A goodly part of my grocery shopping these days is done via Instacart. It’s come in handy since I broke my ankle. It comes in handy when I want to go to few places that are not doctors’ offices or comic conventions…but actually, I began using Instacart when a lot of us did, which was when COVID complicated the idea of going to a market. Some friends of mine think having your groceries delivered is more expensive and it is…a little. But Instacart also allows me to save some bucks by comparison shopping.
Here’s an example. This is all about the 8.5 ounce size of Rao’s Chicken Parmesan you can find in most markets’ freezer cases. It’s a nice thing to have in one’s home freezer for those occasional moments when there’s nothing else in your fridge that feels lunchable to you, not even a package of Lunchables®. But it’s a little pricey, especially when you don’t look around for the best price…which is easy to do online via Instacart. Here are the markets that serve my area and carry this item in this size. And here’s what they charge for one of these…
- Sprout’s Farmers Market – $5.99
- Gelson’s – $6.99
- Co-Opportunity Market – $7.19
- Bristol Farms – $7.39
- Pickford Market – $8.19
- Vicente Foods – $8.29
- Von’s, Albertson’s, Pavilions (which are all one company) – $8.49
- Lazy Acres – $9.99
Also, Amazon Fresh sells it for $4.99 but to not have to pay an exorbitant delivery fee, my order from them would have to be $100 or over so forget that.
Maybe you already knew how much prices can vary in markets but until I started ordering online, I didn’t realize how much. Now, I can have it all laid out neatly for me on the screen. Sometimes, there’s a variance even greater than the one above.
The next step is that someone will invent an app — maybe there already is something like this — where you type in a list of what you want to buy. Then it scans local merchants and tells you “The least expensive way to order these is to order these five items from Market A and these seven items from Market B.
Then the step after that would be for the app to have little pop-up windows where you order something you crave for dinner and you suddenly see the face of a nutritionist scolding you and saying, “Do you know how many calories are in that? Do you know how much that would spike your blood sugar? You’re pre-diabetic, you fool!” Then you could not purchase the item and save even more money.
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