How RVers Can Make Money & Travel With Instacart Grocery Delivery Service!

Why I Fell In Love With Instacart

Before I dive into the details of how fellow RVers, location independent travelers, and those looking for ways to make money outside the typical 9-5 career can make money and travel with the grocery delivery service called Instacart, I want to tell you a personal story of why I first fell in love with this amazing service!

It was beautiful and rainy, pacific northwest winter just 45 minutes northeast of downtown Seattle, where my family had set up camp for a few months. My husband was working in Seattle and we were trying to stay within a 1 hour drive so he could commute with out 1 vehicle.

Grocery shopping for a family of 6, was getting increasingly more difficult to get done with just one or two days a week to do it on and meals were starting to take a turn for the worse… meaning lots of processed food choices that we usually try to avoid! (I love to cook, but not having the right ingredients puts a real damper on things!)

I stumbled across the Instacart service, while looking at the weekly sale on the Safeway website and decided to give it a try. I added all my ingredients for the next few days worth of meals to my shopping cart, signed up for an account using my Facebook profile and placed the order.

I watched from my phone as my order went from initially being put into the system, being assigned to a personal shopper, progressing through the store and then after check out it was on its way!

When the first delivery arrived just 2 hours later I was hooked!

Not only did I not have to waste about 1.5 hours of my precious time at the store doing the shopping myself, but the price was exactly the same as what I would have spent if I went myself (minus the tip I gave the driver) so why even go?

I started using the service over the next few months for all my shopping and was completely satisfied that I was (1) getting everything i needed without leaving the house, (2) saving time and delegate it towards things I really wanted to do, like playing in the snow, and (3) I was helping provide a paid job for someone in the local community that need a few extra dollars!

Instacart was amazing and I was head over heals!

Then about 2 weeks ago, I started talking to one of the personal shoppers who delivered my groceries pretty regularly. She was telling me that not only did she get paid tips, which I was adding to my bill but she also got paid by the company based on the amount of my order! I asked her about the company and the ease of signing up and also about how she felt about the amount of orders there seemed to be up for grabs.

All signs were pointing towards this being a great side hustle or part-time gig to earn extra cash. And i knew right then, I would eventually write this post to tell RVers that this opportunity is not only available, but pretty lucrative!

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Make Money and travel with Instacart jobs great for RVers

Who Doesn’t Want To Get Paid To Shop?

With Instacart its possible!

If you’re an RVer, traveler of just someone wanting to pick up a few extra bucks, Instacart can be the answer you’ve been dreaming of!

This gig app allows you to earn extra money in your spare time, by shopping for other people’s groceries and delivering them! Choose your hours, how long you want to work and when you want to be off. Work extra when the cash is good, and less when you fell you want a break!

Instacart is available at a variety of grocery stores across the nation, and shoppers are having a great time delivery grocery and earning cash in less time than a traditional job requires.

They’re on a mission to revolutionize grocery shopping, and I for one am so thankful! When I don’t have time to shop, or just plain out do want to spend an hour at the grocery store I just login and order everything I need and have someone do it for me. They get all the products I need, saving me a trip to the store and then drop it all off at my door while I continue to work on my blog and spend time with the kids!

It’s a Win-Win!

First Let’s Talk About What Instacart Is?

Instacart is an on-demand grocery delivery service, that utilizes a team of shoppers to handpick you selected items from your favorite store then deliver them to you personally. So, yes! It’s a cheap way to get your own personal shopper to run your errands.

Using the website, tablet or smartphone application, you can shop at selected stores in your area for a variety of products including your weekly groceries, toiletries, paper goods, household items, clothing and even alcohol. Heck we even purchased a pair of snow chains for our SUV, using Instacart before a big storm hit the Seattle area!

Its super easy and save so much time, I recommend it to everyone who doesn’t have time to spend walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store or would just rather spend that time out exploring!

Groceries can be delivered to you in as little as an hour, but more likely a few hours, with the option to schedule something later in the day, or even in a few days down the road.

This option is great for RVers and travelers wanting to best utilize their time in an area, but also for RVers looking to make a little cash by picking up a gig shopping for someone else!

Instacart Personal Shoppers

The Instacart grocery delivery service utilizes personal shoppers to hand-pick all items. They carefully select the best bananas, have the deli cut your meat exactly as you like it and grab your favorite brand of dish soap and detergent in the same trip! They check the expiration dates, make personal replacement choices that you can verify before checkout, and handle your fragile items like eggs, and bread with care all the way to the door!

Personal shoppers are a great side job for travelers and RVers in general, as the opportunities are available in a variety of cities ranging in size across the map. If taking on a part-time job as a personal shopper sounds like a location independent job you’d like to try, you’ll be glad to know it offers flexibility with the ability to choose when and how long you work each day.

Jobs with Instacart are offered for two positions- Full Service Shopper and In Store Shopper. Full Service Shoppers are basically independent contractors (Review the Independent Contractor Agreement here) that handle the full order. They shop for the groceries and deliver the items to the customer. In Store Shoppers on the other hand, work inside a specific location helping customers shop for their orders.

Full Service Shoppers

As a Full-Service Shopper for Instacart you have the availability to set your own schedule and decide when you ultimately want to work. As an independent contractor you have that flexibility to work as many or a few hours as you desire.

You will be receiving orders on your smartphone, so having a new model smartphone is a requirement. Once you accept the order, you will then begin shopping for the items and then deliver those items to the customer at their home or office.

Things to Know:

  • No minimum or maximum number of work hours
  • You set your own schedule
  • Shoppers get paid weekly

Basic Requirements:

  • Must be 18 years old or over
  • Must be eligible to work in the US
  • Requires a working, register vehicle
  • Must have proper vehicle insurance.
  • Recent model smartphone, running Android 5.0 or later (or iOs 9 or later) is required.
  • Be able to lift between 30-40 lbs with or without an accommodation 

In Store Shoppers

As an In Store Shopper, you’ll still receive orders on your smartphone, but your main responsibility will be to shop for the items and bag the items- without the need to deliver them.  In this role, no deliveries are made so shoppers will not be required to have a vehicle.

Shoppers in this role are part-time employees who can work a maximum of 29 hours per week. The actual hours each week will fluctuate based on the customer need, so you should not by any means rely on receiving the max. hours as a definite, it will be purely based on demand.

Things to Know:

  • 29 hours max. per week
  • Hours based on demand.
  • Set your own schedule.
  • Shoppers get paid weekly
  • No deliveries or car needed.

Basic Requirements:

  • Must be 18 years old or over
  • Must be eligible to work in the US
  • Recent model smartphone, running Android 5.0 or later (or iOs 9 or later) is required.
  • Be able to lift between 30-40 lbs with or without an accommodation

How Do I sign-up?

Your first step to signing up with Instacart is to complete the online form, found here! Once your application has been received, reviewed and approved you’ll receive additional information to complete the sign-up process, which will include an in-store introduction for In Store Shoppers.

Full Service Shoppers on the other hand have the option to complete all steps online without the need to come in store.

 

Psst… If you like the thought of using delervery services to make money and travel, check out this podcast I did on 4 delivery gig apps for RV jobs!

 

 

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