My 7th Instacart paycheck 💸 🛒

This week started out very slow and gradually gained momentum going into the weekend. I've come to realize that not every week is going to have 7 straight days of amazing earnings. Fri/Sat/Sun always seems to be the busiest. As for the other days of the week, it's a toss-up whether or not you will have a chance to earn much or not.

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, February 20th

I was so busy Monday that I barely had time to get out and shop. I did manage a few orders, but I had other things as my main focus this day. I went to the gym, did a few loads of laundry, cooked, wrote blogs, and did a few other things. By the time I got out there to work, there was still some action but I was already tired. I did two orders and then called it quits for the night.

I made about $27.13/hr on this day.

As long as I work a little bit every day, I feel good about how I'm spending my time. I know that I can pretty much always make time to shop for a few orders. The days that I can do half a dozen or more are even more satisfying.

I've not had a bad tip in quite a while. I keep getting good customers who care about their shoppers. Both orders on this day were repeat deliveries for me. I wonder if they recognized my name from before.

Tuesday, February 21st

I did not work this due simply because I did not see one good order all day. It was all things like shopping for 45 minutes, driving 10 miles and making $10. That just isn't worth it to me and I refuse to not be paid something that actually makes it worth my time and gas. Plus it gave me a few hours to play Borderlands 3 for the first time and also go out and have some fun during the evening.

Wednesday, February 22nd

Wednesday was just one of those super-average days. I at least had some orders to do, but none of them were amazing. The $9 ones were both something that took me maybe 20 minutes total each time.

I made about $24.13/hr on this day.

Some days you have to suck it up and do some okay orders instead of great ones. If you want to earn consistently you have to show up.

I met two customers and both of them were so nice to me. One offered to buy my a drink as soon as I started shopping for her. Then after I delivered she was so kind and left me a great review.

Thursday, February 23rd

I'll be honest, I didn't really do a whole lot on Thursday. I took one decent order and then had other things to do for the rest of the day.

I made about $24.60/hr on this day.

I'm sure I could have worked more, but sometimes you just need to get out and do other things besides work. I'm so happy that I can go online or offline with Instacart whenever I want. Adhering to a strict schedule just is not fun.

I'll take a $20 tip any day if the neighborhood did have a gigantic and unavoidable pothole right before my customer's house.

Friday, February 24th

It had been a rough week up until Friday. This day ended up being a long one, but the pay was well worth it, especially there at the very end. I took a break to cook some dinner before heading back out to do one last order at 6 pm. It's a good thing I was still online because this person left a chunky $40 tip. When I arrived at their house it was a gigantic mansion and then it all made sense why the tip was so big. Too bad it was dark so I couldn't really get a good look at all of the most likely beautiful homes in the neighborhood.

I made about $32.38/hr on this day.

Starting early and finishing late is sure to provide some positive results. If I didn't have as much free time as I do, it would be hard to make good money with Instacart. I can work in short bursts and come home to take a break when it gets slow. Some people only have a small window of time when they can work, but I can work anytime as long as I'm not sleeping.

I'm thankful for all of the great customers I had on this day. There was only one person that wasn't a very good tipper, but their order was easy and the delivery point was somewhere I hadn't been before. I enjoy getting to explore and heck if I get paid while doing that, even better.

Saturday, February 25th

I can officially say that I have made $200 in one day with Instacart now. This is by far my best day since starting at the beginning of 2023. I got multiple great orders and stayed busy pretty much all day from sun up to sun down. That doesn't mean the day was perfect though.

I made about $37.95/hr on this day.

Getting over $100 before noon was a serious confidence booster. I needed it after a pretty slow week. The only thing that I got very annoyed with on Saturday was my 1:44pm order. It was originally supposed to pay me well over $50, but I instead got stuck with only $15.87.

It's a long story, but basically my Instacart card declined at checkout for that double order. I called customer service and the lady claimed there was a service outage and that the batch would have to be canceled. This was after nearly an hour of shopping and chatting with my two customers. I felt so bad knowing that they wouldn't get their groceries.

I was assured by the lady on the phone that I would still be paid in full, including the tip. Before I got off of the phone I watched as my account was credited with a $45 bump to replace my lost tips. Sadly, once I got home, the bump had disappeared and right away I was furious.

I spent a solid hour chatting through text with different customer support and they told me that the employee made a "false promise". I didn't have a way of proving what she told me since it was on the phone and not through a message. They ended up giving me a tiny $5 bump, but still, it was a big waste of time for me.

I tried to not let this spoiled moment distract me from the fact that I still was having and continued to have a very great day. I am thrilled with how it all went and hope I never run into the card decline issue again.

Sunday, February 26th

After such a great day on Saturday, I had a really good feeling about Sunday. I didn't expect to break my new daily high score, but I had a feeling I'd come close. Well, it turns out that two days in a row I set a new daily earnings record. This was by far my best day of Instacart yet and I'm so happy the week ended on such a high note.

I made about $49.42/hr on this day.

That hourly pay is just insane to me. I'm getting extremely good at this job. I have the locations of most popular items memorized for about 3-4 stores. None of the veggies confuse me anymore. My seconds per item is down to 52, and it was close to 100 when I first started. That means that I find all products in less than a minute. This is why I prefer the smaller stores, because they are the easiest to navigate quickly.

Another bonus for Sunday was an active promotion. I earned an extra $25 just for completing 5 batches, which I was already going to do anyway. This made me feel less sour about losing out on $40 on the previous day.

My patience is paying off huge with all of this shopping stuff. I don't just accept any order, otherwise my hourly rate would drop drastically and I wouldn't enjoy the job so much. Camping and waiting for the perfect order, especially on the weekend, seems to be the best strategy.

I cannot thank my customers enough for leaving such tremendous tips all weekend. I went inside the house of three different people on Sunday. All of them were elderly and I carried all of their stuff into the kitchen for them. One had me rearranging some of her heavy drinks for her and it made me so happy to know she was as thrilled as she was. I felt like she didn't want me to leave and would have talked to me all day, but I had to go.

End of week hours and pay 🤑

My weekly pay was over $700 and I barely worked 20 hours. This was absolutely my best week of doing this gig. I've been hustling like crazy and I am so grateful that I finally have a car that I can rely on to let me do this job.

I made about $35.88/hr on average this past week.

I always try to set goals for the next week, but I think it's going to be challenging to surpass the numbers this week. Yet, I still believe I have even better weeks ahead of me in the future.

Doing it again next week 👀

Most of my jobs in the past have gotten boring after the first few weeks. I'm about to be 2 months into doing Instacart shopping and I still am just as excited as when I started. The reason I think it is so addicting to me is the whole gamification aspect of it. There is a lot of luck, but also quite a bit of skill involved. These are things that make me want to constantly outdo myself and be the top shopper in my area. I wish there was a leaderboard, because I know I'd be high up there.

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