Make Good Money Shopping and Delivering Groceries Through Instacart: An Instacart Shopper Review

 The pandemic has hit both my husband and my work really hard. My husband had been driving for Lyft and Uber (read about it here), which was not safe to do during a pandemic, and my work in after school theatre programs had been (understandably) virtually non-existent. We had relied on the expanded unemployment to get us through the first bit of the pandemic, but that has ended now. My hours are still very limited but I like to remain open to be able to do whatever is needed at my work and since the virus is still very much spreading, my husband didn't want to go back to rideshare driving. So we thought we would try out working for delivery companies. Most of the food pick up places didn't need any more drivers but Instacart, shopping for and delivering groceries, was available and today I tried it out for the first time and really enjoyed it!

I'm sure most of you know or understand the concept of Instacart: customers send in their order and those orders are sent out to available shoppers/drivers to pick up the items and deliver to the customer. It only took a few seconds after I logged in to get my first order. It was a little bit of a drive but seemed a nice pay. All in all from accepting the order to delivering the order, it took an hour and 20 minutes but it was $22 profit. Pretty much immediately after delivering that one, another one came up. This was much closer and I was able to complete it more quickly (I learned a lot during the first shopping experience, more on that later). That one was $18 and I finished in about half an hour. Pretty good! 

Then it was a little slow. Some orders came in but either didn't seem worth it or another shopper snagged it up before me. Then I was quick to try and take the next one, though that may have been a bit of a mistake. It was only for $8 and it was pretty far away, though closer to where I live. 

I only was on for 2 hrs and 48 minutes and made $46. Not bad! That averages over $15/hr* (see update at bottom). I definitely learned things that I think will help improve that amount.

Pros:

• Flexible hours. You decide when you want to work and when you want to stop.
• Pretty good pay and you don't get pulled far away from your area like driving for rideshare
• You get exercise! Driving all day is bad on your body but with this, you're mostly walking around which is really nice.
• App is super easy to use and very helpful in making sure you get all the right items.

Cons:

• Sometimes you don't have long to decide to accept an order so you might take one that's not really worth it
• It can be difficult to deliver to people in apartments and/or busy streets with no parking

Tips:

• Don't use self checkout unless it's only a few items. It's a huge hassle with a lot of items and isn't worth a shorter line
• You don't need to ask the customer about replacements. The app will help you through that.
• Make sure you look at the distance before accepting. Driving far away for a small amount is not worth it.

Note: You can sometimes have multiple orders in what they call a "batch". These are different customers' orders at the same store. I haven't had one of these yet, so I'm not sure how well that goes.

I highly recommend this as a side gig or even a main gig. It was a lot of fun, almost like a scavenger hunt to find the right items! Sign up with my link here or use code CLANA99F3C at sign up. Have fun shopping! 

Update: I highly recommend doing Shipt in addition to Instacart. Read about driving for Shipt here. Read a list of pros and cons of each here. I also found out that if you live in California, there is now a guaranteed earnings for anyone working these types of platforms (Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Shipt, Door Dash, Grub Hub, etc). So there were some adjustments to my pay for this and I ended up making $71.62 which ends up being closer to $24 an hour! Read more about the California rules and how to use it to your advantage here.

Get $20 for Signing Up With Stash

A while back, I wrote about getting a free stock for singing up with Robinhood (see the post here). But there's another simple investor app that will also give you stock for signing up and it is called Stash. Stash will give you $20 worth of stock or $20 to invest in other ways.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Click on this Stash Invest $20 Referral Bonus Link.
2. Sign up for your new Stash Invest account and complete registration.
3. Connect your bank account and fund at least $5 to your new Stash Invest account (either invest or bank account).
4. The $20 bonus will be credited to your new Stash Invest account within 3 business days.

Please note, the bonus funds cannot be withdrawn from your Stash Invest account for a period of 90 days from the date received. Stash also does have a monthly fee to have an account. The first month is waived but after that, there will be a fee. Because of this, I don't think keeping a Stash account is the best because there are other free apps that do exactly what they do. So, when signing up, choose the cheapest account and then after 3 months, close it and it still will have been profitable.

To close your Stash account, here's what you need to do:

1. Log into your account via the Stash website. 
2. In the upper-right corner you’ll see your name. Click on this link and you’ll get a new page with a vertical menu on the left-hand side.
3. About mid-way through the list of selections is a Subscription link. Click on this and you’ll get another page with details on your current subscription. 
4. In the Your plan menu there is a Manage link. Click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the new page. 
5. You’ll see a Close my Stash for good link. Click on this and you’ll be able to cancel your subscription.

Write for BuzzFeed and Get $$$$

 I wish I had heard about this earlier, but late is better than never! BuzzFeed has a summer writing challenge where if you write a post or make a quiz between June 15 and Sept 15 and it reaches a certain number of views, you could be awarded cash! I tried my hand at making a quiz, and it was really fun! Check it out:

What Hogwarts House Does Your Pet Belong To?

If you want to try your hand at making some money, check out the rules here. Have fun!

Mercari: My New Favorite Site/App

 Recently I've been getting into knitting. I had bought some yarn a while back for a specific person to make something out of and when I tried out a new stitch than I had been doing, I realized I did not have enough yarn to complete the project. I had bought the yarn on Amazon so I went to order some more but they were out of stock! I did a general search and found out that all the stores that carried it were sold out. So I did what I usually do in these circumstances, turn to Ebay.

Ebay is great when you are trying to find something that is no longer being sold in stores. If it is a newer product, you can even find brand new unopened packages. I did find some of the yarn I needed but it was very expensive, like four times the amount I paid on Amazon. I figured before I bought that, I would do a little more searching. And so I cam across Mercari.

Mercari is basically another Ebay. Individual people sell things on their website and app. It doesn't look like there are auctions (actually something I don't usually use on Ebay anymore) but you can barter with the sellers on price.

I found someone selling the yarn in bulk, 4 rolls of it. I only needed 2 more but the price at this bulk level was much more reasonable. I figured I could either save the yarn for another project or resell the ones myself that I don't end up using. Problem solved.

Of course AFTER I made the purchase online I received an email from Mercari saying "Get $20 off your first purchase on our app". Well that caught my eye. Of course the finer details were of a purchase of $50 or more but that is still too good of a deal to pass up. If you make sure your purchase is exactly $50, that is almost 50% off.

So I thought about something higher priced that we were wanting. It dawned on me. For a while now, my husband and I were wanting to get some more joycons for the Nintendo Switch but given it wasn't a NECESSITY and that the prices are ridiculously high, we hadn't made the purchase. So I thought I'd give it a try to see what there was. Lo and behold, there was the exact colors we wanted (green & pink) that said brand new unopened box. And the price? $67. These sell for $80 retail, sometimes as high as $90 for those colors. We jumped at it. All in all with taxes, shipping, and coupon we paid $53. A STEAL.

That enough is reason to sign up for Mercari and at least make one purchase. But then I saw that they offered $5 in credit after you make your first seller listing. Easy. I already have things listed on Ebay so I just recreated one of those. Boom $5 credit. Found another thing we wanted at a cheaper price than retail.

But wait, there's more! They also have a referral program. Refer someone and get $10 credit after they make their first purchase (and $40 after they make $100 in sales, but that's a bit too ambitious). I love doing this trick when you have a partner that you can kind of rig referral programs for. I referred my husband and we found something else cheap that we needed. Now this one does take some waiting because just making a purchase doesn't do the job. We had to wait for the item to arrive and rate the seller to close out the sale for the credit to be applied. But still. It's a deal.

Anyway, I will definitely still be using Ebay but I love having an alternative to go to. Plus, it seems like maybe they will send out other deals as well. 

But try it for yourself! Sign up with this link and get $10 off your first purchase!

Carmen's Blackberry Holiday Pie

 This year it was just my husband and I for both Thanksgiving and Christmas (thanks Covid) so that meant that we got to chose (and had to prepare) all the food. One of the most important things for both holidays is dessert! We had to have a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and while I love baking, I do usually get a premade crust to simplify things. Well those tend to come in packs of two but we couldn't have two pies for two people so I thought I'd save the other crust for Christmas.

So what kind of pie should we have for Christmas. Since my husband insisted on the pumpkin for Thanksgiving, it was my turn to chose. Berry pies are my favorite and I was really craving blackberry pie. But that just seemed too summery. I wanted to make it more holiday feeling. I knew I wanted to incorporate orange, because that's my husband's favorite flavor and seemed very Christmasy, and spices. So I looked online for something.

I found two recipes that I liked so I decided to blend the two: one using the filling recipe (with some alterations) and one using its streusel topping recipe. The result was delicious and very seasonal so I thought I'd create a new recipe for future use and for others to enjoy. So here you go! 

(I know this isn't really about saving or making money and I also did that thing that I hate where people do a blog entry before a recipe but oh well!)

Carmen's Blackberry Holiday Pie

Ingredients:

For Filling

• 6 cups blackberries fresh or frozen (if frozen, thawed and drained)
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons cane or granulated sugar depending on the sweetness of your fruit
• 2 teaspoons fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 4 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon orange zest

For Streusel Topping

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
• 1 teaspoon finely grated orange peel
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 1 cup sliced almonds

Instructions

1. Buy or make a pie crust (use your favorite recipe if making one yourself)
2. Preheat oven to 400°F (at high altitude) or 375°F (at sea level)
3. In a large bowl, blackberries, 3/4 cup sugar, orange juice, zest, and vanilla extract. Mix gently several times and set aside for 10 minutes.
4. In a small bowl, combine the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix. 
5. After the 10 minutes have passed, add cornstarch mixture to the fruit and combine until no more white is seen.
6. Take the shell from the refrigerator and pour the fruit mixture into the pie. Make sure to spatula the sides of the bowl, as this is where precious juices and thickening agents like to hide.
7. Place pie on the center rack and bake for 30 minutes. (High Altitude Only - reduce temperature from 400° to 375° after 15 minutes.)
8. Meanwhile, make the streusel topping. Blend flour, sugar, crystallized ginger, orange peel, and salt in processor.
9. Add butter; using on/off turns, blend until coarse crumbs form. 
10. Blend in milk (mixture will resemble moist coarse crumbs). Transfer mixture to medium bowl.
11. Stir in almonds. Refrigerate until ready for use.
12. After 30 minutes total, remove pie from oven and add streusel to the top. Turn the oven down to 375°, place a pie shield around edges to prevent over browning, slide a pan one rack below, and rotate the pie 180°. Continue baking for another 30-35 minutes, or until the top is golden and the juices are slow to bubble. 
13. Once pie has finished baking, transfer to a wire rack. Let cool for at least three hours or overnight. Slice and enjoy!

 

Get $150 and Plant Some Trees

There's an easy way to get $150 and help the environment by just doing your normal spending. That's by opening up an Aspiration Spend account and making $1,000 of purchases with their debit card within the first 60 days of opening the account. I'd say for most people, it is really easy to do that with just their normal purchases.

The Aspiration Spend & Save Account is a cash management account offered by Aspiration Financial who is working towards building the world's most sustainable, ethical, & socially conscious financial firm. There are no monthly fees and enjoy fee-free withdrawals at over 55,000 Allpoint network ATMs. That’s over 3 times as many ATMs as those owned by Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo combined. And the really cool part? If you round up your purchases to the nearest whole dollar, they will plant a tree with the extra change. And know that your deposits won't fund fossil fuel projects like pipelines, oil drilling and coal mines.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today! When you join Aspiration with this link, they’ll plant 25 trees, and when you spend $250, we’ll each get $50 Cash! Together, we can Do Well and Do Good! (The other $100 will come after making $1,000 in purchases within the first 60 days which may take up to 120 days to appear in your account)

Get a Free Stock

The stock market. Not something I really envisioned myself investing in. But with apps, it has gotten a lot easier for people to invest themselves with little money. You can put in just a little bit and make a small profit. But some of these apps, like Robinhood, also give you a free stock just for signing up. So even if you don't invest, that's free money right there.

Most likely you'll get a stock valued at $10 or less (still free money) but you do have a chance of getting one worth much more than that. And guess what?! . . . I did! My free stock was for Visa, which at the time I received it was worth over $200. I decided to keep it in to see if it would raise (it has since gone down) but that is still money that I can get at any time more than I had before.

So try it out yourself and see what you get!