The Great Grocery Debate!

Hello Mamas! It's been a while! I thought I'd share some grocery shopping insight I've recently discovered. To preface, I am a sale shopper. I will RARELY ever pay retail prices on anything. It physically pains me to do so. So, with that said, I thought I'd share my thoughts on two different grocery shopping services in my area (Oregon). In this edition of Versus, we're pitting 

vs

Offers Delivery	Yes, for a fee or w/plan	Yes, for a fee or w/plan
Offers Pick-up	Free w/$30 purchase	Free w/$35 purchase
Delivery Plan	Freshpass $99/yr	Walmart+ $98/yr
	Plan Includes:	Plan Includes:
	$5 monthly credit	Free shipping
	Free Delivery on orders over $30	Free Delivery on orders over $35
	Monthly Starbucks Perk	Scan & Go Service (no checkout)
	Save 5% on Organic Line
Item Substitutions	Yes, unless you opt out	Yes, unless you opt out

I subscribe to Safeway Freshpass and do Walmart pick-ups. After using Safeway since February, I will not be renewing next year and will strongly consider using Walmart's annual plan. 

Safeway Pros

• Their sale prices, and Just 4 U prices, are usually better than Walmart's regular price and that adds up. I typically split my weekly groceries between the two depending on who has the better price.

Safeway Cons

• Every. Single. Order. Is. Wrong! I order weekly and almost every week I have to contact customer service. Issues I've run into are sale prices not being honored, out of stock items negating a sale price on items received (ie, buy 5 for $1ea, must buy 5, I get 3 delivered and pay full price for the 3), and substitutions are sometimes weird (I got a bag of tortilla chips as a substitution for fabric softener that was out of stock). A big note on Safeway substitutions, if you opt for them, you could be sorely disappointed as the substituted item may be three times the price of your out of stock item, but you'll be charged full price for the substitution. I've opted out of them all together because I've been burned too many times on out of stock items.
• I HATE HATE HATE all the damn plastic bags! You can't opt out of them, and that makes sense for delivery, but seriously, so much plastic! And sometimes, they'll put one or two items in a bag. Fill those suckers up! At 10 cents a pop, you'd better be filling them up with grocery goodness.
• With the number of out of stock items, I usually have to make a weekly in-store trip anyway. The bright side is I have less items to pick-up.

Walmart Pros

• When they substitute an item, they honor the price of the item you originally ordered. They will also send you an email asking if the substitutions are okay before you pick-up, so you can say "no, thank you" and they'll remove them from your order.
• You don't have to use bags! I LOVE this feature. I can opt out of bags when checking out online and when they bring out my groceries, they put them straight into a bin in my trunk and I can forego all that awful plastic.

Walmart Cons

• I honestly don't have any other than the fact that's it's Walmart and I have a love/hate relationship. This might be different if I used their delivery service, but my biggest beef with Safeway is the substitutions and I already prefer Walmart's way of handling that.

So there you have it. My two cents. I may be the only one to ever read this, but this is the type of stuff I search for online when I want to compare services, so to my other "me," you're welcome. :-)