I now do my weekly shopping online and save time and nerves

If you do your weekly shopping online, you save yourself time and nerves. (Image: stokkete – adobe.stock.com)

Having your groceries delivered is really nothing new: Rewe has been offering the service of delivering groceries, sweets and shower gel to your home for eleven years now. However, the service only really got going with the pandemic – or as in my case: afterwards.

Guys, I like going shopping. As someone who likes to cook a lot, I prefer to take care of my fruit and vegetables myself. And who doesn’t look forward to snapping up a spontaneous bargain or saving the yoghurt that is about to expire from fungal attack for a ridiculous price?

Big shopping also means stress for me. I work 40 hours a week and I only get to do the weekly shopping at peak times. We all know how unfun that can be. In addition, I have to get a car every time.

So why not use a service that does that for me?

I was still shopping during the pandemic

If only the aisles were always so empty… (Image: gopixa – stock.adobe.com)

Already in 2021 I wanted to try a delivery service, but I just stared at a busy calendar. Logically, everyone had groceries delivered during the pandemic. For two years I completely forgot about the possibility.

Until I just didn’t have time in a week to do a bulk purchase.

Out of necessity I tried it again – and was convinced. Luckily for me: Most of them went shopping again and the delivery service’s calendar was pleasantly empty at the time.

Since then, I’ve been doing more and more weekly shopping online.

How does it work?

Basically the same as with any other online shop: you look for the product you want to put in the shopping cart – and do exactly that. That’s how I work my way through my shopping list step by step.

The big advantage: If I want to buy tomatoes, I have all the variants at a glance and can choose the right one. Comparing prices is much easier than in stores.

When I’m done, I check out, find a convenient time on the calendar to collect the groceries, and that’s it. In the case of Rewe’s delivery service, the invoice and confirmation come by email, a reminder comes the day before delivery, and an SMS notifies me 15 minutes before the deliveryman’s arrival.

What happens if a product is missing? Then a replacement will be supplied. If something is not in stock, the item will be deducted from the invoice. Annoying, but you can’t always get everything in the supermarket.

As soon as you have received the bags, you can even give the supplier your empties, which will then be deducted from the bill. Waiting at the checkout is one thing, but when students block the empties machine with three garbage bags full of Red Bull cans, it’s a real test of patience.

The advantages

It has been proven that fruit and vegetables are the busiest. (Image: Solarisys – stock.adobe.com)

It saves time. I don’t have to go out after work, look for a parking space, romp around with dozens of other people over fruit and vegetables and stand in line at the empties machine and checkout. If you weigh the entering of the shopping list against the actual shopping, I easily save an hour, maybe even an hour and a half.

I don’t clog the streets. Especially in the big city after rush hour traffic, every car in front of the red traffic light costs time and nerves. I’m not one of them.

I protect the environment:

Green leaf means: A particularly large number of purchases are being delivered.

When choosing the delivery date, I always choose a time when many purchases are delivered. As a result, the supplier does not drive extra because of me, which also pays into free roads. Home office is particularly worthwhile here, which of course not everyone can take advantage of, of course.

I spare my nerves. On vacation, I love to go shopping during the weekday mornings because hardly anyone is out there. You finally have time to take a closer look at products.

In the rush hour, however, there are shopping trolleys everywhere, and the line at the meat counter is forever long. No longer a problem if you order.

I don’t add anything to the shopping cart. A new type of chip? Oh, you could try that. And why not another bottle of Fanta? In principle, the danger also exists when buying online, but here it is easier for me personally to only buy what I actually enter – and that saves real money.

The disadvantages

carry boxes? Not with me. (Image: contrastwerkstatt – adobe.stock.com)

I can’t choose fresh produce myself. This is probably more of a problem for hobby cooks. I like to hold ingredients in my hands to know what I’m going to process. Ripe mangoes or avocados can only be found by pressure testing. Here I go blindly into the arms of the buyer.

At least once it was fatal, because I received a five-kilo head of cabbage. Not only did I pay more per kilo price, my wife and I had to eat a lot of cabbage in a relatively short time (which at least wasn’t unhealthy).

Some products may be missing. Or have been replaced by other products. Not a problem for me, but I can understand if you feel like you’re being controlled by others.

I don’t do weekly bargains. I’m not a bargain hunter or a pamphleteer, but if a snapper comes my way, I’ll take it with me. There aren’t or hardly any online ones (unless I buy the same pack of butter four times).

I can only shop at one store. At least in my area I only have access to the Rewe delivery service. But if I want my favorite cheese from Edeka, I look in the tube. This is especially becoming a problem for people who want or need to go to specific stores for specific products.

Too many bags. Each time I get seven or eight paper bags. Bring me the stuff in collapsible boxes, with a deposit on top if you like, so that full boxes can be exchanged for empty boxes upon delivery, but umpteen bags isn’t the right way.

But do I save money with this now?

(Image: benjaminnolte – adobe.stock.com)

There’s no general answer to that, since prices change and I can’t directly compare online retail with local prices. When checking out, I pay about what I spent in the store.

I would say it’s balanced.

Although I don’t put anything in the shopping cart that I haven’t entered online, I don’t do spontaneous bargains such as special offers or expired products. In addition, I save gas on the way there and back, and I have not yet encountered delivery costs.

However, I don’t only shop online. You can find out here how well it works in my case to leave my wallet at home:

For me, it’s not primarily about weighing up whether I’ve spent a few euros less or more. For me, the focus is on saving time that I can use elsewhere – and that can hardly be measured in money.

In some ways, I’m often still from the old school. Going shopping is something you have to do. As with the experiment with the wallet, it cost me an effort – but I made my life easier.

I therefore recommend that you jump over your shadow and try it yourself. It frees your mind and schedule to let someone else do the shopping. In other words, you are more productive. By the way, Alana also has a few tips for you when it comes to productivity:

➡️ Why I’ve felt productive for years without really getting anything done – and why that’s not the case anymore

By the way, I still sometimes go shopping on foot. The nearest Lidl is around the corner and I alternate it with ordering groceries every week. Sometimes I prefer to choose the bananas myself. But I wouldn’t want to do without the option of the online supermarket anymore.

Doing your weekly shopping online is now easier than ever. The service has been around for years, but it was only the pandemic that really brought it to the attention of many people. Do you also use services like those from Rewe? Or do you prefer to throw yourself into the weekly turmoil on site? Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments!