Grocery Shopping In My Pajamas Was Oh-So-Fabulous

Every once in a while, something comes along that is so entirely fabulous that you might just forget for a moment how lame gas prices are.

Or, break out into extraordinarily embarrassing dance moves.

This happened to me today. In the form of grocery shopping.

Last week, our grocery store launched its online grocery shopping site where you can place an order online, then pick up your groceries at the store. In their words: You order. We shop. You pick up. I know this service has been available in other parts of the country, but never here where I live.

Well, y'all, I placed my first online grocery order last night and I just returned from picking it up. I now have a pantry and refrigerator full of groceries! The process was AWESOME. Fabulous. Life-changing fabulous. From start to finish.

It's called Mei.jer Grocery Express.

Here's how it works:

You log onto meijergroceryexpress.com, create an account, and put your groceries into a virtual grocery cart. You check out with a credit card (that doesn't get charged at that time), choose the time you'd like to pick up your groceries, and submit your order. A personal shopper (Oh heavens, how I love the sound of those two words together) then shops for your groceries and has them ready at a time you specified.

When you arrive at the designated parking area, you call the grocery express phone number and your personal shopper will come out to your car and go over any questions you have, inform you of any substitutions, verify the total with you, and ask you if there is anything else you might need.

They return inside, then bring your bagged groceries out to your car, load them up for you, swipe your card on a little handheld thingy, hand you a receipt, and that's it. The entire pick-up process took less than 10 minutes.

It was just fabulous, y'all. It was everything I hoped it would be. And more.

So, here's a little rundown of my thoughts about my experience.

The Things I Loved:

1. I can grocery shop while the kids are sleeping. From the comfort of my favorite chair. Oh, how I loved this. After I put the kids to bed last night, I made my list and entered my order. I picked up my groceries with all three kids today, and didn't have to get any of them out of the car. Fabulous, I'm telling you. Fabulous!

2. It eliminates impluse buys. Every time I go to the store, a little voice in my head says, "Sarah, look how yummy those Oreos look. You know you want 'em. You need 4 packs." Shopping online, I got exactly what I needed and only what was on my list. I saved my family money. And, my waistline an additional inch of squishiness.

3. The search feature. You can type an item into the search box (Doritos, oat nut bread, etc.), and it will come up with the matching items. Or you can search/browse by pull down categories and search that way (chips, bread, dairy, etc). I loved that if I wasn't sure what category something might fall under, that I could search for it specifically. You can also sort by price!

4. The special instructions box. You can leave special instructions for your personal shopper. For example, I like to buy 1/2 ripe bananas, and 1/2 green. So, I put that in the special instructions section. Sure enough, that's how they came. I had added a 3 lb eye round roast to my order. When my personal shopper came out to the car, she informed me that she substituted (2) 2lb roasts and asked me if that would be ok. The service, y'all. It was fantastic.

5. Each item that is on sale that week is labeled as a weekly sale item. So, as you're entering your order, you can see which brands/items are on sale. Of course, this correlates with the online weekly sale flyer, so I did what I normally do. I browsed the flyer and made a grocery list. But, instead of heading out to the store, I just entered everything online and submitted my order.

6. You can set your substitution preferences. Let's say the brand of jelly you usually buy is out of stock. You can set your preferences to "substitute the store brand" so that you're still sure to get the item. Or, you can choose "no substitutions" and the shopper will simply not purchase that item. Incidentally, they weren't out of stock on any of my items.

7. Add item to list. You can choose any of the items in a current or past order to add to a grocery list. This list is then accessible every time you login. The next time you go to put in an order, you can select any of the items on your list and automatically add them to you cart. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this. I purchase so many of the same things each week that this will be a huge time saver for me.

Things to Note:

1. This service costs $6.95 per order, or $25/month for unlimited trips. It was worth every penny to me (I did the $6.95 this time, but will probably end up doing the monthly fee).

2. You currently cannot use coupons with this service.

3. There is only one location currently offering this service. It happens to be only 15 minutes away from my house - about the same distance as the location where I usually shop. WOO HOO!

I am SO excited, y'all. It's just such a great service for Moms with young kids. For anyone, really. For those of you who live around these parts, feel free to ask me any questions you might have in the comments, and I'll respond there if I know the answer. For those of you who don't have this service available in your area, I bet it will be coming to a grocery store near you very soon! :)

I'm off to enjoy my newly stocked kitchen. Party on.