Albert Heijn

Today I want to talk about a great service Albert Heijn offers.  (For those of you in The States it's an equivalent to Publix).  They deliver groceries!  It's awesome, I think I can count on both hands how many times I've stepped foot in a grocery store in the past two years, it's wonderful!  It all started when I was around 6 months pregnant and Ryan broke his ankle.

Ryan couldn't drive and there was no way I could shuffle to and from the grocery store carrying enough food to full the fridge.  I had heard about the delivery service through a friend, a busy Mom with two small kids (you know who you are) and decided to try it out.  In the beginning I was only going to use it until Ryan was healed and back driving again, but like I said, I'm still using it.  It probably seems crazy to some of you and lazy to others, but really it's a time and money saver.  Oh yeah, and it's saved me and Ryan from plenty of petty arguments.  (There was always the argument about when we were going to go and then we argued while there about it taking too long.  If you know Ryan and I well, you know we bicker a lot, but we like it that way).  You're probably asking yourself how it saves money considering there are delivery fees, well, for the first time I paid attention to the sales.  (I always watched for sales when it came to clothes and other things but never at the grocery store).  I guess I didn't watch for sales because it was always buy 2 get 1 free, was I really going to walk (or ride my scooter) with 3 large boxes of laundry detergent plus groceries, no way.  But now that they deliver it to my front door of course I'll buy all three, it's not breaking my back!  The money I save on watching the sales makes up for the delivery fees and then some.  I go online and order groceries for the entire week, so not only am I watching for sales I am also planning the meals.  (Something I never considered prior to having a child).  Plus there are no more sporadic purchases; you know the ones, you walk passed the cookies and toss them in the cart just because they look good.  It's another way to save money, in the past I would easily add another 10-20 euros to my bill just because it looked good.  What's also nice is they also take your recycling for you (not basic paper, plastic, and glass) but the soda and beer bottles you get money back for at the stores.  They figure in the costs and then deduct the amount from the bill, also a time saver.  I am an avid online shopper, going to a store sounds like torture, so grocery shopping online fit right into my lifestyle.  I've tried to convince everyone I know to use Albert Heijn's delivery service (www.ah.nl/Webwinkel) but not many of my friends/family agree with me, oh well, their loss!  If you read this and think, hey sounds good, then be sure to mention me in your first purchase and we each get 10 euros off our next purchase (I love saving money).  Here's a better photo of what the deliveries look like (cold foods in one bag, freezer foods in another, and everything else in crates) :

This picture is recent and I purely took it for my blog, don't think it's a usual habit to photgraph my groceries.  The other photo was taken because it was all new and exciting, plus I was pregnant and wanted to document everything (I'm not pregnant now and still document everything, hmm, trait of mine, I guess).  Notice the picture with me in it was blurry, that's because Ryan was sitting on a chair with his ankle in cast trying to get a shot that made his pregnant wife happy.  He's a good husband!  Well, this wraps up my blog for today, hope you enjoyed another one of my random fleeting thoughts!