For many reasons, Steven & I decided to give Coborns Delivers a try for our groceries.
#1 Reason: We are lazy...kidding...kidding...(sort of).
The Truth: It's difficult with a baby (particularly one who loves to scream) to get to the grocery store every week. This sticky situation is exacerbated by the fact that both Steven and I work full time, so once both of us have arrived home from work with M.D. in tow, and we have made dinner, and we have fed M.D., changed M.D., given M.D. lots of love & attention, we find it to be 8pm...time to put M.D., and soon ouselves, to bed. So when was that grocery store trip going to fit in? Oh yeah..it's not!
The third reason it is nearly impossible to get to the grocery store on a weekly basis is the cart situation. Those of you with infants still in infant carseats can sympathize. The safest place to carry your infant (in carseat) in the store is in the large/main part of the cart itself. It's not logical to think you will carry the infant carrier throughout the store and push your cart with the other hand. It is also a feat of magical balance to get the baby carrier to stay put when hosited up on top of the "child seat" section of the cart. So you're best option is to put baby in the carseat in the cart. So where should the food go? OH wait...we're already out of room. So now you have the option to get another cart. A cart for food. So you have a cart for baby and a cart for food. And 2 hands. This should be simple right? Wrong.
Needless to say after 4.5 months of trying to figure out the grocery shopping situation and endless nights of take-out and finding out what Steven's mother is making for dinner (and does she have extra...??) we thought we'd give grocery delivery a shot. Out first delivery came Saturday morning and I have a little review prepared below:
Pros:
(There are lots of them...in my opinion)
1) Convenience (Umm...you don't have to take a baby to the grocery store...HELLO!!!)
2) Ease of Use (The website is easy to figure out and you can add/delete items in the shopping cart until you are ready to check out)
3) Check-out to Delivery Time (Our delivery day was set as Saturday Feb 9th between 8am-12pm....I had until Friday Feb 8th at 11pm to finalize my order...that's pretty slick!)
4) No Novelty Shopping (Or maybe I should say less novelty shopping. Without the large store displays to catch my eye I was less inclined to buy random shit that I won't ever really want or need to eat.)
5) Coupons (Now I'm no extreme couponer by any means but if I have a coupon for something I actually need I will be using it. Through the website you can use any coupons you have and then you just hand them to the delivery man when he brings your food...slick!)
6) Price Comparison (This is on the pro & con list. It's on the pro list because I found the prices to be very comparable to grocery store prices. Some items were more or less than Cub or Walmart BUT they all balanced out pretty evenly.)
7) Delivery Charge (I would never think I'd put something with the word "charge" on a pro-list, however, this makes the list because there is none..for the first 90 days. Then after 90 days you only pay $5 for delivery if your order is over $100...which is always for us.)
Cons:
1) Those Damn Bins (When your food gets delivered to your house they bring it in these big tote/bins...they kind of look like recycling bins with covers. They don't do a stellar job of packing the bins so you end up with a lot more containers than probably needed. The way it works is then you save your empty bins and give them back to Coborns when they deliver your next load. This would not be annoying if they didn't bring SO MANY BINS!!!)
2) Price Comparison (I know there are food items that I paid more for because I got them from Coborns versus Walmart or Cub...but that's the trade-off sometimes. Was it worth it to spend maybe an extra $.40 on a bag of PopChips to not have to warm up my car, load M.D. in the car, drive to the store, unload M.D. from the car, grab my necessary 2 carts, fly through the store (potentially feed, change a diaper, etc. while shopping), wait in line with potentially screaming baby, check out, load everyone and everything back in the car and then re-unload when we get home.....YES!!! TAKE MY $.40 COBORNS YOU ARE A GOD SEND!!!)
I'd recommend at least checking out their website to see if they deliver to your area. The free delivery for 90 days really means you can't lose. Order as much or as little as you prefer and see if it's worth it for you too!
#1 Reason: We are lazy...kidding...kidding...(sort of).
The Truth: It's difficult with a baby (particularly one who loves to scream) to get to the grocery store every week. This sticky situation is exacerbated by the fact that both Steven and I work full time, so once both of us have arrived home from work with M.D. in tow, and we have made dinner, and we have fed M.D., changed M.D., given M.D. lots of love & attention, we find it to be 8pm...time to put M.D., and soon ouselves, to bed. So when was that grocery store trip going to fit in? Oh yeah..it's not!
The third reason it is nearly impossible to get to the grocery store on a weekly basis is the cart situation. Those of you with infants still in infant carseats can sympathize. The safest place to carry your infant (in carseat) in the store is in the large/main part of the cart itself. It's not logical to think you will carry the infant carrier throughout the store and push your cart with the other hand. It is also a feat of magical balance to get the baby carrier to stay put when hosited up on top of the "child seat" section of the cart. So you're best option is to put baby in the carseat in the cart. So where should the food go? OH wait...we're already out of room. So now you have the option to get another cart. A cart for food. So you have a cart for baby and a cart for food. And 2 hands. This should be simple right? Wrong.
Needless to say after 4.5 months of trying to figure out the grocery shopping situation and endless nights of take-out and finding out what Steven's mother is making for dinner (and does she have extra...??) we thought we'd give grocery delivery a shot. Out first delivery came Saturday morning and I have a little review prepared below:
Pros:
(There are lots of them...in my opinion)
1) Convenience (Umm...you don't have to take a baby to the grocery store...HELLO!!!)
2) Ease of Use (The website is easy to figure out and you can add/delete items in the shopping cart until you are ready to check out)
3) Check-out to Delivery Time (Our delivery day was set as Saturday Feb 9th between 8am-12pm....I had until Friday Feb 8th at 11pm to finalize my order...that's pretty slick!)
4) No Novelty Shopping (Or maybe I should say less novelty shopping. Without the large store displays to catch my eye I was less inclined to buy random shit that I won't ever really want or need to eat.)
5) Coupons (Now I'm no extreme couponer by any means but if I have a coupon for something I actually need I will be using it. Through the website you can use any coupons you have and then you just hand them to the delivery man when he brings your food...slick!)
6) Price Comparison (This is on the pro & con list. It's on the pro list because I found the prices to be very comparable to grocery store prices. Some items were more or less than Cub or Walmart BUT they all balanced out pretty evenly.)
7) Delivery Charge (I would never think I'd put something with the word "charge" on a pro-list, however, this makes the list because there is none..for the first 90 days. Then after 90 days you only pay $5 for delivery if your order is over $100...which is always for us.)
Cons:
1) Those Damn Bins (When your food gets delivered to your house they bring it in these big tote/bins...they kind of look like recycling bins with covers. They don't do a stellar job of packing the bins so you end up with a lot more containers than probably needed. The way it works is then you save your empty bins and give them back to Coborns when they deliver your next load. This would not be annoying if they didn't bring SO MANY BINS!!!)
2) Price Comparison (I know there are food items that I paid more for because I got them from Coborns versus Walmart or Cub...but that's the trade-off sometimes. Was it worth it to spend maybe an extra $.40 on a bag of PopChips to not have to warm up my car, load M.D. in the car, drive to the store, unload M.D. from the car, grab my necessary 2 carts, fly through the store (potentially feed, change a diaper, etc. while shopping), wait in line with potentially screaming baby, check out, load everyone and everything back in the car and then re-unload when we get home.....YES!!! TAKE MY $.40 COBORNS YOU ARE A GOD SEND!!!)
I'd recommend at least checking out their website to see if they deliver to your area. The free delivery for 90 days really means you can't lose. Order as much or as little as you prefer and see if it's worth it for you too!