Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I wish it was. ALDI, I CAN BE BOUGHT. *Wink, Wink*!
If you’ve been reading here awhile, you know that I loves me a bargain and a coupon. But with the advent of that devilish show Extreme Couponing, and with the popularity of couponing surging because of all the awesome savings blogs out there, drug stores and grocery stores have really been pullllllling back big time on the sale and coupon opportunities. Gone are the days when I had a huge stockpile of CVS Extra Care Bucks, not to mention toothpaste and body wash! I used to have tons of cereal all the time, and now I’m pretty much buying it week-to-week. It’s sad. S-A-D, SAD! I can still do “ok” with coupons and sales, but alas, I no longer gleefully take a photo of my spoils as soon as I return home from the grocery. Sigh.
So, last spring when I was preparing to head to Mom 2.0 Summit, I decided to try ALDI. They sprang to mind because they were sponsoring Mom 2.0 and I’d been there before occasionally, but since I was having such great luck with couponing, I had faithfully stuck by Kroger for years. But feeling the pinch of our budget, rising food costs (when did peanut butter get so expensive!?), and lack of sales, I decided to give ALDI another chance.
And I’m glad I did! Since that time I’ve been going to ALDI about every-other-week. I love the low prices, and the small size of the store is perfect for when you grocery shop with kids, because you get what you need and get out of there in a flash! I’ve loved the quality of the products, too. Here are some of my very favorite items:
Bobby and I go through Splenda like it’s water. We use it in our coffee and we like coffee. (See also, coffee pictured above, ha!) The ALDI brand Splenda-like product is $1.99 for 100 packets! Do you know how ridiculously CHEAP that is? It makes me ever so happy! It goes perfectly with their coffee, which is also very good and only $3.99-$4.49 for a pound of whole bean, and we are totes snobby so we like to buy whole bean and grind it. They have ground, also. We’ve been really pleased with it, and the coffee savings for us is significant. I also love their Fit & Active pasta and the Fit & Active fruit strips (not pictured) are super-yummy and great for my kids’ school lunches. They LOVE them. They are not pictured because I’m out and need to go get more today, along with their Happy Farms cheese sticks which my kids and I also love to snack on. They are priced way less than any brand Kroger sells, too. I eat one of the tortillas pictured above with ALDI turkey lunch meat and ALDI sliced cheese for lunch every day at home. Affordable and yummy!
Anyway, the point is, I am glad I undertook the ALDI experiment. I still go to Kroger every-other-week or so for their Mega-Event sales and to get my must-haves like Hershey’s chocolate syrup (mama needs her chocolate milk in the morning before her coffee, don’t judge!) and I’ve found a really good balance between the two stores. I’m really happy I made this change because it’s helped our budget out a lot and I’ve found some great new products at ALDI.
So, tell me, all you who are more frugal than me, do YOU ALDI? What are some of your fave products?
We love Aldi here (Georgia/ Tennessee)! It has really helped our food budget. We ate a LOT of veggies this summer, thanks to Aldi. Really the only things I cannot get at Aldi are Cilantro and Cokes. I LOVE that Aldi now carries natural peanut butter all the time (not just a special buy!). The milk is the cheapest around (I think. Dollar General Market came in 10 cents under Aldi once). And their return policy is awesome.
Alli, I should’ve mentioned the produce. I love their prices on veggies especially! I do a lot of soups/stews in the crock pot and buying fresh veggies there makes it even more affordable to do so.
Aunt Judy is a huge ALDI fan, as is Aunt Zola. It’s too far away for me…gas and all. Plus, I shop like a man, I hunt the produce, I shoot the produce, I take the produce home.
UP
I haven’t taken the ALDI plunge yet, but I think you talked me into it.
I love Aldi and shop there very regularly near the mall. They have the best deals and you can get out of there in less than 30 minutes. I just throw what I need in the cart and go! Their hummus is really good too!
I love Aldi, their fruit and fresh produce are the best at the best prices. I am also like you in that I still go to Kroger for some things I can not find at Aldi. But all in all I havent really found anything at Aldi that I don’t like.
I am a TOTAL ALDI convert. I think I even commented on a post you did awhile back where you said you were having trouble keeping up with coupons and sales with 3 kids. That is my story, too, and I was so relieved to find ALDI. After about 6 months of shopping there, I even cancelled the paper because I wasn’t using coupons much at all anymore, and I was spending less per month shopping there than when I was stressing over coupons and sales. I still have to go to Kroger about once a month to get a few things where I am brand loyal (Diet Coke, Ritz crackers, etc). But the longer I have shopped at ALDI (about a year now), the more I’m able to make do with just shopping there. And I can leave my house, even with kids in tow, do the week’s shopping, and be back to my doorstep in less than an hour. LOVE.
I love Aldi. The prices are amazing. We get almost everything there now. The canned vegetables are great. Coffee is much cheaper and I think tastes better. Produce prices are so much better. I could go on and on. I think its so silly to be spending twice the amount of money at other stores for the same thing. I also love that it isn’t huge and doesn’t take long to shop there. It took a while to get used to the bag yourself thing but I can do it like a pro now. Aldi is awesome!
Alas, we have none. But it’s interesting to hear you confirm that it is harder to find awesome sales and coupons these days. I used to be overflowing with assorted products from CVS that I got for free. Now, not so much. I thought maybe it was because I am not as gung-ho about locating coupons, or maybe because I realize that I just don’t NEED all this stuff, and so I skip over it sometimes unless it is a really great deal. However, it seems like forever since I have seen free shampoo after extra bucks. But I feel like I have just about given up on grocery couponing. I just try to buy only when things are on sale, and stockpile if there is a good mega-event.
Just as Old Navy is owned/partners with Gap and Banana Republic, Aldi is owned/partners with Trader Joes. A fun fact for ya.
Aldi hummus is super good – so is just about everything else. The ice cream is meh and so is the lower-tier cheese, but that’s about it. I shop at Trader Joe’s when money is flowing in a bit and Aldi when I have to tighten the budget. AT EITHER I spend less than Kroger or even Super Target.
Once you go ALDI, you don’t go back. I am cursed with knowing the price points there so I can’t bring myself to purchase anywhere else if it’s not cheaper. Oats, milk, eggs, paper goods, coffee, cheese, fresh fruits and veggies, frozen fruits and veggies, pork loin, frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts. Some of my favorite ALDI tips: http://www.queenoffree.net/2012/03/5-tips-for-shopping-at-aldi.html
I love Aldi! I will not purchase the tub butter though…we did one time and I lost my gourd! It didnt do well for baking and was oily…if that is possible. Love everything though!!
OMG – I love Aldi – I just started going this past month – and have gone every week. My husband has fallen in love with the Mama Cosi cheese and taco pizzas – the cheese this past week was only 2.99 for a pizza! perfect size to split between us. We also really like the yogurt covered raisins and fruit snacks that my 2 year old can’t get enough of. I am very impressed with Aldi. Last week the meat special was a pork roast for the crock pot that included meat potatoes and veggies – for $6.99 – it was SOOO GOOD!
I pretty much get EVERYTHING at Aldi (except for Kraft Mac and Cheese, and Jif). In fact, my kiddos often LIKE ALDI PRODUCTS BETTER THAN “NAME BRAND”. It is a HUGE savings.
And, it’s about time you plunged, Jenny!
We shop at Aldi a lot, too. I esp love to buy their egg because they are from cage free, grain fed chickens at an affordable price. Other stores charge so much for those kind of eggs. Plus, I like that they have a verse on the inside of the carton. =) I will say Aldi has come a long way in their produce. I grew up on Aldi products and have been shopping there myself for a long time. But I would always buy my produce elsewhere because it never looked appealing. But they have most def improved in that department!
I’ve noticed my couponing has fallen off a bit too. Guess it isn’t just me.
I have been shopping at Aldi’s more and more. I check and see what is on sale each week in the produce department to decide if it is an Aldi’s week or not. I can get mushrooms for $.69. A bag of carrots for a quarter. Grapes for $.78 a lb. A head of cauliflower for $.99. Admittedly some weeks I go and the produce doesn’t look that great so I’ll end up skipping some or all of it – but it seems like that has been happening less often. And even if I don’t score the produce, there are other products I always buy there. The fit & active yogurt is only $.39. That is cheaper than the store brand at Kroger or Target most weeks. Living in the south, egg noodles or spatzle noodles are almost impossible to find but since it is a German store I can always get them there. Their hummus is really quite good. I buy ground chicken there for $2.69 and it is a name brand (Tyson maybe?). And I buy snack stuff there for lunches and evening snacks for the hubs – pretzels and knock off brand fritos. And the fit and active chicken broth was $.99 a 32oz carton this week!?!? That is crazy cheap and I use chicken broth so much in fall/winter because I’m always making soup.
Thank you for reminding me about Aldi’s. I went there on my lunch break and they had ground chicken $2.69/package marked down to .69/package. What a score!!