Aldi

This is one of the nicest Aldi’s I’ve been to. It’s a stand-​alone, so the aisles are much wider than other Aldi stores I’ve been to. You really can’t beat their prices. Aldi is also continuously adding more and more natural, organic, gluten free, etc type of products that you wouldn’t expect to find at a discount grocer. Just remember to bring a quarter for a cart, your own bags, and cash or debit only.

If you want to get your groceries on the cheap but with decent quality, you better hit up Aldi’s. Yes, it is known as a no frills store with a smaller selection than most grocery giants but the savings are awesome and if you need basic items, Aldi’s has them for pennies on the dollar compared to any other store. What you need to know before you go is:
**Bring cash or have a debit card. Aldi’s does NOT take credit cards.
**Bring your own grocery bags. Aldi’s does NOT have free ones although you can purchase plastic or paper ones at the counter. They load up your items back into the shopping cart. Think Costco who also doesn’t have bags.
**Bring a quarter. To get a shopping cart you need a quarter and you get it back when you return the cart.
You can find your basics like milk, eggs, cheeses, meats, vegetables and fruits and good quality as well. They don’t carry a lot of name brands but their store brands can be just as good like their version of Hawaiian rolls are awesome.
You can’t find everything there but it will help in the long run on your food budget to get most of your items there and head off to Food Lion or Wal-​mart for the rest which is what I do.
Save some coin and try out Aldi’s.

I like shopping @AldiUSA for some items. You have to admit, their prices are right. They are not a giant or large grocery store, they are a small size store with no frills. When I say no frills, I honestly mean no frills. One thing you will notice is how little shelving that they do have. You might have a top level and a bottom level. For the most part, that is it. The stuff on the bottom level is wheeled out on a pallet. The store runs on the bare minimum number of employees. You might have two cashiers, a stock person, and a manager. I think 3 is the most employees I have seen visible at one time, and you can stand in one corner, and see everybody in the store.
But don’t take the lack of employees to be a bad thing. That means they have less overhead. They don’t pay multiple people to stand and stock the shelves all day, so the savings are passed on to the consumer. But if you do need to ask an associate for something, have no fear, as they are really nice, and will stop what they are doing to assist you and walk you to the item that you need. You will not get that at Food Lion, Walmart, or some of the pricier chains.
Another way they pass on the savings to you is by you having to bag and bring your own grocery bags. The cashier just rings up your groceries and puts them back in the cart for you to bag. Just like they do at Sam’s Club and Costco. Sure they do have grocery bags, but they sell them to you. And if you say, I don’t want to pay for bags, they should be free. Think about this, they aren’t free. Walmart, and every other store passes on the cost to you by raising the price of the groceries to cover the cost of all the bags that they give away for «free.» And if you bring your own bag to Target, they will just give you a small discount on your purchase for that. So if you look at it from that perspective, you make out better by doing it Aldi’s way.
For the carts, I honestly thought was a little weird at first, but it made sense. For the grocery carts, buggies, or whatever you want to call them, you have to put down a 25¢ deposit into the lock on the cart, and when you return the cart, you get your case quarter back. (I said case quarter because some people think that if you ask for a quarter, two dimes and a nickel is the same. No, no it’s not.) That saves them from having to hire somebody to just round up carts all day. Because almost everybody can admit to after the walked all around the store shopping and then got to their car, they were too lazy to walk the cart back to the store, or even the cart corral 15 feet away. So they just left the cart in the middle of the parking lot to roll and put a dent in somebody’s car. You know it’s true.
Another reason why I like Aldi’s, they have a 200% guarantee. If there is something wrong with the product, then you can return it to the store, and they will give you another one, plus your money back. How many big, expensive groceries stores that charge way too much offer that? Very few indeed. So they stand behind their products.
If you go to Aldi then make sure you bring cash or remember the PIN on your DEBIT or VISA check cards, as they do not take process credit card transactions. That is another way they pass on the savings to you. Instead of raising the prices on everything 5% to cover the fee that every credit card company charges like everybody else does, they just say cash or PIN based transactions. The fee is much, much smaller for PIN based transactions. It actually makes sense. Plenty of companies do have two prices, a cash price, and credit price. Just like 15 years ago when you used to go to the gas pumps, they all had two prices, cash and credit.
But I am not totally in love with Aldi’s if you think I am. There are some items that I wish came in heart healthy, or low sodium options, but they don’t. That means I have to go somewhere else to get them. Like I said, Aldi’s doesn’t have the space to stock the wide assortment of products, so they carry the basics.
#335

$ 80 for a whole cart of groceries. Yep! You’ll need a quarter to get a cart and also your own bags. If you forget your bags at home, they have some you can purchase for .10-.25 cents.
Things to buy–
Any baking item — brown sugar, spices, etc.
Milk
Eggs
Produce
Most canned items — beans, veggies, etc.
Baby wipes
Frozen sweet potato casserole. Yum yum!
Protein bars
Marshmallows
Almond milk
Dried fruit
Trail mix
Maybe in a pinch–
K-​cups — sometimes they leak but it’s hit or miss.
Chocolate bars
Greek yogurt
Cereal — depends on the kind
Things to avoid–
Jafeena pads. We got these for our doggy’s diaper — lets just say he’d of been safe in a flood!
Creamer. Weird after taste.
Soups unless for cooking — salty!
Dog food — I’ve never bought it because it just seems super low quality.
Tropical gum — tastes like an air freshener!
Wine — unless you’re already drunk. If so, you’ll never know it tastes like bark.