My Walmart Grocery Pick-up Experience

Y'all know by now that I'm a DIE. HARD. Aldi shopper.

I substitute ingredients in nearly every recipe to accommodate their weird and rotating selection.

I have a dedicated quarter that no one is ever allowed to touch or remove from my console. EVER.

I have about three million of my own Aldi bags, all of which I proudly carry into the store. I actually love to make it rain bags on people when they forget theirs. It makes me feel like freaking Santa Claus.

I have the aisles memorized. I cruise through there like I'm on a mission. In and out with an entire week's worth of off-brand, organic, Millennial mom-tastic groceries.

I have a system and it works.

But GOOD LORD. Toddlers suck to shop with. Any kind of shopping is terrible, but grocery shopping is the. absolute. worst.

Enter, the Walmart Grocery Online Ordering system.

Guys, my Aldi-loving world has been rocked, and this experience has potentially made a Walmart shopper out of me.

WHAT?!

OK, I'll probably continue to mix it up. But I really am impressed. Here, I'm going to get into the goods and less good parts of the process, from one busy mom's perspective. Honestly, nothing about my experience was bad! But here's the lowdown:

GOOD: It saves your shopping cart.

You don't even have to write a grocery list! I kept my laptop on the countertop for the majority of the day on Saturday and just added to it as we thought of things we needed. I looked at each recipe in my meal plan and could combine list-making and grocery shopping into one step by immediately typing the ingredient into the search bar at the top of the site, choosing, and adding it to my cart.

GOOD: You can see how much you're spending as you "shop".

I think this will actually save me some money over shopping at Aldi, because I'll be able to see the final total while I'm shopping my list, rather than throwing shiny, exotic, Special Buys into my cart. I can keep my head down and stay the course. We're on a pretty strict budget (everybody should have a grocery budget!) and it's really helpful to see where you're at after adding all the essentials and NEEDS before getting to the fun stuff and WANTS.

GOOD: So much more selection.

I was able to buy fresh ginger and raw honey and dried garbanzo beans and good olive oil and unsalted, shelled pistachios - things I don't typically purchase because they're not available at Aldi and I just can't do two trips. It was so nice to have those options available again!

GOOD: You can get $10 off!

Here's a code for your first Walmart Grocery order! Seriously... $10. It's that easy!

LESS GOOD: The Walmart that offers grocery pick-up might not be on the most convenient side of town.

For us, the only one that has the service is on the North Side of Evansville. We live on the East Side, close to UE, so it's kind of annoying to have to deal with 41 and Diamond Avenue to pick up groceries. BUT! I didn't have to shop with my kids. So, for me that's a pretty fair trade-off.

LESS GOOD: If you want to pick up the same day, it costs $5.

Next time, I'll be better about planning ahead. If you can pick up the next day, it's free. Again, not a deal breaker. $5, in my opinion, is SOOO worth the convenience.

LESS GOOD: You might have to wait a few minutes.

It's not like you roll up and they're standing there waiting for you. It IS Walmart. Sometimes, you gotta wait. But, I will say that I probably only waited for my groceries for like 5 minutes and a very kind and helpful young man came to my car and loaded all my groceries for me. That totally beats doing the two-toddler and a cart-full of groceries dance in the busy Aldi parking lot while the old lady in the Lincoln Town Car next to you stalks you for your cart.