June
3rd,
2011
I have always heard tell of this inexpensive store called Aldi, but I had never lived in a city that had one...until now. Because Atlanta has everything. And coincidentally, the Aldi is not far from where our apartment! So, I decided to check it out. Many of the coupon bloggers I follow shop there and seem to find great deals, especially on produce. I was a little concerned about the area and wasn't 100% sure I would feel comfortable shopping there, but I decided to at least go see what it was like and make the call once I scoped it out.
It turns out my fears were utterly unfounded, and I had a great experience. I got all of this:
for $23.80! To compare, I paid $0.99 for the carrots, which are regularly $1.99 at Kroger and $2.99 for 2 pounds of red grapes, which have been hovering at around $3.00 a pound at Kroger. I was perhaps most pleased with the 12 ounce bag of roasted almonds for $3.99 and the 16 ounce bottle of extra virgin olive oil for $3.49, but everything was a great deal.
Plus, look at how straight-forward the receipt was:
(Why yes, I did buy a $2.69 bottle of wine, thank you very much.)
No ads, no abbreviations that make it hard to tell what item is what. Just a listing of what I bought and how much it cost. I don't think I'll be switching my primary grocery shopping to Aldi, but I think I'll hit it up occasionally and see what I can get.
I was glad I had perused their website before I went, because there were a few things that definitely would have caught me off guard had I not know about them beforehand. So, a few pro tips.
- If you are brand conscious, Aldi is not the place for you. Everything is either their own store brand or some brand you have never heard of. Reviews seem to say the off-brands suffice just fine, but I know some people like to recognize a name, and there are definitely some things that I prefer to buy from a known reliable source.
- You will have to put in a quarter to get a shopping cart. This will allow you to unchain it from the rest of the carts. However, once you re-chain it at the end of your trip, you'll get your quarter back! And don't be embarrassed if you can't figure out how to reconnect the chain because, well, I might have had trouble too.
- They do no accept credit cards. They can do debit or cash.
- Bags are not free, and there are no baggers. You can either bring your own, which I do anyway, or pay a few cents for either a paper or plastic bag. The checkout clerk will put your items back into your cart and then you can go over to the bagging table they have set up to put them in your bags. I actually like this, because I am pretty particular about how my items get bagged and this gives me total control over it.
All of these things contribute to their ability to keep prices so low: buying cheaper brands in general, no risk of losing carts, no passing on of the cost of bags to your cost for foods, and only having to pay one employee per checkout lane. There were no frills to the inside of the store, but it was impeccably clean. They also had a security guard who was very prevalent, which I chose to take as comforting rather than frightening. All in all, I had a fun time discovering the inexpensive items on each aisle, and I will definitely be back!
