to not understand why people go to Aldi & Lidl...

[TheBeautifulVisit]

… it's such a horrible shopping experience.

It reminded me of being in a co-op in my very small hometown circa 1977. And then when you've got a trolley full of their stuff and queue up to pay there's that humiliating bit at the end where they don't give you sufficient time to pack your groceries. They just expect you to very quickly remove your groceries and go and pack them elsewhere, with no bags.

I feel assaulted.

Can you please tell me

1. how far away is your Aldi or Lidl & why do you go?

2. what do you miss about your old supermarket? (which one was it)

3. how much do you spend there each time you go

It was cheaper than my normal shopping but actually I didn't buy my normal shopping: no fresh chives, no fresh ginger, no butternut squash, no purple sprouting broccoli, no green peppercorns, no little tubs of anchovies & olives from the Waitrose deli. I travelled much further to get there.

And there's no delivery.

Why why why?

Assaulted? Really?

When I worked at a small local supermarket, I saw two women having a punch up over the last bag of sprouts on xmas eve.

Nice try, but only 6/10.

LOL Stinklebell I have come out with a broken screwhead remover kit before. Which of course is still unused. I did however use the sticker remover spray yesterday thats been sitting in the cupboard for over a year. I knew I'd need it eventually!

Karaoke machine! Used at my wedding....well it was cheap! I'm not shopping on lidl anymore!

FYI OP, in Aldi today they had fresh herbs, in pots and everything! Various sorts of veg, which is exactly why I went today because I wanted to make soup tonight.

I bought courgettes, celery, big vine tomatoes, garlic, three bottles of pop (cloudy lemonade and ginger beer), delicious fondant fancies (Aldi's really are the best) and pasta sauce. For less than £9!

Oh and carrots and lemons!

I'm just back from aldi, popped in to get some £1 Warburtons bread and some 59p carrots. I had to put a mac on over my bra and panties because it's raining outside today. I didn't see anybody wearing onesies or pyjamas or stained dressing gowns. Told you I had a posh aldi!
I didn't get assaulted either as the people in my aldi are not ruff. Heck the gent in the queue even let me go in front because I only had two items (or perhaps he was just trying to peek under my mac)!

Ok, so I went to waitrose today and it was mayhem. The aisles wernt wide enough and the car park was stupidly busy because its in the town centre.
I felt extremley stressed when I left......in fact op you could say I felt "assaulted"

Lidl has nice wide aisles and never seems to have any dawdlers (sp?).

Impatient I hope they matched! You sound like a classy sort of girl so I'm assuming they did!

I like them, I can't say it is any worse than any other shopping experience, I don't like supermarkets full stop. They have some lovely products and it is cheaper.

I am an Aldi/Lidl convert. My food bill kept going up and up and our income went down so it was a no-brainer really. However I am quite happy with shopping there.

If I am honest I would rather not be rushed through the check out and have to pack my bags again after I've paid but it's not really a big problem - got used to it now.

I would never just be loyal to one supermarket anyway. I go to Lidl for certain things.

BackforGood - we actually prefer the own brand marmites! They are always much higher strength than even Marmite XO. Standard marmite is too weedy for us! We have to do some of our shopping in Sainsburys because Waitrose (our closest supermarket, which also sells the best selection of vegetarian/vegan stuff outside of the (more expensive) dedicated 'health food' shops) doesn't have an own brand of marmite :(

Hoof Thanks. :( Sadly, quorn isn't vegan.

good grief - a shopping "experience" I don't want a bloody experience, I want to buy what I need at a reasonable price. Our Aldi is the same distance as Tescos. Aldi is better, the staff are friendlier (they speak to you!) the products are excellent and I save money. No more to be said. Maybe, OP, you are too delicate to be out alone?

Horses for courses.
I just realised while reading this thread that within the last few weeks I've shopped in Lidl, Aldi, Sainsbury, and Harrods food hall. You can't get a better mix than that! They each were in the right place at the right time to provide what I wanted. And the money I saved in the first two helped pay for what I could only get in the last one.

you do not buy your anchovies & olives from the Italian deli

foods such as these should never be bought in a supermarket

We buy our olives in cans - own brands, but wait rose telco and sainsbury all seem to be the same. The cans are much cheaper and - to our no doubt rubbish palates - nicer! We always buy the basics/value/call it what you will range of vegetables - or loose ones - no matter which supermarket we shop in. the only really branded stuff we buy is proper diet coke (own brand tastes like cat pee, sadly. Or rather, what I imagine cat pee tastes like), and Vogel bread, sadly neither of which seem to be on the menu at Aldi. Shame. But I guess we could try and get our basics there. I don't feel like we need to budget for food but on the other hand the more money we have left over, the more we have to spend on the stuff we really want like books, so I'd definitely be interested in trying Aldi for the basics to see if it's a change that can work for us. Thing is though - waitrose is so close. We'd have to drive past it (and also Sainsbury AND Tesco)and then drive for another 15 mins or so to get to Aldi. Unless we did a diversion to avoid waitrose which would add probably another 15 mins to the journey! We would never drive past it in the normal run of things - it's not on the route to anywhere we go, ever (it's the other side of town, and not on the route to the motorway/A roads)

"Sadly, quorn isn't vegan."

Isn't it? Well I'll go to the foot of our loft ladder! (haven't got any stairs)

They use egg albumen to, um....bind it? I suspect they don't NEED to use it. But they do. Just like M&S almost always make anything vegetarian non vegan for NO GOOD REASON. All the stuff that should be fine always includes milk or eggs for no reason whatsoever. Shame.

I became a convert when the price increases in Morrisons started happening every week - it was 10p on this and 20p on that and just got ridiculous

Granted I can't get absolutely everything from Aldi, but there's very little I don't like and the obviously "european" type items are superb. So is the fruit and veg, and the 69p selection are brilliant - a real incentive to eat healthily

As for the choice, I really don't need six versions of everything to choose from; if it's good it's good and that suits me fine

I shop in Lidl so I can save enough to afford my fags and scratchcards. We're so poor we don't have a waitrose.

Buy your fags off the baccy runners Charleroi saves me a fortune!

Not sure if anyone's mentioned Lidl icecream yet?? If it's possible to buy better than their Premium Bourbon Vanilla, I don't know where it is ...

Well said Greydog. I don't want a 'shopping experience'- I want cheaper goods.

I love Lidl ice cream!