Zen and the art of living without Blinkit

How I found joy, sanity and the perfectly ripe bananas after I quite quick-commerce.

Six months ago, I broke up with quick-commerce.

No more Blinkit bananas. No Instamart orders unless it was an emergency. No midnight snack orders on Zepto. We’re just seeing each other occasionally, from a distance.

And 6 months later... Happy to report. I am still alive and well.

So what has changed

I shop from my neighbourhood grocery store. I might just have found my ‘third place’ - the place I frequent the most after home and work - Simpl Namdhari’s! The hidden win here is that I love super markets. They just give me so much joy. When I visit a new city, my must-see list always includes the local supermarkets. So now I have a way to get that cheap thrill every day.

I walk a lot more. Every grocery trip is a 1000 steps in. At least my step count is thanking me. And I am sure on some days walking home with the bags should count as strength training!

I know my neighbourhood better. I say hello to all the good dogs on the way! And know exactly how many Jacarandas line up the lane down my house!

I bunch orders and plan my meals. See, if I don’t have the ingredients stocked when my cook comes in at 7 in the morning, it is going to need a very grumpy trip to the grocery store or some high end creative thinking about what to make with whatever is there in the fridge. This has made me much more mindful about what I eat. When one shops for groceries once a week, it’s much easier to make sure one has a mix of greens, seasonal veggies, some fruits, or enough protein. Also, I have way fewer instances of finding a vegetable or fruit that was rotten because I can see what I am buying. I have become much better at knowing good tomatoes from bad ones - life skills! If I am buying a dozen bananas, I can actually buy them in different stages of ripeness so I can use them over a few days instead of getting 12 unripe bananas on Instamart that all ripen the same day and then turn extra-ripe with the only way to use them is to bake banana bread.

I eat a lot less junk. Knowing you have to change out of pyjamas and walk 10 minutes really makes you think about how badly you need that packet of chips. I have learnt that the craving for junk food is an impulse and often passes away if you just give it enough time. (Yep, seeing the chips packets in the store can be tempting too, but I am much more likely to crave a packet of chips when I am snacky at 7 pm and need a distraction from work than during my grocery run on Saturday morning)

I am slowly weaning off the ‘instant gratification’ drug. I am relearning the art of waiting to get something you want, that most things are far less urgent than we imagine. And this applies to so much more than getting that ice-cream within 10 minutes of craving it.

I have much less packaging waste. No Blinkit bags. No individually plastic wrapped fruits. I take my own shopping bag and also carry the paper bags that the supermarket put the veggies in with the weight sticker, so I can reuse the same ones. Shout out to Namdhari’s for letting you take the old ones back and putting the new weight stickers on them.

I discover the latest ground-breaking innovations like jam slices, get unnecessarily angry and rant about them on Linkedin. C’mon it’s all worth it if it helps generate content!

Quick-commerce apps are designed to grab attention with the bombardment of offers and alerts. Supermarkets aren’t saints either. A lot of thinking goes into what gets placed upfront, what gets placed at eye level, how discounts are presented, but that still feels less intrusive than push notifications shouting at me through the app screen.

Did I save money? I don’t know, but I have definitely wasted less. I check my fridge before I make the grocery run and only buy things I need. Also, no longer need to add a makhana packet to complete the minimum order!

Did I feel like I was wasting time? I know many feel that ordering on quick-commerce is a way to save time and be efficient. But at least for me, I actually think this way (of living without quick commerce) has saved me time and my sanity. For one every Blinkit order means opening the app, selecting the items one needs, trying to figure what to add to complete minimum order, getting distracted by some offer, going down a rabbit hole of comparing 9 brands of ‘protein rich curd’, making sure the right address is selected, paying and then tracking the delivery guy wondering why he is 30 seconds too late. This actually is a good 5-10 minutes. If you do this twice a day it’s actually ~105 minutes a week -> that’s almost 2 hours. A weekly grocery trip typically takes me less than an hour. These calculations may not apply to everyone. One may be quicker in navigating the app and placing the order and one may not need as many orders. But it’s not just about the absolute time either. When I buy groceries in the store, I am doing just that. My entire attention is only focused on buying groceries. I am not replying to a Whatsapp that popped up when I was ordering on an app, or am not switching to a different app because I suddenly remembered I had to reply to an e-mail. And it may sound ridiculous in a world that idolises multi-tasking, but I love being able to do one thing at a time. It’s just easier on my mind.

On the downside, I have definitely endangered some friendships and risked friends thinking I am going completely insane. Let me leave you with one fun conversation.

Friend: Hey, do you have Coke?

Me: No

Friend: Can you order?

Me: No, I don’t use Swiggy and Blinkit anymore

Friend: What do you mean?

Me: I don’t order on quick-commerce unless it’s an emergency.

Friend: So what if you need emergency bread?

Me: I can’t think of a bread emergency

Friend: You are losing it. Nevermind, I’ll order on my app.

Me: No, you can’t order quick-commerce to my house. Mah house, mah rules!

Friend: Okay now you have completely lost it. So what do you want me to do?

Me: Let’s walk to the supermarket and buy a Coke. What fun!

In case you are curious, that friendship has survived. My friends do love me after all, I guess.

In full disclosure, I still have some of the apps and I have used them a few times - when I was a sick, when we had a big bunch of friends visiting and it started pouring or when I just didn’t have the energy to dress up again and go down when I realised we were out of salt after coming back home at 9 pm. But on most days, I have stayed far away from the apps and not missed them at all

Quitting quick-commerce hasn’t been a massive bother. In fact it’s hardly been a minor inconvenience. It has made space for more steps, better food, less waste, and a little more patience.

Still alive. Still eating. Slightly smug. Very satisfied.