Since COVID I’ve been using Instacart for almost all of my fresh grocery shopping.
The best part is you can save 20% on their Gift Cards which more than makes up for the fees tacked on to your orders.
Sample Gift Card sales going on right now:
- $100 Instacart Gift Card from Costco: $79.99
- I earn 2% back with my Executive Membership and I earn 3 Chase points per dollar with my Freedom Unlimited LTO.
- I have been able to order these card from Costco multiple times, but others report being limited to two cards. The key is to keep purchasing two at a time at different intervals.
- $100 Instacart Gift Card from Sam’s Club: $80
- If you don’t have a Sam’s Club Membership you can get one from Groupon for just $20!
- $100 Instacart Gift Card from Newegg: $90
Chase cards also give you free Instacart+ Membership and credits, though this is ending 7/31
One great thing about Instacart Gift Cards is that you can redeem them immediately, and the money will be credited to your account balance.
HT: mevinyavin.
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47 Comments On "Here Is How I Save 10%-25% On My Instacart Shopping!"
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But you’re not SAVING money. Instacart is much more expensive than going to the store
Walmart (and some others as well) is same prices as in store. Costco is only about 6% more expensive if you have membership and you get all the sales. I agree with you about most stores though – markup is huge.
You can order from Walmart or Sam’s Club stores even if you live in Brooklyn, but it’ll add an extra long distance fee of $10 or so. It may still be worth it if you know what to buy, and especially if you have a Chase card quarterly (or monthly) credit that you otherwise wouldn’t use.
Lots of store like Walmart, have in store pricing.
Your SAVING money off regular Instacart prices. Hence the headline:
Here Is How I Save 10%-25% On My Instacart Shopping!
Not “here’s how to save money on groceries”
I got a flyer in the mail for instacart + Home Depot. Says get $40 off your next order of $100. For those interested code was SAVE40OFF100
Thanks
I bought about 5-6 times from Costco. And last week when I tried, it gave me a lot of trouble before finally going through. And then I received an email cancelling the order.
what do you mean by a lot of trouble ?
Can these be stacked? My experience has been only being able to apply one per order. Is that always the case?
Gift cards can be saved to your account.
Do you tip your shoppers as well?
Is the Costco sale permanent? Or how often?
Been live for 6+ months now.
Additionally I use my chase saphire reserve at Costco, and then I use pay yourself back at 1.25%
It’s very sad, but instacart has way higher prices than the posted ones at the supermarkets here. We’ve never once used instacart, not even for the free credits some of the chase cards give. Just seems not worth it at all. Many of our common items seem to be 10-20% higher than in store prices.
That’s the whole point of buying the gift cards at a discount. It offsets the higher costs, but now you have the convenience of ordering from wherever and it shows up at your door.
Exactly!
I live in a small city so the store I use instacart for mostly is only 5-10 minutes away. I’ve done the math a few times and the higher prices average out to about 15%, so if you get one of these sales you can still save money. For me, I primarily do pickup because the store is near and you get a 5% instacart credit. So even if there isn’t a sale I have access to, I can use my chase ink to buy GCs at Staples and get 5% in chase points. With those two combined, I’m okay with paying an extra 5% to save tons of time in the store. Especially while I have three young children I care for full-time..
try Walmart if you’re near one.
Lots of store like Walmart, have in store pricing.
Besides for the many sales the have exclusively online + this gift card savings… most importantly my wife and I don’t need need to shlep jugs of waters, cases of soda or just any package in general. We also look at the time benefit of driving and shopping in store.
In addition to Sam’s Club and Costco, I buy Instacart gift cards when they go on sale at CVS.
Regarding Instacart’s pricing, I shop mostly at the stores where the pricing is the same as in the store. I do tip the driver but when I account for the time and gas I save I feel I come out ahead. Instacart is also great when shopping for hard to find items. Plus I save a little of my sanity by not shopping with kids in tow. 🙂
Well said.
This. Money isn’t everything, especially if you break even.
On sams club you can get the cards without a sams membership for $88. You can get multiple cards that way at a better price than newegg.
The biggest issue here is that you are limited how many times you can order. Sam’s Club 2x per person total as well as Costco. If you could consistently order these gift cards you could get the price down to parity but I don’t see how to consistently order them at such a discount.
I ordered 2X2 on one account for A total of $400 in Gift cards (Paid $320)
And then I ordered 7X2 on my other account for A total of $1,400 in Gift cards (Paid $1,120)
All Gift Cards got delivered within 5 minutes.
There was recent news this week of Uber and Instacart joining together in some aspects. That would make the gift card deals, even sweeter.
What do you mean “ purchasing two at a time at different intervals” what is an example of different intervals?
I also save money by not adding random stuff to my cart that look interesting while shopping.
Also, the AMEX blue cash reserve that gives you 6% on groceries works for Instacart no matter what store you’re shopping from. So I get an additional 6% from Walmart etc
But that is not stackable with the 20% off in Costco etc
For those that like to stock up when they go on sale, FYI it won’t allow you to have more than $1,500 of gift cards stored on the account.
If you order in advance, you also get a $2 discount if you choose a 3 hour delivery window as opposed to a 2 hour window.
I use Instacart for multiple stores. Aside from saving a tremendous amount of time shopping, you generally will save significantly by sticking to ordering the items you need, and avoid the impulse buy at the store.
They are very easygoing with refunding an item that was incorrect although they once flagged my account for doing it too many times (it’s since been removed, I guess because the issue was on their shoppers not me:)
The discount on the gift cards mitigates any upcharge so if you consider that a wash, you still end up way ahead in terms of time and convenience.
One hack is to do a pick-up. e.g. Instacart charges about 10% more for Aldi plus $2 for pick up. They deliver the order to your car and you pocket any difference. I don’t think they let you pick up at Walmart which has the in-store prices.
Any way in splitting up the charge, to use the $15 chase sapphire credit and then use my gift card balance?
No, it will always charge your gift card first
If you tip after delivery that will go to the credit card
the advice is to make your total order be $115 plus some margin for out-of-stock items
Earn 27% (or more) back. Purchase Visa/Mastercar GC at Staples with Chase ink during the rebate. Use that to purchase the Costco insta cart GC!
FYI, I convert my Visa/Mastercar GC to Costco shop cards (in store) and use that to pay for my Costco gas = 5% back for Costco gas (and all in store purchases.
I’m missing the LTO Freedom Unlimited 3%, what’s that? I know I might not see it for me but can you share what you’re seeing?
Same question….
The lto freedom unlimited 3% back for first year of spending is an offer that expired a few months ago
How many can you buy from Sam’s Club. I don’t have membership but would purchase for this if I can order a bunch of cards.
https://www.dansdeals.com/shopping-deals/gift-cards/save-10-25-instacart-shopping/#comment-1706951
You also have to account for spoiled produce or wrong items. Almost all my orders have at least 1 issue. I used to report them to instacart and get a credit, but after a few months they flagged my account for having too many reports and they deny any refunds. This even though I’ve only ever reported actual issues. It’s ridiculous. Like I’m supposed to just take the loss if they, for example, send me rotten produce.
I don’t know you so I’m not saying this about you, but some shoppers don’t spend the time to select quality produce when the tip is low.
Some shoppers just don’t know how to properly tap the watermelon
Online shopping is the best thing ever to happen to supermarkets. This is how they sell their stuff they used to have to throw out.
I haven’t used instacart in years… needed dog food asap ran out and don’t have time to go until this weekend. This saved me some money and time! THANK YOU!! got the costco gift card, signed up for instacart + trial and I think I get a $15 credit so found a few items to get me over threshold to use full gift card and hopefully get the credit.