My 63rd Instacart paycheck 💸 🛒

I was worried that Week 63 would be a continuation of Week 62's god-awful earnings. Thankfully I wasn't right about that, but I also didn't get close to having one of my best weeks ever. Let's look at the details.

Monday, April 1st

Tuesday, April 2nd

No work

Wednesday, April 3rd

Wednesday was terrible. No good orders were popping up, the usual as of late. By the time my second order came around I was over the day already as I had been waiting for work for hours.

I made about $20.28/hr on this day.

This was the worst hourly rate I've had since my first month of doing this job. We can blame this on the second order I did on Wednesday. It was originally supposed to pay closer to $30.

The customer ordered crab legs and shrimp, both of which were out of stock. They were making a specific dinner so decided to just cancel the order. It was their first Instacart order and I'm pretty sure they didn't even believe me when I said the store was out of stock. They told me to wait while they called the store to verify. I wasn't about to waste more time on this nonsensical order.

By the time I finished talking to Instacart customer support and putting back all of the items I had already gathered, I spent over 30 minutes at the store, plus wasted gas going there and back. I still received my measly $6.52 batch pay from Instcart, but it was in no way worth the time or effort since the tip evaporated.

Thursday, April 4th

I'm very sad to report that Thursday was yet another dud of a day. There were zero good orders all day long. I finally got my only one of the day a few hours before dark. It wasn't much, but it was better than ending another day with zero earnings.

I made about $40.88/hr on this day.

Instacart has been screwing me this week and last week. Out of nowhere, I am seeing no orders besides ones only a crazy person would accept. I know its not because all of my regular customers decided to stop using Instacart at the same time. I have a feeling its simply because the app is prioritizing new shoppers that were recently hired. I have no way to no for sure though.

Friday, April 5th

I almost hit my daily earning goal of $100 for the first time in over a week. What I normally would consider a bad day of work, turned out to be my best day since Saturday, March 23. Just shows you how slow Instacart has been lately.

I made about $48.93/hr on this day.

All of the orders were short and sweet on Friday at least. There were no high-mileage deliveries either. This is why despite doing 5 orders, I worked less than 2 hours in total.

The last dude handed me $2 cash. That's not even enough to buy me a gallon of gas. I'm not sure what the point in that was, but it's better than nothing I suppose.

Saturday, April 6th

Saturday started fantastic and then died off quickly. I had made a solid chunk of change before noon, which had me hopeful to have a big day. Then for seemingly no reason, nothing came up for me to do until 4 pm.

I made about $51.43/hr on this day.

The $57 order was a new customer of mine that I hope I continue to get more often now. I'm not sure how I got her order. It had been boosted by Instacart which means nobody else had accepted it for a long time. It also means that Instacart hadn't shown me the order before it showed it to several other people first. You've gotta love that shitty algorithm. I would have accepted this as soon as I saw it even without a boost. The customer had a reasonable order with low mileage and was tipped $50! She was also really good about messaging me and even helped me find an item that I had never located before.

The funny part is the $50 tipper lived in a very average home and her order was just after the infamous $10 tipper who lives in a mega-mansion overlooking the Golden Capitol Dome. The rich people have half a dozen cars, a brand new tennis court, and are currently building a pool house bigger than my parent's house with a gigantic pool. Who knows what crazy stuff they have inside? They seem like nice people but are cheap when it comes to paying service workers. This is yet another instance where the people with lower income are much better tippers than those with plenty of cash flow.

Sunday, April 7th

Sunday might not have been busy nonstop, but it did end up being the best day of week 63. I was busy some early in the morning and then late in the afternoon. There was a big chunk of time in the middle where nothing was going on.

I made about $41.80/hr on this day.

The highlight of the day was order #2. I delivered to an 88-year-old woman who lives alone since her husband died. She lost her license to drive due to old age. She spends all of her time tending to her garden and crocheting. She was very happy to talk to me for a few minutes and complimented my freshly washed car. She had a calm stream running in front of her garden. It was a very peaceful place, but I still felt sorry for her being all alone.

End of week hours and pay 🤑

My weekly pay was close to $330 and I worked just under 8 hours.

I made about $42.52/hr on average this past week.

Doing it again next week 👀

I just barely got over my weekly earnings goal. That normally would cut it, but after a terrible previous week, I needed a bit extra this week to feel accomplished. Here is to hoping that Week 64 is miraculously amazing out of nowhere.

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

^{Follow my curation trail}