My 39th Instacart paycheck 💸 🛒

Man oh man, I just had my best week of Instcart since May. It still was far from my best week ever, but it was nice to finally get into the $400 range again. I even managed to ALMOST have double-digit hours worked. Perhaps things are indeed looking up now that the weather is cooling down.

I plan on doing a weekly Instacart Financial Report like this one, so if you enjoy this kind of content be sure to follow me if you aren't already doing so.

I'm going to be breaking down each day of work individually. Luckily, the Instacart Shopper app makes that extremely easy to do. Let's go ahead and get things started.

Monday, October 16th

This week started pretty solid. I didn't have any work all afternoon until almost 4 p.m. That may sound like a slow day, but the two orders I accepted included some juicy tips. Batch one was a double order, but it wasn't a hard one. Unless you think that carrying two 40-packs of bottled water up a flight of stairs is difficult.

I made about $46/hr on this day.

The final order of the evening started as another $34 order. They tipped percentage though, so anytime that I added a higher priced item, my pay went up. I had to do this several times and the customer did approve these changes. It was a very nice house with 4 or 5 cars in the driveway, so I'm sure they didn't care what the exact cost of the grocery haul was. I hope I get their orders more often because this was my first time shopping for them.

Tuesday, October 17th

No orders = No work

Wednesday, October 18th

Wednesday was the craziest day of Instacart that I've ever had. Not because I made an insane amount of money. Well, not exactly. Let me explain. I had two orders for the day, both paid just under $30. Just under $60 total for the day.

I made about $29.28/hr on this day.

It may seem like not too special of a day, but let me tell you, it was. My second order ended up being a complete mess. I shopped for 25 minutes and then finally advanced to the checkout. When I scanned my barcode like usual, it said the barcode had already been scanned. Weird because this had only happened one other time. I contacted customer support and it took them 30 minutes to finally resolve the issue. It was a terrible experience and I was so angry by the time I finally left the store.

Now for the good part of the story. I arrived at the customer's home and when I talked to them they told me somebody had already delivered the order earlier. This means that Instacart had somehow glitched and sent the order out twice. I was worried, but Instacart made it all good.

I got paid my $27.80 for the order. As a bonus, I also got to keep the entire grocery order. This is something that I have seen on Reddit many times, but it has never happened to me yet.

As I said, this wasn't a small order. It was $225 worth of groceries, plus I got all of the reward points on my customer loyalty card, which means I'll save $0.50/gallon the next time I get gas.

I'd say a solid 60% of the items were things I'll actually use. Stuff like bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, milk, egg nog, toilet paper, ground beef, bread, coffee, ice cream, crackers, frozen vegetables, and aluminum foil.

There were some items that I will not use. This includes at least 30 cans of vegetables, adult underwear, and 48 bottles of Coca-Cola. I decided to take them to a local donation center so that people who actually need the rest of this stuff can make use of it.

Although I left the store in a terrible mood, getting a $225 tip in the form of free groceries was a very nice surprise. I couldn't help but be happy after this.

Thursday, October 19th

There was not much action on Thursday. Although it wasn't a $0 day, I worked less than 30 minutes in total. Despite having the app online all day long, I only got one worthwhile order during the evening.

I made about $41.82/hr on this day.

The solo order I did on Thursday was to my dude Derrick. He is 100% without a doubt my most consistent customer. I must have delivered to him at least 20 times since I started doing Instacart this year. He always leaves an above-average tip, but nothing too crazy. The main benefit with him is the fact that he lives just down the street from my apartment so I barely have to drive. His orders are always simple too. I know exactly where all of the items are that he wants. The only thing I had to deal with this time that slowed me down was traffic. Otherwise, I'd have been done in 15 minutes total.

Friday, October 20th

Friday wasn't too bad at all. The first batch of the day was a double order. I was hesitant to accept it even though the pay was almost $50, I just knew two medium/large orders would be stressful. I was right, but for the same reasons that I thought originally. Sure, I had to push around two carts because both customers had 25 items and several 12-packs of soda. The main thing that slowed me down was the fact that the app was glitched and decided to have all of my aisles out of order. It wasn't as easy as starting at the top of the list and working my way down. I had to scroll constantly to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything in my current aisle.

Even with that bug, I still managed to finish the shop in only 30 minutes, which was 20 minutes quicker than the app estimated it would take me. There was one human-operated register open and the line was 6-7 people long. I decided I was better off doing self-checkout. At least then, it's all on me and I don't have to get annoyed with a slow cashier. By the time I finished, it was about 45 minutes total in the store. Then it was time to deliver.

Customer #1 was very nice and met me outside with her mom. Their house was average and she was a single mom. I delivered all of her stuff and said goodbye. Just as I was leaving it began to rain.

When I got to customer #2, it was an absolute downpour. Of course, her front porch didn't have a cover for me to sit her groceries under. Her house was very nice though and she had a BMW parked in her driveway. When I rang the doorbell, she didn't answer. I knocked on the door one last time before leaving, and she finally answered. She was nice and saw that I was absolutely drenched. I said thank you and was on my way.

Now for the good part. Customer #1 left a $38 tip. Customer #2 left $3. This just goes to show that even if you have a nice house and car, you can still be incredibly cheap. This woman left me outside in the rain and still didn't think to give me more than a couple of dollars. Meanwhile, the other woman who probably doesn't have it as easy in life gave me far more than she needed to. It balanced itself out, but damn I wish Instacart would stop pairing great customers with terrible customers.

I made about $36.48/hr on this day.

The final two orders of the evening were both very easy. As soon as I delivered the first order, I accepted the second order. That doesn't happen often anymore. Even better, the last order of the night was right down the street from my apartment, so it was on my way home.

Overall, it was a solid day and I'm hoping for a big weekend over the next two days.

Saturday, October 21st

Saturday wasn't quite as busy as I had hoped, but the little bit of work that I did paid me very well for my time. I accepted orders off and all all afternoon. None of the customers lived further than two miles from the grocery store and most of them were less than one mile away.

I made about $54.46/hr on this day.

I got to deliver to this guy that's on an oxygen tank again. The last time I took his items to him I had to go up the elevator to bring them inside his apartment because he was having a difficult day breathing. On this Saturday, the man met me outside and he was in much better condition. He still had his oxygen tank with him, but he wasn't out of breath and I could tell wanted to have a conversation. I talked to him for a few minutes and then sent him upstairs with his wagon full of food.

Sunday, October 22nd

Sunday went pretty much exactly how I had hoped it would. Although I didn't get any early morning orders, I was able to stay busy pretty much all afternoon. I even scored one of my best orders in months to the end my work week.

I made about $48.67/hr on this day.

The batch with two orders that paid me $60 was two of my frequent customers combined into one. Order A left me a $32 tip and Order B left $18, totaling to $50 in tips alone. As you see, Instacart as a company doesn't pay much at all in comparison to the customers who tip me. $50 vs $10 in this case.

End of week hours and pay 🤑

My weekly pay was close to $420 and I worked nearly 10 hours.

I made about $42.04/hr on average this past week.

Doing it again next week 👀

I am so happy to finally have a week where I don't just barely meet my earning needs. The extra $100 on top of my minimum earning number was a very nice way to go into this fall season. Most people would be looking to splurge on something, but I will be saving that money for bills or any surprise costs that may come up.

I hope you have enjoyed this insider look at what kind of pay is possible while working for Instacart.