Doordash and Instacart were our lifelines during the newborn haze after our second child. If you read my post about infant food allergies, you will know what a tough season this was for us. For several months, it resulted in intense, messy living. Between washing and drying six loads of laundry a day, wiping vomit and diarrhea from car doors, car seats, floors, and myself, I was so defeated I sometimes wanted to die. Not to mention, my husband had an hour-long commute in good traffic. He was not leaping to start a load of laundry or wash any dishes if I did cook a meal.
But help often came in the form of a quick, allergen-friendly DoorDash delivery from Cafe Patachou. After a night of holding baby Titus’s choking body upright all night to prevent his allergy-related congestion from gagging him awake, nothing soothed my mind like a hot meal prepared by someone else.
To anyone with lifelong food allergies, I feel an ounce of your struggle now. Our short list of safe restaurants and stores was well worn and the lifeline that got us through the years 2023-2024. Thank goodness and praise the Lord, Titus slowly adjusted to egg products around ten months, soy products around a year and we are still working on increasing dairy tolerance at 21 months. But, this increase in foods he and I can both consume has opened culinary doors I forgot were possible.
When our financial advisor, who also happens to be a relative, summarized our spending and sent a file of where our biggest costs were, I almost fell over. Then, I sheepishly avoided making eye contact at a family holiday the next day. My husband and I were not shocked to see our twin towers listed, but the amounts certainly caused a spike in my blood pressure. It took us about two days to grapple with how out of control our food spending had spiraled. Other areas needed to be trimmed, too. Does anyone else feel like subscriptions for literally every service have gone haywire these days? Monthly charges for simple things like Adobe, Office 365, and all these other fees are just absurd.
Instead of pointing fingers, we are putting bumpers on our DoorDash and Instacart usage. My husband found a financial tracking app that found unused services and unnecessary costs we had forgotten. We made allowances for one small weekday dinner and two weekend meals from our dear dasher friends, but that’s it. For Instacart, we are cutting the “We’re out of milk, coffee, lunch meat, etc” midday order by limiting it to twice a week.
I just grocery shopped for the second time since reading our spending report, and I’m happy to report that the prices are shockingly lower when one drives and shops the shelves themselves. Titus no longer has blowouts in the shopping cart, too, so that’s a win.
Wish us luck! We’ll be saying a prayer and checking in with each other weekly to wean us from our dependence. Thanks for your help, DoorDash, Instacart, and all the shoppers who helped us get through a very tough year. We will see you again, just less frequently. Next up, Amazon!
