Aldi Newbie

[Pupsiecola]

Recovering Waitrose shopper here. Just paid a visit to the new, large Aldi store nearby. Felt like I walked around mouth open the entire time. Wow. Those prices! We're a family of 4 (including 2 teenage boys) spending around £1k a month in Waitrose. I'm hoping to get that down to £600 to £700. We're health concscious, and animal welfare is important. I'm curious as to how they can sell stuff so cheaply. I worry about this in relation to the meat, but also the labels I've not heard of. I wasn't expecting organic milk and eggs. I guess I need to compare labelling info with the usual brands?

What's good/what should I avoid?

TY

Also! I tend to go to the supermarket every couple of days. I don't like waste and would rather shop when I need stuff than have a fridge full of stuff we may not get around to using. But I've just started meal planning, and I'm also going to actually diarise going food shopping twice a week to see if that helps.

I think it's the quantity we get through as we are not generally snackers and we don't have a lot of junk food.

How the heck does someone spend £1k a MONTH on groceries!!!!!

Honestly where in the OP did they ask for judgy comments on how much they spend?! Typical..

OP, I'm a fully fledged aldi convert. Almond butter, fish cakes, cheese & onion crisp bakes, chicken breast, ice cream similar tub to the Mackie's Scottish brand - amazing. Toro Loco red wine, soft cheese with herbs, coffee pods. I must admit I do still buy branded cleaning products mostly but the dishwasher tablets and kitchen wipes are good.

Have you looked at Pinterest OP? I get my recipes from there. There are thousands of meal ideas and often photos of 'tried' pins with photos and comments. It is a visual pin board to share.

Bit of a pain in the arse but we spend a few hours on a sunday morning choosing a 6 day meal plan then I scribble out all the ingredients needed. We head off to Aldi to get 98% of it - I don't buy cleaning products there or washing powder and there are things you just can't get in Aldi ( spices, and condiments and other specific stuff ).

We were spending £150+ a week before meal planning just going out everyday and buying what we fancied that night.

Mealplanning and sticking to Aldi for the bulk of our shopping has really helped our wallet.

Honestly where in the OP did they ask for judgy comments on how much they spend?! Typical..

Quite Jelly. I didn't, and we pay A LOT more than that in tax!

Jelly and Howls OOI why don't you buy cleaning products there?

Yes, the last few weeks I've spend an hour meal planning on a Sunday night. I then put all the meals for the week into my Google calendar for each day, and then in the notes section I type what I know I haven't already got for that meal. It's a work in progress. I will look at Pinterest. Thank you.

I love Lidl (we don't have an Aldi near us). The only problem with it for me is that they don't have trollies with infant seats so I can shop with my 8mo. If I get the chance to go without him though it is amazing. So much great value! And although there are less staff,they are very helpful. While I was pregnant one of them packed my bags and wheeled the trolley to my car for me. And once when I was on the school dash and the queue was too long they let me leave my trolley to one side and come back for it 39 mins later!

You might want to carry on buying detergent at Waitrose. We get the Sensitive powder from there, after skin troubles, and I wouldn't risk changing. I don't know if they sell strong flour at Aldi, but I get that at Waitrose too.

I buy everything I can at Aldi and go elsewhere for top up bits. My top tip is to rummage for the best dates. They will have stuff with short dates out ready to sell but a row or two behind / underneath will often have decent dates. People often complain that fresh produce doesn't last - but it does if you rummage! Other supermarkets have already got rid of this so you rarely have to check.

Free range whole chickens are good. Small, but cheap. Eggs are great. Bread is great (check dates - there are always many dates out on the shelves at my store). Rice pouches are good. Packs of things like quinoa / nuts are very good value compared to other places.

They do sell strong flour, I've bought that! Occasionally they have special flour like 00 on a special week.

Just note that not all branches have the same stuff - some branches don't stock organic milk or gluten-free flour, but it's advertised on their website. We have 3 branches within 10 mins drive of us, with slight variations in each.

We regularly buy deli meats, chorizo, pancetta, free-range chicken (around £5 for a good size bird), roasted veg in jars (artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes and peppers), avocados, long-stemmed broccoli and free-range eggs. Their packs of bagels are 95p a bag and taste just as good as the New York deli brand.

Plenty of frozen sweetcorn in my local branches!

Oh and their Classic dishwasher tabs are the best. Their non-bio washing tabs are good too, sensitive skin family here too.

And I bought normal size onions in Waitrose today! They didn't have any of those tiddlers that Aldi sell.

I have sensitive skin too so I stick to what doesn't irritate my skin with regards to washing powder - I use Ariel, it works for us so why change?

Cleaning products - I use Method products for my bathroom/kitchen, have done for years - prefer the eco stuff tbh. I buy Zoflora for disinfectant as we have dogs and need it for the hard floors.Bleach is bleach so buy Aldi's.

I haven't given up all my branded buys, I just pick and choose what works for us.

Another one checking into at 1k/mo on food spend £320 on 3 here and that include toiletries and cleaning products etc.

My DH has skin problems and has no problem with the Audi washing stuff.
Their fake Baileys is nice and their cereals. Also do special offers on loads of different fruit and vegetables tried so many new things as its on offer!
Spend 40 _ 60 pound a week this includes wine 🍷
Lidi glasses wipes are great.

I bought the non-bio tabs so hopefully they'll be okay. Yes I will probably stick with Method for the same reasons. I suspect I'll pick and choose as you say and I don't need to slash my bill in half. As I said £300 saving a month would be fabulous and I think that's doable.

OP, grapes are by a long way the worst fruit for pesticide residue, so if you are going to buy one thing organic, it should be grapes.

We switched to Aldi about a year ago and save about a third of what we were spending. On the odd occasion I spend £100, I really struggle to get it all in my trolley.

In our Aldi, fruit and veg isn't great so we often get that elsewhere, alongside with some of our meat: Aldi is pretty good but our local farm shop is better.

If that's what it costs to go organic then fucked if I'll be going organic anytime soon. £1000 a month... Fucking L oh Fucking L.

It often seems that it depends on your Aldi.

Ours is quite small and horrible. The fruit and veg doesn't last and I am not keen on the checkout arrangements.

I find going to Asda/Waitrose/Tesco and using Scan as You Shop to be better when trying not to go overboard on spending. Plus no conveyor so quicker too.

Thanks everyone. Tinkly part of the reason I buy organic meat and dairy is animal welfare. I take your point re grapes though.

Deacon if you RTFT you'll note that I don't buy all organic.

To all those who are shocked about the amount we spend, what's the implication? And is it okay to say to you "jeez, how the hell do you feed your family properly on so little?" (Which is not what I think, and even if it was I wouldn't be so rude as to say it).

I love Aldi.
Just buy the stuff you want and take no notice of the brand, just decide not to be a label junkie. I find their own brands are fine. A fierce MN favourite is the frozen cauliflower cheese. Loo roll is great, aloe vera / shea butter varieties of it are really good. Cleaning products are fine, as is laundry stuff.

Everything I have tried has been fine.
I bet you will save a bomb unless you succumb to the aisle of temptation in the middle!

They are cheaper because they work their staff into the ground. They have less than half the staff other stores do.
The staff must memorise lists of codes and the tills are very basic and don’t calculate change. Staff have a target of items to get through the till in a certain amount of time. Staff are often on zero hours contracts.

It is a shitty place to work.

Oh gosh Sara. Really? That's put me off! Maybe I should switch to Tesco as a happy medium.

Not true about remembering barcodes. Aldi products have several barcodes on one item as this means the probability of it scanning first time is higher than if a product only has only one. It's part of the lean and efficient business model which makes it so successful. They pay well and yes they do run on a lower headcount however that is what drives up productivity. Simple but effective and helps to keep the prices low.

They also pay well compared to other supermarkets and have a low turnover of staff.

When they first opened the staff had to remember prices.