I hate Wal-Mart.
Hate. It.
In fact, right after Ryker was born they refused to honor a
coupon for formula (one of the Similac checks they send in the mail…) so I
stopped shopping there for like 18 months. But, their savings catcher app
brought me back to the dark side and I begrudgingly started buying about half
of our monthly groceries there.
I also hate grocery shopping in general. Not the meal
planning and list making part, but the actual going-into-the-store-and-dealing-with-people-and-waiting-in-line
part. So I was intrigued when a friend posted a video of her review of the Wal-Mart
grocery pickup. She gave me a $10 referral, so I thought I’d try it out just to
save $10 off my grocery bill.
And I’m kind of in love.
The basic idea is this: you order your groceries or whatever
online or on the app, schedule a time to pick it up, show up at your scheduled
place and time, and a lovely Wal-Mart employee brings your groceries out to
your car. It’s like magic!
I mean, what mom wants to take 2+ hours out of her already
busy day to go grocery shopping? Personally, I am at work 40+ hours a week, 2
of the weekdays I’m gone from sunup to sundown, evenings & weekends are spent
cooking/cleaning/bathing kids. Who in their right mind would say “no” to
freeing up an hour or more on the weekend? Certainly not me.
Here are my thoughts:
Pros:
- Saves time. Not only am I not having to actually do the shopping. I don’t
have to deal with a toddler’s dawdling. I really don’t want to be the mom who
is always hollering at her kid to hurry up and I try to encourage Ryker to
observe and explore his surroundings and he LOVES to help… which means pretty
much anything we do together automatically takes twice as long.
- Saves money because I’m not impulse buying!!!! Saving money is kind of a huge
thing right now while we’re trying to save up for a new baby & my unpaid
maternity leave
- I don’t have to bring my kid inside and deal with a 3 year old’s temper tantrum
for whatever reason. Also, see “saves time” above.
- I don’t really have to interact with many people (totally get road rage in
the aisles).
- It’s a free service for now.
Cons:
- Not every store offers this service. The closest one to me was 30 minutes
away, so I still had to spend an hour driving, plus the gas spent may cancel
out my savings in the long run.
- I can’t pick out everything myself. The strawberries I got ended up having
mold on them. This isn’t the shoppers fault. I would’ve probably picked the
same pack of strawberries. Honestly I’m going to chalk this up to Wal-Mart’s
poor produce selection. Should’ve stuck with Publix for the produce.
- I’m not sure if they take coupons.
- The popular pickup times go fast. If you’re going to do this, order your
items a few days in advance to guarantee a good time.
- There’s a $30 minimum so you can’t use it for just grabbing a few items. We
don’t usually do “quick trips” at Wal-Mart though so this isn’t an issue for me
although it could be for some people.
Will I use it again? Probably. Especially since my life is about
to get exponentially more hectic while we adjust to becoming a family of 4.
Will I use it every week? Probably not… unless they expand this service to a
store closer to me. But, this service has persuaded me to use Wal-Mart more
often.
I’m surprised to be typing this, but good job, Wal-Mart. Now,
let’s work on treating your employees better.
