If you’ve never shopped at Instacart before, I bet you have a million questions.
- Is shopping at Instacart worth your time?
- Will it save you money?
- How does it work?
- How do I get started?
- What’s a fair and reasonable price to tip Instacart shoppers?
- How to get your groceries free? Can I REALLY get my groceries free with them?
I’ve placed over 210 orders with Instacart at the time I’m writing this, so I’m gonna dish the real dirt about why Instacart is hands-down my FAVORITE way to shop for groceries!!
How to Get Your Groceries Free
First, let’s tackle all your questions, and then we’ll dive into how to get them for free. This way, you’ll have a clear, solid understanding of what to do and how to do it!
Is shopping on Instacart worth your time?
Well, that depends. Do you ever buy things you don’t need when shopping? This is on sale, that is on sale and you come out spending $500 at Costco when you went in for a toothbrush?! haha. No judgments here! Stores are DESIGNED to get your money and they are good at it.
So if you overspend to “save money”, then yes, it’s worth your time. You put in the cart what you want, that’s it. Very simple. Very easy. No distractions. This is how Instacart saves you money, each and every time!! 🙂
What is Instacart?
Instacart is a FANtastic way to get your groceries. You order online, much like Amazon and someone ELSE shops your order. Easy, peasy lemon squeezy!
What is the monthly/yearly costs for Instacart?
I currently pay $79/year and they discount the fees for me. All in all, I know that I save well over $79/year in groceries shopping with them, so basically think of it like your Costco card. There’s a membership fee.
Is paying for Instacart worth it?
It definitely is for me. They are great if someone doesn’t get you the right thing or if you buy strawberries and they are moldy. Instacart will give you a full refund for it. If you walk into the store and shop yourself and bring home moldy strawberries, you’re not getting a refund. So it’s almost like an insurance plan. You’ll get exactly what you want, everything is good! That’s what I love most about Instacart to be very honest.
How much time does it save you?
It doesn’t save you a whole lot of time really. Instead of shopping and looking at things in the store, you have to order them online. There are little cheats though. You can add all the items you got last time to your shopping cart again and just delete what you want. That’s a real time-saver. Other than that, it’s about the same in terms of time.
How do I get started?
Just sign up here (you’ll get $10 free when you do!!!) Pick a store where you want to shop and put things in your cart and pay.
Here are the stores you can choose from (based on your location):
- Albertsons
- Fred Meyer
- Costco
- Lowe’s
- Target
- Big Lots
- CVS Pharmacy
- Walgreens
- Michael’s
- Bed Bath & Beyond
- Staples
- Best Buy
- The Vitamin Shoppe
- ALDI
- Dollar Tree
- Family Dollar
- Rite Aid Pharmacy
- Natural Grocers
- Petco
- Chef’s Store
- Office Depot
- Office Max
- Sephora
- 7-Eleven
- DICK’s Sporting Goods
- Jackson’s Food Stores (Mini-Mart)
- The Wine Shop
- Bath and Body Works
- Grocery Outlet
They are constantly adding more stores to the list too, so if what you want is not currently there, it could be in the future. 🙂
Let’s break it down a bit further so you feel comfortable placing your first order…
Once you sign up and log in, you can choose a store you like. Then you can start selecting items. If you have ordered previously, there’s a Buy It Again section, which is really helpful (I use that ALL. THE. TIME!):
If you’ve ordered previously, you can also go to your orders and add everything to the cart again and then just delete what you don’t want (this can be faster if you order a lot of the same things, but it’s not as cost-effective because you should shop what’s on sale). 🙂
Here’s how to add them all to your cart if you want. Just go to Orders in the left-side navigation bar.
Then click, Add all items to cart:
If you’re new, just hit the +Add green button and then you can see your cart when you’re done.
Sometimes as you’re ordering, they will make a pop-up and you’ll get a sale or better deal. This makes your money stretch even further. Here’s an example:
Here are more real examples of ways to save:
The restaurant order discount is comparable to Ubereats or GrubHub. They also do restaurants!
Once you have everything in your cart you want, click the green shopping cart icon in the top right.
Next, once you’ve looked over your cart (I’m shopping Fred Meyer now), click the green button that says, “Go to checkout”.
Then just continue to checkout. Pick your delivery address, and how fast you want the shop to take place, then review all the fees. Add your delivery tip (I always add $3-$5 as a general guideline). Delivery is free since you pay the $79/year membership cost.
Once you’ve reviewed everything and everything looks great, click “Place order”.
If you forget something, you can always go back and add it later, so, not to worry! 🙂
That’s it! You’re done. You want to be available when they shop the order and you definitely always want to pick replacements in case your item is out of stock.
I try to order at 6 pm in the evening or if it’s a bigger order (think: $100+), in the early mornings around 9 am. I find that when I do, I usually have a higher chance of getting a guy to shop my order and while women are great, men are more of a “get in, get out” kinda thing with shopping and so the shop goes so much more streamlined and less hassle for me. 🙂 So, if you get a guy, it’s usually a good thing!
Alright, now that you’re familiar with ordering, let’s get you those groceries FA FREE, okay?!
When you’re logged in, click “Account”.
Next, scroll down and you’ll see “Invite friends, earn money”. This is your beautiful little secret trick!!!
Here’s where you get your link to share Instacart with others!
For each person who orders and uses YOUR link, you get $10. Share with 10 people, they sign up, you get $100 free groceries! The sky’s the limit too because there’s no cap! So you can share this in a blog post, on social media, anywhere really, and get your groceries absolutely free!!!
You get $10, they get $10. Who wouldn’t want to join?! It’s a no-brainer. It adds up super quick and there’s no cost to you to share your link and earn money!!
This is a fantastic way to get your groceries free, but you can do this with SO many different companies! I do this same process with Grove Collaborative and never pay for any of my household products. Here’s a link to the step-by-step tutorial on that one!
Repeat this process with as many companies that you purchase from as you can and pretty soon, you’ll be getting so many of the things you buy ABSOLUTELY FREE! It really is the coolest thing, ESPECIALLY in our day and age right now where groceries are just SUPER expensive. This will cushion that blow for you and help your family save money!! What a Proverbs 31 woman thing to do!!!
If you want your money to stretch even FURTHER, be sure to check out all my ways to save money on groceries. These tricks will help you DRASTICALLY!
With all these tips, you’re well on your way to never paying for your groceries again!!! You’re welcome.
