An ode to Peapod

First up, this is an unsolicited article. No one is paying, pushing or promoting me to write this piece.

Here is my typical grocery shopping experience;

Grocery shopping experience diagram -multiple ways to waste

I will admit, I am very impressed with people who can clip coupons, keep a price book and then find everything on their list, in exactly the right size, in a massive store with an average and ever changing 47,000 items in the store. I have tried many times and repeatedly failed at doing so.

We kept seeing a Peapod truck at the neighbor’s house each week. We quietly snickered and thought even though they are super frugal on everything else they had a hidden weakness.

My interest was piqued so we tried an experiment with this online grocery thing. We intentionally keep detailed records so it was easy to load a Peapod cart online and compare to last weeks grocery expenses.

Oh man was it easy to find stuff. They have a search engine! And it was certainly educational. For example, the two red peppers I buy each and every week have gone up from 50 cents in the summer to almost $4 in the winter.  Green peppers will do just fine and only cost a buck.

That kind of real-time-pricing-feedback adds up – in our case to $50 less than we normally spend (that would be $2,400 a year). So we went crazy and got the Peapod meal kits (all the ingredients in a box). And it was *still* $20 cheaper and we will waste less food as a result. Hmm.

A few months in we found we saved about $300 a month on groceries. And this probably points more to my ineffectiveness as a shopper and my susceptibility to “buy it now while supplies last” sales. Know thyself.

If you end up trying this or a similar service I would love to know how it works out for you – or if it doesn’t. And if you are inclined to do so please use my Peapod referral link and hook me up with free (Green) Bell Peppers for an upcoming stir fry. Woot!