Ok so background....household with 37 yo Mummy (me) 3 teenage girls with Attitudes in FULL SWING.... and a 40 yo male with spending issues impulse control all sorts of struggles going on there not all are a case of just saying pull your head in.
his shopping spree's are usually in bursts. for weeks on end he will buy up on one particular type of thing. Cooking utensils. Food items. Plastic Containers. Hardware (OMG HARDWARE!!!! avoid Bunnings at ALL costs)
to the point that we can wind up with 15 can's of Soup or Baked Beans or 40 cooking utensils spilling out of the kitchen drawers (it never fits in one)
we have more than we could EVER use...then I have to blacklist items for a while and let natural attrition do its job. kids would be loading the dishwasher and *SMASH* I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT IF IT ISN'T MY PYREX! and so slowly our cupboards would tame again.....
he also binge eats and stockpiles all the WRONG sorts of foods chips dips biscuits bacon you get the drift....entire meals at midnight and of course if I am awake he will share......he is death for my figure 30kg since I met him in 2006 and I don't eat alot of what he tries to give me.he has bipolar and ptsd and alot of this behaviour is driven by these disorders in union.
One of the GREATEST recent finds I have made is Online grocery shopping. he has a disgusting habit of adding things to my trolley and leaving me to pay for it and it ticks me off SOMETHING SHOCKING....ok fine have your bad habits but don't foot me with the bill....anyway on this point we have found peace in the form of Coles online.
I had looked into these services a couple of years back and found their delivery fee's exorbitant and the offering limited.
Woolworths is still overpriced for delivery but recently I took another look as my health took a turn for the worst and the hiking through the store and then the butcher the baker and everywhere else was getting to be too much with limited time between appointments and other commitments.
I still can't get the bakery items I want or some of their specials either due to stock levels or it not being included online. but it is working particularly well to keep the chocolate chips and crap OUT of my pantry. all the hundreds of dollars of impulse buys don't go in the trolley and there are not 20 tin's of tomato soup weighing down my pantry shelves anymore. and my cupboards haven't overflowed with well the plastics are still subsiding (damned tupperware never breaks) but UTENSILS have.....and my pantry fridges and freezers have a far wider variety of contents all at good levels for what we need and I can easily see in my lists when our preferred items are on special to always grab them at the cheapest price. we have been using it for a couple of months now with a delivery every week and it is positively DREAMY they literally put it all on my table for us to check off and put away! it couldn't be easier and it has done everything I need it to
it has curbed his impulse spending by reducing his opportunity
it has removed the JUNK from my home
and it has almost stabilised my grocery budget even in the face of his manic spending....he only went above $300 in any given week ONCE, which in the past he would do regularly when manic if not more.
Admittedly we no longer pick up $0.80 bags of Donuts and other reduced items...but we aren't picking up bags of donuts and other reduced items. we are buying what we need.
we are eating SO MUCH better and he has actually been motivated by the quality and range of fresh produce we have been getting and has been baking up a storm with the freezer positively LOADED with precooked homemade meals so much healthier than those oven baked boxes we used to resort to on those days when our health just was not up to it.
You REALLY want to see the quality of the fresh produce you get from online ordering compared to what you get on offer in store. and because it is of such a quality IT LASTS!
oh and the greatest Genius of it all, I don't have to wonder if we need it or not, while putting together the order a few days before actually placing it I do a survey of everyone in the house for what they are running low on and we check the cupboards for how much we have of which....no more being buried and the money is spent on what we need, no more forgotten items...
and the bonus freebies bag they occasionally send (you don't get one every week) really are a lovely treat
5 Replies
I am often home bound caring for my son who has an extremely rare disorder that makes him sleep up to 20 hours a day, sometime up to six weeks at a time and coles online for me has been my life saver!
When I'm home bound I try and get my deliveries on wednesday because it's free :)
The poor delivery guy must wonder why I talk his ear off when he arrives, I don't think he realises I haven't seen another adult human for weeks on end lol
I don't think they realise he is almost entirely home bound either he only leaves the house for his medical appointments and what he turned into marathon shopping trips. he knows next to no one locally and we have lived here six years.
it was his 40th Birthday a few weeks ago. i wrote a note on the order. *it is the big guys 40th birthday please given him a HUGE hug* so they gave him a box of celebrations care of the coles online team.
hopefully this will push him more towards healthier alternatives.
I usually place my order for a thursday evening due to when payday falls and when I know we will be home for the order. I book for 3-9 for $6 even with a 4pm appointment. because he and 2 of the kids are home. I am pretty sure someone else in the area is booking the $11 6-9 slot so it is arriving for the cheaper price at my preferred time anyway.
And when they don't have your item so they give you the expensive brand or the larger item for the same price :D
yeah that doesn't work in this house he flips a lid. we buy specific brands because we like specific brands when they were substituting it caused all level of grief. my 3x 2 litre milks arrived as 2x3 Litre milk which was useless because I couldn't lift them. and another time the curry paste was replaced with a brand we wouldn't buy if it was the last brand on earth. but by the end of the first month they had turned off substitutions entirely on our account because it was causing so many issues. and sometimes for the substitutions they were grabbing different flavours which just didn't work. it was that flavour or we wouldn't have purchased the item due to allergies and asthma reactions to particular flavours and preservatives associated with some things and him being pickier than those with allergies.
We did find actually turning off substitutions on the whole was far more effective than turning off individual substitutions which they often ignored. We also noticed the number of items *out of stock* significantly reduced with i turned off I think because it forced them to take a second look.
I'm not saying substitutions arent great the way they process them is awesome. It just doesn't work for us because they don't know what we have to take into account when we shop and our preferences.
They did mention that many have suggested personnal shoppers and that they call before substituting but they don't have the facility to so that *yet*
they were ridiculously generous with apologies and refunds during that period though they gave us $30-$50 every weeks shop for the first six weeks simply due to the teething issues and resulting refunds. but its all worked in the end it just takes communication with them and persevering.
for us it really isn't that big of a problem anyway as I like to always keep one in reserve. so while they didn't have the 2kg washing powder in stock this week we had only recently cracked the last one I ordered so it can wait to try again next week. it is a everyday low price anyway.
Lol the comments on facebook are funny....I havent worked for coles since I first left high school...and at one point I worked for bigW too so it really doesn't have much to do with it. The reason i chose coles over woolworths is our local woolworths meat section is an ecoli and salmonella party...the woolworths 2 towns over has a gorgeous meat department and we shop there when out that way......but not here.... ..and with coles I can choose to halve the delivery fee by selecting a 6 hour delivery window rather than 2. Sometimes I pay the higher rate for the smaller window such as yesterday when I was at appointments right through til 5pm.
But if I am home for the afternoon I can be more flexible for which coles benefits in which case I benefit by saving on delivery. $6 is what we usually pay for delivery $11 if my time is pinched. Fair cop if I am demanding and less flexible I pay the rate.
And I know better than anyone what a pain in the butt he is. He has tried living alone multiple times. He has acute health issues including hypertension reactive hypoglycemia seizures fibromyalgia etc....and there are no assisted accomodation positions available....and hey he splits the utilities mortgage and is shouting the rates this year......he can occupy a room.
Oh he does all the cooking and mowing too