Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Aldi - my experience.

Rita, I love Aldi.

Husband says he's told me about Aldi before I told him. I don't think he's a liar. I just don't remember. Our closest Aldi is in our closest "shopping city" Where our Sam's Club, Publix and Target (our major grocery stores) all are. We pass it a lot and I've been interested, but skeptical. cheap groceries rarely equal good groceries.

Susan started talking about it. She's a smart girl. I trust her. I decided we're going. and I loved it!

I decided to wait a few days after our trip to blog about it so we could actually eat some of the things we bought. to see if our cheap groceries equal good groceries.

according to our receipt, we bought 100 items. exactly. we spent $127. not exactly, rounded up. (keep in mind we bought a lot of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste for spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce)

Things we bought that we've eaten:
string cheese
salomi
provolone
veggie stir fry
whole milk
green bell peppers
fresh garlic
graham crackers
table salt
chardonnay
diced tomatoes
tomato sauce
tomato paste

I am so pleased with everything we've tried. above and beyond what we expected. before we walked in the store I told Husband, "I guess this will prove if we've been buying quality or just buying a brand name." we've been buying a brand name for too long.

we also got:
ground beef
cat litter
Riesling
frozen shrimp
frozen salmon
bacon
red and yellow bell peppers
chicken broth
fresh zucchini
fresh squash
onion soup mix
all purpose flour
10lb bag of potatoes

Before we left the house I had Husband go to Sam's website and write down price per unit/ounce for the things we routinely buy at Sam's because we've already determined it to be the cheapest choice. Aldi beat Sam's on cat liter, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, ground beef, wine, fresh vegetables, salomi and provolone (actually, salomi and provolone is Husband's favorite sandwich and it got so expensive he had to switch to peanut butter for workday lunch - we can afford it at Aldi). The only thing Sam's won on was all purpose flour.

When we've used all our Starbucks Sumatran coffee, we'll be trying Aldi's Sumatran coffee. I also wish they had canned artichokes and cous couse. those are both things we buy a lot of that they didn't have. I think we'll try their sandwich bread next time too.

I didn't price their sodas because we don't buy soda. I didn't price their toilet paper. I really have no idea if we're buying the most cost effective toilet paper.

Things to know about Aldi before you go:
  • bring a quarter if you want a shopping cart.
  • they don't take coupons (bc most of their items are their brand, I assume)
  • they don't take credit cards (bad when my Discover Card offers double cash back on groceries during certain months)
  • bring your own bags or buy bags there or like Sam's Club - don't use bags.
  • check out is warp speed FAST. and you are the sacker. it's almost intimidatingly fast. they actually have a counter at the front of the store to move your sacking to after checkout.

It's nice to make your dollar go farther AND it be quality.

3 comments:

laurensmommy said...

ok, I've never heard of Aldi, but I'm surely all about saving money. According to their website, our closest ones would be Chattanooga or Knoxville. The next time we are in either place I will check it out!

Megan said...

Awesome...thanks for the post! My mom always raves about Aldi's. I've only tried it once, but I know I'll be back! One thing I was especially surprised about (as you've already indicated in your wine post) was the inexpensive ($8-ish) and tasty bottle of Irish Cream we found.

Christy Ross said...

Megan - we saw the Irish Cream but were skeptical once bc we tried O'Reilly's and found it WAAAAY worse than Bailey's. we'll have to give the Aldi kind a try.