The “Instacart” Experiment

January 20, 2022 Leo 0 Business Building Experiments, Money Experiments

I've always been interested in side-hustles and I've tried a lot of them.
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The whole food-delivery/shopping one never interested me but in 2022, I decided to give one a try.
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I chose Instacart because I saw one guy on a video say he made $300 in an 8-hour day.
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Turns out he did this at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and many commenters said that was not likely to happen these days but of course, where you are makes a difference.
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But I was already down the path of signing up and I followed through.
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I officially signed up on January 12th.
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One day later, on the 13th I passed the check and could start shopping immediately.
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There are two ways to pay for the shopping you do. They send you a physical debit card and you can also pay using Apple Pay on an iPhone.
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Since I don't have any experience using Apple Pay, I decided I'd wait to do any shopping until the actual card arrived in the mail.
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That was until Sunday the 16th at around 8 AM.
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I was in my toasty warm bed...it was -1 outside...but I saw the white whale...1 item...at the closest store to my home...1.2 miles...The delivery was 3.6 miles from the store for $9...$7+a $2 tip.
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I figured if I couldn't get the Apple Pay to work I could pay for the thermometer myself.
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I was on the road at 8:13AM...stopped for gas and started shopping at 8:21AM.
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The target? A $27 thermometer but it wasn't in stock.
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Luckily the customer was responsive to my questions and I sent him pics of the alternative options, he chose on and I was off to the checkout counter.
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The checkout was a bit of an adventure.
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This was at CVS and the cashier was having trouble scanning the bar code on my phone (turn up the brightness!)and then I wasn't sure how to use the Apple pay wallet thingy but luckily no one was waiting in line behind me and she was very nice.
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I was back in the car by 8:31AM
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Dropped the thermometer off at 8:43 and headed home.
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At 8:52AM I was back in proximity to my warm bed...9.7 miles.
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Want to give Instacart a try? CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

UPDATE: April 22, 2022

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OK...it's been about 3 months on this experiment and time for the final update.

I did my first shop for IC on January 16th...it was the last day of the week, and I actually did 2 batches making my toal income for the week, $22.58.

Here's a chart of my first full 4 weeks doing Instacart...
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Toward the end of January, I noticed an app similar to Instacart call Shipt, so I signed up.
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What I like about Shipt is they have a lot more "delivery only" jobs compared to IC.
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In other words, someone at the store does the shopping and they bring the bags out to the car and I simply deliver them.
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No wasting time wandering the stores looking for stuff I've never heard of.
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After about a month of doing Shipt I discovered that I could pick the "windows" I was available to work AND the zones I wanted to work and I would only be shown available batches that match those criteria.