna try it
or let me know what your
experience has been?
And be sure to click the link down below
to sign up for Instacart for yourself.
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