Like many here I cook from scratch most days because I like healthy food- taught my kids to do the same and how to shop smart/use a budget. Like my DH and I my kids sometimes go out to restaurants but almost never order out. I dislike takeout.
However, in other parts of my life I do pay for convenience- as in we have a lawn service which I’m grateful for- someone else may think that’s a waste of $. But, I can easily afford it and after years and years of doing this weekly chore decided I want to pay someone to do it for me.
I don’t like to have groceries delivered because I buy a lot of produce and other perishable food (meat, eggs etc.) that I want to pick out myself. I wouldn’t trust the paid shoppers to be as picky as I am.
Also I like to shop at several different stores and the farmers market near us.
I am the OP on this – my neighbors have two small kids, just got a puppy. had a couple cats.
absolutely everything is delivered. Clean clothes, meal service or doordash, animal stuff via chewy, random groceries from the grocery store that is 4 minutes away. They have a lawn guy for the .33 acre lot. A cleaning lady. The grandparents come twice a month. They hired a trainer for the puppy.
I know all this bc the SAHM told me. Because otherwise she “doesn’t know how she’d raise two kids, it’s so much work”.
yes, everyone makes their own choices. I think of how we did it all on our own, because there was no money for any other choice. Is it terrible or immoral, of course not! But gosh it gives me pause when they are complaining that they can’t “afford” X Y or Z.
We have a weekly farmers market here in the summer. As much as I want to support it, the produce is spoiled by the next day. I usually end up buying pickles but our garden was overrun with cucumbers this summer and H has been making refrigerator pickles like crazy.
Is this young neighbor actually complaining about what they can’t afford or are you generalizing that some people are complaining they can’t afford things but are paying for things that you chose not to when you were their age? Maybe they can afford their lifestyle.
Each generation does things differently. Looking back on my young parent stage I now wish I would have paid for some conveniences. Both my H and I would often say we can’t do that, our parents didn’t!
No, they are not complaining, and even if they were, that’s certainly their right (both to spend or charge what they want to, AND complain about the outcome). I was unclear: seeing them in action makes me wonder if other people their age, puzzled by why they don’t have enough money for X Y Z , are perhaps living a similar kind of experience where they are choosing convenience now rather than savings for later. It does seem like they literally aren’t aware that you can learn to cook, you can tolerate a messy house, you can pick the groceries up for free, etc…
I go shopping on the weekends or my H does or one of kids does to help out if they’re home. I was lucky that my H was willing to help and my kids were expected to help out with dinner when they were/are living at home (starting when they were old enough to help set and clear the table as kids). One thing that helped/helps us with convenience is we don’t necesarily have a big elaborate meal every night. Sometimes we just have sandwiches, sometimes just a salad from a salad kit, sometimes we have leftovers, sometimes cheese and crackers and veggies and dip. We are willing to pay more for salad kits, prepared food at the grocery store and stuff from the deli. We do eat out once or twice a week, but we don’t get take out much. We usually go the restaurant to pick up or just go out. We got take out one night and if it wasn’t for the delivery fee and tip it wouldn’t have been that much…
Unless it’s an emergency trip for something… “Ack… I’m in the middle of making dinner and I don’t have X! can you run to the store 0.5 mile away and get it?” we always go together. We take two carts. H goes his way and gets his stuff. I go my way and get mine. We meet at the end. After 30+ years of this, it’s pretty rare that we will pick up the same item. I get the stuff for my breakfast/lunches, he gets his, I get the dinner stuff. Toiletries, it depends on the item. Stuff we both use, we ask on the way there “Will you get X?”
I don’t remember exactly when we started doing this, but I remember walking around the grocery store with him about killed me. He was SO SLOW. He couldn’t just pick a box of cereal. He had to debate which one… and then that wasn’t enough. He had to look at EACH BOX and pick out the “best one.” OMG. Just grab and go! I am 95% sure he has given up this habit at least. But then once we had 2 kids, it was also easier to divide them up too.
Sunday is our big shopping day so everything is ready for the week. We do a smaller one on Wednesday, aka “Walmart Wednesday” for anything odd that we might need…
I can definitely see how ordering groceries online could be cheaper in the long run. Fewer impulse purchases. I believe the kids have mentioned this too. But H LIKES going shopping, so he’d never let it go.
He also will NOT get take out. He must eat it in the restaurant, fast food establishment. So I don’t see any Door Dash in our future either.
And gosh how I WISH H would do just salads or cheese and crackers for dinner. There MUST be lots of protein. Now that he works some nights (retirement job), I am LOVING only having ME to take care off a couple of nights a week.
I really wish some of this had been around when I was working and raising small children! It would have been wonderful to have had groceries, diapers, etc. delivered to our door. I would have loved being able to deposit checks through an app on my phone, as well as all of the other things you can do on line now. I sure don’t begrudge any young people for taking advantage.
We (H and I) get Blue Apron delivery and cook most of the rest of our meals. That’s a preference, H likes to cook, I don’t but I like fresh, healthy food so we split the cooking. I hired cleaning help as a mom with a job outside of the home, and when I returned to work after several years at home, I hired a cleaning service again. Due to medical issues, I now have a cleaning service even though we are both retired. It’s worth it .
I can see DoorDash, etc. or grocery delivery as very helpful for someone with young kids, particularly single parent or only parent home at the time. When my 3 kids were young I loved to go pickup takeout or groceries while H stayed home because it was rare alone time.
I was doing this for a while through a service like Instacart. However, the price of every item is marked up. Often the veggies or meat selected for me was borderline close to expiration date. There were no pick up fees, but Instacart always ”holds” like $20 more than total in case of price variation and promises to refund in a week or two but I never could find the time to make sure that was refunded.
Now I just make a list on the supermarket app so it tells me exactly which aisle my item is located. I make a menu for the week beforehand so I’m not buying extra stuff. I do use things like ready to cook meals to save on prep because when you get home at 5pm you just want to get dinner made quickly. We always do take out or eat out Fri and Sat.
Instacart has in store prices with some grocers. like Walmart and Sprouts, and has increased prices over sticker with other stores like Costco. You can give instructions to shopper about expiration date. I’ve never seen any kind of hold, unless you mean pending charges. My experience was having multiple pending charges such as one for $48, 45, and $42; and only the $42 goes through the next day. The other 2 get cancelled.
Over the past ~1 year, I started using grocery delivery for the first time I initially started because I had a new Amex credit card that gave $15/month Uber credit. After trying grocery delivery out, I quickly discovered the benefits, including opportunities for financial savings. I plan to continue with grocery delivery from time to time, even if I don’t have the $15/month credit.
If you order online delivery groceries at default sticker price, costs are often higher than in store (some are not, such as Walmart with Instacart mentioned above); and fees + tips increase costs even higher beyond that inflated sticker prices. So many persons who use online grocery delivery do have much increased net costs. However, savings over in store are also quite possible, as promotional offers within the app can surpass these increased sticker price costs. I never order from Uber Eats unless I have a 50% off type coupon, which are given to me at least 2x per month. And I usually stack that 50% off with the $15/month Uber credit. I regularly see the same type of 40-50% off deal from Instacart. Vons has them too from time to time. Walmart+ doesn’t have 40-50% off coupons, but it does have in store prices without additional fees. There are also savings in terms of gas, wear on car, and time. The latter time savings should not be ignored when comparing to shopping in store. I like having the ability to be able to shop for groceries while I am in a meeting for work (work from home), and have the groceries waiting to be used for lunch, when meeting is over.
In my experience downsides primarily relate to shoppers doing an inferior job than I would do myself. For example, I try minimize ordering any kind of unpackaged fresh fruit via shopper since they rarely choose the fruit I would. In fairness, which fruit I’d choose can be complicated to explain to a shopper. I might want bananas that are mix of different greenness, so they will be freshest at different times of week. And if the bananas in greenness + size I want are not available, then I’d vary the number of bananas I pick up and might choose a different fruit instead. It’s also fairly common for items I order to be out of stock, with substitutes given instead. Delivery services are well aware of this problem. Shopper will contact you, if something is out of stock. Some services will give full refund, if shopper selected substitute is not desired. Some permit shoppers to give substitute with $0 charge, if selected item is not in stock.
My experience is many shoppers go out of their way, which may relate to trying to increase chance of tip. For example, on my last order I mentioned the shopper should choose milk with later expiration if multiple are available. He chose lactose-free at no extra charge, which adds an extra ~2 months to expiration. In the previous trip, the frozen vegetables I wanted were not available. We had a good sized discussion about which ones to substitute. He structured the item change such that I was only charged for 1 of the 5 frozen vegetable bags.
In my experience, it may take some tries to get used to to the different system, but there can be advantages. I’m glad I have the option to using delivery, even though I don’t choose to do so on every trip.
I did not know this. I always use Wegmans. Sometimes I don’t mind the pick up or even delivery from time to time depending on what’s happening in our life, even with higher prices, but sometimes it just works well to shop - for example, I always have time between dropping my kid off at an activity and picking her up on the weekend.
I do wonder how our shopping/cooking habits will change when we’re empty nesters. Because my husband is easy, he will eat anything. And I’m content eating scrambled eggs for dinner! I’ve also thought how nice it would be to pick up fresh fish during the week - something I don’t do now due to busy schedule and picky teen tastes.
I live by myself, so it’s hard to cook for one person. I order my groceries from Freshdirect. Their produce last longer than Trader Joe’s or most grocery stores. I order their 4 minute meals (salmon, chicken, meatballs)and various salads (chicken Caesar, roast beef, Italian). They are around $10-12 each. They are fresh, easy and no waste (single serving).
I order wine, drugs, clothes, household goods online and they are all delivered right to my place. I can do all of that at work or at night when I am not busy.
I know I am paying for delivery and tipping, but not having to spend an hour or two at a grocery store or carrying those things to my apartment is really priceless to me. I started to get everything delivered during Covid and there is no going back for me now.
D1 is a young mom with a demanding job. She gets everything delivered, and probably eat/order out more often than not. She also has a nanny and cleaner. I don’t think she could make it work if she didn’t have all that help. I do wish we had all that conveniences when I was raising my kids.
I agree with this, so no posts should be taken as judgement of anyone else.
In our case, DH and I run our kitchen as a private restaurant. We love to cook and grocery shop, and our fridge and pantry are full of ingredients rather than prepared foods. Though it’s only the two of us now, we do not modify recipes. If a recipe yields for 6, that’s what we make. The leftovers become our convenience meals later that week. Or, we purposely double recipes to freeze for later enjoyment, basically making and stocking our own “prepared” foods. It’s always been that way even when we were raising our son, DH was on the road, and I had a full-time job. I don’t think we’ve ever had food delivered to our door, not even pizza as we enjoy making our own. We don’t do take-out either. This works for us because we love to cook. If we didn’t, I’m sure we’d take advantage of some forms of outsourcing.
I was also raised to not pay for anything you can do yourself, so DH and I have become quite adept at things many others farm out and have saved bundles over the years. (I’m painting our kitchen cabinets at the moment.) Again, we do this because we can and we enjoy it. If we didn’t, we’d make other choices.
In general, though, I think many folks, especially young people, are unaware of how much many of these convenience habits really cost. IMO, there is a significant distinction between what you can pay for and what you can afford and understanding that distinction sooner rather than later can make a meaningful difference in one’s financial picture over time.
Haven’t we been buying convenience for generations? We didn’t have washer/dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, car, AC, heat…before. We invented all of those things to make our lives easier. I am sure when people started buying those things the older generation shook their heads and thought the younger generation was wasting their money. Now we have AI and robots to do a lot of mundane stuff for us, and it is to give us more leisure time to do what we enjoy. I very much do embrace living in a world of convenience because it gives me more time and time is priceless.
In many cases, the cost is far less than previous generation’s alternative. As an example, one economists calculated how cost of lighting has changed over time. A summary is below, converted to 2024 $. The paper was published in the 1990s. I added the 2024 entry, using average cost of electricity in US and stats for a random bulb at Home Depot. It seems that with each new generation, it costs less to light a room than it did for the previous generation. Convenience also improved with each generation. It’s far more convenient to screw in a LED bulb and have it last for 100,000 hours than light and replace candles several times per night in each room.
It’s a similar idea for travel. People may complain about the cost and inconvenience of traveling across the county, but it’s minuscule compared to previous generations. Even in generations for which air travel was available, price has dropped with each generation, and convenience of air travel has improved. One review found:
Cost of Flight from LA to Boston (2024 $)
1940 – $4500 (12 stops)
1978 – $900 (5 stops)
2014 – $400 (direct flight)
2024 – $120
When cost does increase from previous generation, it often involves an optional new convenience that was not previously available, so there is not a comparable equivalent in previous generation. For example, you mentioned A/C. It is usually cheaper to run fans than turn on A/C, but they don’t cool to comparable degrees when exterior temperature is hot. If you compare the alternative to having A/C in hot southern state as going north for the summer, designing a house with an open flowing air plan, cost of medical issues/death related to heat, … I would not be surprised if A/C comes out ahead.
. I do a lot of semi cooking with convenience foods. So, for example, I buy boneless skinless chicken breasts. Broil with salt and pepper. Then microwave a Trader Joe’s pad Thai and cut up the chicken into it. Add some prewashed veggies which I heat up
Or bagged lettuce and salmon portions. I threw some soy marinade on the salmon and broil til the top is caramelized. Put on top the lettuce with a homemade dressing that I make every three weeks and takes literally 5 minutes . 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar. 2 tbs Dijon. 4 Tbs honey. Some salt, pepper and garlic. Blend and then add 1 cup olive oil while blending. Store in a glass jar with lid.
Since covid catapulted me to online ordering and delivery, now pickup. I no longer impulse buy in grocery stores and we eat more fresh food.
I order online, drive there, do a free pickup, drive home, and put the groceries away. One hour total. I don’t consider it a chore I cannot stand.
D lives on a college campus and the food court selections are unbelievable compared to the ones H and I experienced years Ago! Tofu, gluten free, non dairy, huge salad bar, Thai and Indian choices. Everyone pays for a meal plan. Yet, she reports, Grub Hub is doing quite a brisk business on campus.