Almost two weeks in of "stay-at-home" mode for our family here. How's everyone doing out there?

We had a spell of family colds last week, but seem to be over the symptoms now. We had running noses, coughing, fatigue, but no fever. We often wondered if the somewhat mild symptoms are actually coronavirus, simply un-diagnosed. Do we really know that you have to have a fever in order to have coronavirus? Only time will tell. Thankfully, the colds only lasted a week, and we're all feeling better now. 

Even though we probably could go to the grocery store, we've been opting to use grocery pickup (preferred) and delivery (if pickup not available) services. We've also been continuing our weekly Chinese or Indian food delivery. 

About every day now, we've been seeing news regarding food and grocery delivery services ramping up staffing needs due to increased usage. Perhaps that is way that some businesses can survive during this downturn? We're sure increasing our use of these services! 

Restaurant Delivery

Overall, the restaurant delivery services seem unchanged, or even maybe a tad more efficient, during this stay-at-home order time. We are very thankful for the men and women who continue to drive for these services. 

We typically use Doordash, Grub Hub, or Uber Eats. I think Doordash is my wife's favorite. If I did choose to do a ride share-type of side gig, I'd probably opt for food delivery since you don't have to actually have customers ride in your car. 🙂

Even in recent weeks, we have been able to order food and get it delivered in the usual one hour or less timing. 

Grocery Delivery

Grocery delivery is an entirely different story / headache / challenge. The support infrastructure with grocery delivery doesn't seem to be equipped for the increased demand currently being experienced (either that, or there is a LOT more demand than restaurant delivery. I guess either would make sense). 

Anyhow, we've so far gotten groceries delivered (a week ago) using Instacart from a personal shopper who got our food from Wegman's. It was good food, and generally everything was available with a moderate amount of substitutions. However, it grocery delivery through Instacart definitely is more expensive. Our last delivery was ~$300 for the amount of groceries we typically get from our traditional in-shop Target run for $200 or less. 

This weekend, being a week longer into the NC stay-at-home order, the grocery pickup and delivery services are obviously more tied up. 

Amazon/Whole Foods delivery: We've tried a couple of times to fill our Whole Foods delivery carts on Amazon. Currently, we haven't had any success of finding an available delivery window. They have some low-priced stuff (like $3 bottles of wine), but Whole Foods is Whole Paycheck after all, and doing a full-on grocery run through Amazon would be a fairly pricey alternative. 

Wal-Mart delivery/pick-up: The best idea we've had so far is to pre-select the majority of our cart/shopping needs during the day, and set an alarm or wake up in the middle of the night (3-5 am) and book a time to pickup or get groceries delivered. My wife did this last night, and we got a delivery scheduled for tomorrow. Unfortunately, they didn't have wine as an option for delivery, so we'll have to buy that separately. 

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If you go searching for ways to save money on food, inevitably you’ll first find suggestions like drink coffee at home instead of buying it from a coffee shop or stop eating out.  Those tips are good for people who are just beginning to save money, but what if you already have the basics downs and need to increase your money saving game?  There are plenty of more unusual ways to save money on food.

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