Frugalista Friday: ClickList is a Mom’s Best Friend!

Alright ladies, we’ve all been there… You have a fun but super busy weekend doing all kinds of things with the kids.  Then Sunday night dread hits you like a ton of bricks! Ughhh… What am I gonna pack for my kids’ lunch tomorrow?  What am I even going to feed them for breakfast?  Why didn’t I find time to go grocery shopping this weekend?!  That kind of Sunday evening seems to happen to me more often than not, so last Sunday I decided to experiment with Kroger’s new ClickList service.

If you haven’t heard, ClickList is a new service Kroger is offering where you can order your groceries online. You simply pick them up the next day in the designated area, and the employees load them into your car!  There is no fee for the service the first few times you use it, and after that it’s only $5.  Y’all… I promise I don’t work for Kroger, and Kroger is not sponsoring this blog post.  I just feel like every mom needs to know what a TOTAL game changer ClickList is!

To get started, I logged onto the Kroger website, and I learned that the Kroger right next to where I work now offers ClickList service! Hallelujah!  It was time to put together my list.  Twenty minutes or so was all it took to put together a list of the basic necessities we would need to get through the week.  The website was really easy to navigate. Most of the items I regularly purchase already popped up on the screen ready to be added to my shopping list.  It was easy to find most other items by either using the search feature or browsing by category.  You can also save your shopping list, so it’s super quick just to log in and adjust quantities as needed for next week’s groceries.  This really makes the whole process SUCH a time saver!  You can even type in special instructions like “green bananas” so they know what your preferences are.

Once I was ready to place my order, I simply selected the one hour time slot for right after I normally leave work. Easy peasy.  The next day, I left work and picked up my 4 year old son, SO thankful I didn’t have to parent my way through every aisle in the grocery store!  Holden was exhausted from a fun day at preschool, and he was BEYOND ready for nap time.  As we pulled into the assigned parking area, there was a sign letting us know the phone number we needed to call to notify the store that we were ready for our order pickup.

A very nice lady answered the phone and asked if we had any paper coupons. Since I did have a few, she came right out to collect them from me and take them back inside to apply them.  She also asked if it was ok to offer my son a lollipop.  I thought that was so sweet, and it kept him sitting happily in my backseat during the very brief wait.  When she came back out, she went over my substitutions with me, and I was shocked!  Kroger was out of the store brand for one of the items I purchased, and they substituted the name brand for the same price.  They were also out of the 8 ounce bottles of my son’s Miralax.  They actually gave us the 17.9 ounce bottle for the same price!  I tried to tip the kind lady for such wonderful service, but she wouldn’t accept it!

We were literally in and out of that parking spot in under 10 minutes with about $100 in groceries. For us that day, it meant we could get home, get Holden his nap, and still be ready in time to pick up his sister when her school released.  Without ClickList, he would’ve had to go without his nap.  I would’ve been a crazy person by the time we got out of that store!  He is entering the dreaded stage where he doesn’t want to ride in shopping carts anymore, so ClickList couldn’t have come at a better time in my life!

After such an amazing first experience, I decided to repeat the process this past Sunday evening for Monday pickup. We were actually in and out in under five minutes the second time around!  THANK YOU, Kroger!!  Want to know more about how to save money at Kroger while taking advantage of this time-saving new service?  Check out my post on savvy shopping at Kroger!