Before Edison made their rather dramatic entrance into this world, I had a crazy idea that returning to my regularly, tightly scheduled and carefully planned life would be a breeze. After all, in these later years in my life I’ve become somewhat of an organizing queen.
I knew about the crying and sleepless nights. I knew about the energy drain that comes from trying to heal while caring for another life. I knew about the emotional fatigue that would come from the ebbing and flowing hormones (and again–lack of sleep). I knew about all of these things and yet, for some reason STILL thought that if I just carefully planned and stuck to my ridged schedule, my transition would go smoothly.
But (at the risk of sounding like a terrible mom), babies are a time suck. No amount of planning or research could prepared me for this. It’s one things to know about the struggles of being a mom. It’s a completely different thing to experience it.
Transitioning into motherhood was nothing like I thought it would be. But I have been fortunate enough to discovery a few things that have helped save us so much time, money and our sanity. So I want to do a series of sorts on this blog to showcase these things, in hopes that maybe they’ll help another family out like they did for us.
Probably our biggest saving grace thus far as new parents has been utilizing our Amazon Prime account and the addition of Walmart Grocery pick up and in our area. Did you know that the average American spends about 72 minutes a week grocery shopping? That honestly didn’t seem like a lot to me at first, but when I factored getting Edison ready and into the car, and out of the car–and then back into the car…That time added up quickly.
In contrast, doing my grocery orders online generally only takes me about 15 minutes a week. On Friday’s, I just whip out my phone and shopping list, place my needed items in the cart, and select what day I want to pick my order up. Picking them up right after Sunday brunch has been such a convinces for us. They even come directly to your car and load the bags in for you.
For our paper products and non perishable items, I’ve found using Walmart.com along with Amazon Prime to be a dream. Walmart’s prices on generic items seem to beat out the prices listed on Amazon for the most part. However, I feel like Amazon carries more of the baby products I love using on Edison (especially for his cloth diapers). And with Walmart I love having the choice of free same day pick up for products we need right away, or free 2 day shipping on order of $35 or more. Nothing beats the convinces of having all your snacks and baby products being dropped off right on your door step!
Probably what I love most about using Walmart.com though is the fact that I can use it in combination with Ebates and Ibotta— my two favorite rebate apps. With Ebates I typically get 1-10% cash back, depending on what I order and with Ibotta, I get a flat 1.5% cash back for my entire order. 1% doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re ordering baby supplies every week, it adds up.
Of course, Walmart.com isn’t the only option for online grocery shopping. In the future, I would love to try out services such as Chewy.com for Pepper and Amazon Fresh & Instacart once they come to our area. However, Walmart has made it possible for us as a family in a small town to benefit from online shopping and it has been nothing short of AMAZING for us as new parents.
Online grocery shopping certainly isn’t for everyone (only about 3% of American’s grocery shop online), but if you are a parent who can’t seem to find enough hours in the week to finish anything, then passing off your grocery list for someone else to take care of is something you should really consider.
Would you grocery shop online? Let me know below. Also, what was something that made your transition into parenthood just a little bit easier? Would love to hear from you!
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