Going into the grocery store to shop becoming a class signal?

[Anonymous]

I don't think so.

Lots of people go to the grocery store: low income, high income, people who like to cook, people who do not like to relinquish control over selection, people who don't want to pay for delivery regardless of income, people who need something NOW. And they go at all different times.

I go many times per week, but my job is fairly flexible outside of a few weekly commitments (how often I go in, when I work).

I know my SIL who doesn't like to cook and who uses meal services like Blue Apron prefers to order. As do friends who are busy and single and higher income because they consider it an essential convenience.

We did order during the pandemic before vaccines. The only times I can think of that I ordered in the past year are when I was visiting my parents for a holiday and it just seemed easier to have the ingredients for the meal I was cooking show up the next morning, and one time when I was not feeling well and DH left to go out of town for a day so I just placed an order to stock up on what I liked and needed for me and the kids wthout having to go out.

[Anonymous]

One of my friends is a doctor, and I ran into her at the grocery store the other day. So my one anecdote proves you wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is status related at all. Maybe time related. Of course it makes sense that retirees with no job can go to the market and shop for hours every day. Busy parents doing grocery pickup or delivery just makes sense for how busy they are.

It's just an interesting observation is all. A broader theme of UMC becoming more and more secluded, seemingly outsourcing everything to a servant class. We don't go into coffee shops, we order from an app and don't have to speak to baristas. We don't go into grocery stores, worker bees deliver it to our door step. We take an uber and request the driver not talk.

We make a little over 300k (does this qualify us as UMC per DCUM standards?). But we pop out to the grocery store all the time. I’ve tried curb side and Instacart, but invariably there is some issue with missing items or weird substitutions. We WAH and have flexible jobs, so I’ve thought that being able to randomly go buy some milk and a few dinner ingredients at 10 AM on a Tuesday is a luxury. We often chat with the drivers when we take Ubers. We like to go sit in coffee shops. We are out and about chatting with neighbors, we are not secluded (it helps we are in a walkable neighborhood with stores close by so lots of people are out of the house during the day). I go volunteer at my kids’ schools as a room parent. Most days after work I’m shuttling kids around to activities.

We do outsource things like cleaning and yard work, but otherwise enjoy having a pretty nice flex schedule so we can go do things ourselves. I have no interest in outsourcing my entire life and living like a hermit.

[Anonymous]

I have a nouveau riche friend and order everything, no matter how tiny, and having it delivered (a single cup of coffee, or a single roll of tape) is absolutely a flex on her part. I knew her before the overnight windfall and the endless service people thing did not exist.

Now, she works into every conversation, every single one, that she’s paying someone to do something that day. InstaCart, hand watering patio plants, advice about taking supplements, the single cup of coffee. She really wants everyone to know she can afford things

[Anonymous]

I order fast food from an app because I'm surer of there not being a mistake in what I ordered and it means I spend less time waiting. I don't order groceries because I want to pick them out and make adjustments if they don't have something I want.

And as always an obsession with class signaling is lame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a SAHM mom and I actually have time to shop, but I do pick up most of the time because it's convenient and free. I'll even do a pick up order and then still go in and get the 10% of stuff I want to pick myself, or didnt think of in time.

I dont get the wealth thing because it costs the same?

Class-obsessed strivers are always thinking about their image and optics. They don't want to be scene doing things which they think suggest they have free time (because they are sooooo busy all. the. time. ) or activities they perceive to be 'lesser than'. You may chuckle at that, but that's how a lot of them are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my friends is a doctor, and I ran into her at the grocery store the other day. So my one anecdote proves you wrong.

Actually shopping with a cart full of a week's worth of groceries or picking up a salad for lunch?

[Anonymous]

I cannot being so insecure and class conscious that I thought about this at all

[Anonymous]

^ imagine

[Anonymous]

I have tried it and too often I had to go back to the store to fix a problem. It just does not work for me.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who orders groceries for pickup because she said it helps her budget better and reduces her overall grocery bill since there aren't any impulse purchases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is status related at all. Maybe time related. Of course it makes sense that retirees with no job can go to the market and shop for hours every day. Busy parents doing grocery pickup or delivery just makes sense for how busy they are.

It's just an interesting observation is all. A broader theme of UMC becoming more and more secluded, seemingly outsourcing everything to a servant class. We don't go into coffee shops, we order from an app and don't have to speak to baristas. We don't go into grocery stores, worker bees deliver it to our door step. We take an uber and request the driver not talk.

Any actual data on this?

You don't see the Starbucks pick-up area full of mobile orders? You don't see luxury SUVs in the Whole Foods and Target pick-up spots? If you live in an UMC neighborhood, you don't see your neighbors getting groceries delivered, plus landscapers, house cleaners, nannies, and/or dog walkers? Uber eats and Door dash delivering restaurant to-go? It's certainly a theme.

[Anonymous]

We are relatively high income and I go to the store. I've done delivery once -- and there were too many substitutions and I didn't like the produce that was chosen. I also don't like paying for it; even though we can more than afford it, it just seems really expensive to me for something that is a want and not a need (although tbh I'm sure it would actually save me money if you account for the lack of the impulse buys I make when in the store).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is status related at all. Maybe time related. Of course it makes sense that retirees with no job can go to the market and shop for hours every day. Busy parents doing grocery pickup or delivery just makes sense for how busy they are.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

I order my groceries for pick up because I hate shopping. They don’t charge me more so I don’t see why it would be considered a status symbol. Some people just enjoy browsing the aisles. Not me.