I picked up a lot of good grocery saving tips from the Tightwad Gazette books. Hubby and I are on disability, and while our income is better than many people in our situation, because we had good jobs and good insurance, the budget is pretty tight. We find a lot of creative ways to save money, and it's really been a surprise to us how much we are able to save, with a bit of creative shopping.
Aldi's is a part of that, but you've got to pay attention. Not everything is cheaper, though we've never had a quality problem, and Aldi's has a double your money back guarantee that we've only had to use once (we got a mustard bottle that seemed to have had a break in the seal, we returned it and they gave us our choice of double our money back or two new bottles of mustard. The clerk pulled the entire box our bottle came from for inspection later, and gave us two bottles from a different shipment, checking the seals before giving them to us.
We also shop Walmart, a small Big Lots type private chain, an oriental grocery, a health food store, farmers' markets, and a couple of small grocery stores. We don't shop every store every week, but we've developed a bit of a routine that starts with checking the weekly grocery ads, making a list and then based on our experience and the ads we decide where we're going to shop each week.
It sounds like it takes hours and hours of our time, but I don't think we're spending much more time than we did when we both were working. We make a few more trips, but they're shorter, and we plan ahead better.
hey, I though Aldi was just European, didn't know it had got to America too!
When it first came to the UK it had very few, if any, branded items, and was a place where lots of folk's kids didn't like it to be known that their mothers shopped there.
It's still not top of the range, and the fresh fruit and veg doesn't last as long as stuff from higher end supermarkets but I'm happy to shop there (and Lidl), having discovered that although a lot of the names aren't brands here, they are in Germany, so not inferior, just foreign. (The chocolate is particularly yummy. My bad. )
If you like Aldi's try Costco! The produce is always excellent, often better than our local fruit market. The meat is also good. You do need to plan though, every quantity is large.
Just went to Aldi's last night and stocked up on many things but mostly Fit and Active. I LOVE THAT STUFF. This morning hubby and I had Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt. MMMMMM and perfect on calories. There was only a few things that I couldn't find last night. 1) Grape Nuts (or generic) 2.) apples (sold out) 3. soup (also sold out)
Hubby and I bought all the food needed for a week for less than $60 and thats including a stop at Wallyworld for apples and grape nuts!
Aldi's is a part of that, but you've got to pay attention. Not everything is cheaper, though we've never had a quality problem, and Aldi's has a double your money back guarantee that we've only had to use once (we got a mustard bottle that seemed to have had a break in the seal, we returned it and they gave us our choice of double our money back or two new bottles of mustard. The clerk pulled the entire box our bottle came from for inspection later, and gave us two bottles from a different shipment, checking the seals before giving them to us.
How refreshing to hear about good service like that!
I love our Aldi store. They don't always carry familiar brands, those seem to be hit and miss, and probably are bought when the corporate buyers are able to get a good discount. The Aldi brands themselves are very good, though, often superior to similar name brand products.
When hubby and I were living in central Illinois, we started shopping at Aldi's after an experience at a friends house. My friend, Matt invited us for dinner, and he made the ubiquitous central Illinois favorite, green bean casserole. It's almost sacreligious to not like green bean casserole, but I never have (except for the crunchy Durkee onion topping). However Matt's was so good, I asked what he did differently, because it was really good. The difference was subtle, but the mushroom flavor really stood out, and I asked him what he did differently (suspecting that he sauteed mushrooms before stirring into the dish), but he said the only thing he did differently was to use Aldi's cream of mushroom soup instead of Campbell's. We became Aldi converts after that (I'd been in the store before, but only bought brands I recognized).
Like many places, Aldi's has a less than stellar reputation in central Illinois. It's generally looked down upon by anyone who doesn't shop there (or doesn't admit to shopping there). When we would run into people we knew at Aldi's, people would act embarassed and say they only shop here for x, y, or z. We'd tell them they were nuts, because everything in the store that we bough had been excellent.
When I was working at one of State Farm's corporate offices in systems as a computer programmer, one of the other programmers always brought these amazing little cream puffs or mini eclairs for food days. Everyone was so impressed, but he only admitted to a few people where he found them (Aldi's) because the "ghetto" association was pretty strong among some of the more pretentious employees. The office politics could be pretty ruthless. Some people would look down their noses at you and sniff that they "only shopped at Schnuck's," the most expensive grocery store in town. The variety was good there, but the quality of the produce stunk. You could get blood oranges, star fruit and all sorts of exotic producen all year round, but it was overpriced and rarely at peak freshness, it was often in such bad shape, I can't believe the produce manager allowed it out for sale, let alone at such ridiculous prices.
I've definitely learned that you can't judge a book by it's cover, in food shopping. In Bloomington, there's this little mexican grocery/meat market that makes an amazing carnitas (roast pork) on Saturdays (and another day of the week, don't remember when). The shop is dark and smells clean, but looks dingy. Matt also turned us on to it. We were skeptical and I always felt like I was taking a big health risk buying from them - but I later learned that their kitchen is SPOTLESS - it always gets the highest Health Department scores. It made me realize the store wasn't "dirty," it just hadn't been updated in years. The floors were clean, but very scuffed so they "looked" dirty. The aisles were narrow, and a little dark, so again it "seemed" kind of dirty, but there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere. It made me realize how much we think what isn't true based on first glance appearance. A store that is spacious and well lit, can seem clean when it isn't. And a place that's a little cramped and dark, can seem dirty when it isn't.
I always liked shopping at aldi. You really can't say something isn't " a name brand ". I love this country gravy I use to buy there. Was a non name brand item. I mentioned it to someone I was talking to on the net one day and found out where she lives, down in the southern part of the country, it is a very well known name brand. Also, many name brand company's package things under other names. You never can tell. Now I shop at save a lot since the neighborhood that aldi is in isn't safe to even go into at high noon.
I wish we had one here... I haven't had one for years, the last time was when we were stationed in Jersey shortly after we got married. Hubby got in trouble and the Navy took some of his pay, and then screwed up and took some more that they weren't supposed to... so while hubby was eating fine on the ship, my daughter and I were stuck living on less than $100 for a month... Aldi's literally saved our lives, I would never have been able to buy enough food on that little money anywhere else, they even beat the commissary prices. Even after the Navy fixed the money issue and hubby got out of trouble, we continued to shop there.. With 3 kids now that eat a lot, I sure wish we had one.
