7 excellent reasons you want to order groceries online

7 excellent reasons you want to order groceries online

More and more stores are offering the convenience of online grocery shopping with either curbside pickup or full delivery right to your door. And even though there is a service fee involved, here are 7 excellent reasons you want to order groceries online – especially this holiday season. Of course, I always advocate using coupons to save as much as you can, and using coupons for online grocery shopping can be tricky but these reasons have savings all their own.

Reason 1 – Holiday traveling with the entire family.

When you’ve planned a vacation and basically emptied the fridge just before you left, you’re going to come home to little or nothing to eat. When you are forced to squeeze in grocery shopping after a long drive home or early the next day before school or work, you’re going to stress-buy. That’s where you end up spending more because you’re in hurry-up mode. You just want to get it over with. On top of just grabbing things to fill the fridge, it’s easy to forget things, creating the need to go again just a day or two later. This is where scheduled grocery delivery or pickup at the store saves you money. You can place the order ahead of leaving on vacation while you have time to think and plan. Then the grocery order will be ready when you are.

Reason 2 – Traveling for business.

Like traveling with the whole family, when you find yourself away from home, ordering groceries online for those who are at home can be a real gift. It can ease the burden of your spouse or a caregiver to not have to go shopping on top of running the household without you. You can also help control what groceries are purchased if you’ve had trouble in the past with too many junk or convenience foods ending up in your cupboards. Cutting down on those type of purchases alone will save you a lot of money.

Reason 3 – Avoiding impulse buys.

Unless you’re an extremely disciplined person, impulse buys happen to everyone. Shopping online can completely eliminate this budget-buster. It’s much easier to stick to your list when you’re only viewing pictures online and have to look up each item, as opposed to walking through the store and passing hundreds of items in person. The “that looks good” factor is greatly reduced – and so is your final bill.

Reason 4 – Getting everything you need for a holiday feast.

Take Thanksgiving as an example. If you’re hosting and providing most of the food, it’s easy to forget every item you need as you frantically rush through the store ahead of the big day. But online, you can take your time, check each recipe, and make sure you’ve not forgotten anything. You can also double-check your pantry and fridge to make sure you really need an ingredient, saving you money over buying things because you’re not sure only to come home to the same item in the back of the fridge.

Reason 5 – Traveling a long distance to a big holiday meal and wanting to contribute.

Maybe it’s not feasible to make a dish to bring but if you can order a few things to be delivered to the host’s home, you can still contribute to the meal without the stress of difficult logistics. Buying things from a grocery store is nearly always going to be less expensive than having to pick up pre-made food from a restaurant or deli.

Reason 6 – Stop buying things you already have and/or making extra trips.

I mentioned this in getting ready for a specific meal, like Thanksgiving, but if you regularly do this – online grocery shopping can save you a bundle. No more grabbing things in the store because you can’t recall if you need them or not. When you’re home, shopping online, you just get up and go look. Likewise, if you often forget things you meant to pick up, grocery shopping online can save you there, too. No more extra trips to the store for the 3 items you forgot – and coming home with 7 more items you didn’t intend on buying.

Reason 7 – Curb the holiday splurges.

This is a biggie this time of year. With tend to get a little looser with the grocery budget during the holidays because we want to “celebrate” and “have special holiday treats and foods”. The occasional splurge is fine but if you find yourself going way over your weekly grocery budget all November and December long – that’s not okay. Online grocery shopping will save you money as you plan and control when and on which items you indulge, instead of being tempted every time you set foot in the store.