to think aldi isn't that cheap.

[Happypenguin2014]

I am not impressed tbh.

Anyone else not impressed?

I love Aldi but we mainly only eat meat, cheese, veg and eggs in this house. I hated it when we were buying their other products like ready meal type things and breaded meats from the freezer, it just seemed like such junk.

The cheese and meat is fantastic value for money and the 85% Moser Roth chocolate! Yum! We buy a lot of water from there too, 12 sports bottles for £1.99.

I admit that I have bought fruit for the kids and it has been bad very quickly, but I actually feel better about that than the grapes I posted about on here once that were still fresh looking after a month...

I think it depends what kind of things you are looking to buy and the amount of cooking you want to do, fresh and from scratch and it's great, ready meals or minimal cooking and it's junky rubbish.

I went for the first time last week to see what I was missing out on, and I've realised I'm not missing out, I hated it.
Too many aisles/crates of "stuff" which I wasn't expecting, the layout was confusing and the lack of choice was disappointing.
I bought a packet of baby wipes and a few other bits, totalling under £10.
I will be sticking to Tesco:)

I'm really not fussed on Aldi. I don't like the layout and it doesn't seem all that much cheaper to me.

I am a total lidl convert though. We've shopped at Tesco for years and I've always kidded myself that the clubcard vouchers make it worth it. But just last week we did a lidl shop and it really was a good bit cheaper. The comparable basics that we buy a lot of - braces wholemeal 45p cheaper, milk 5p cheaper, 6 eggs 12p cheaper, bananas 35p cheaper...everything. I bought the kids a big iced doughnut each as a treat and they were something like 22p, in Tesco I've seen similar for nearly £1.

It doesn't sound a lot but over a month or a year it really adds up. I'll still do a 'top up' shop in Tesco. The things I've found either more expensive or not ones I'd buy so far are pull ups, baby wipes, kids vitamins and yoghurts. Everything else seems the same quality but at a much better price.

IMO Aldi is a lot cheaper, even tho Tesco/Asda are cutting some costs (cucumbers 49p in Tesco - but still 45p in Aldi!).

Our shopping bill has come down a lot since I started doing virtually all the shopping there. Yes, they don't have everything - I buy a few things yes like G and B cocoa at Asda or Sainsbo's about once a month.

I find it quicker - tills soooo slow anywhere else! plus lack of choice means I am done in 30 mins.

Seriously, a dozen free range eggs, six white rolls, eight bananas, 250g cherry plum tomatoes, tin chopped tomatoes, 400g lamb mince, free range chicken, 500g icing sugar (all things I buy regularly!) - all a good deal cheaper at Aldi.

I wouldn't feed a dog the food. - whatever did you buy?

I do half asda half lidil

This crops up every few months on MN - it's too cheap not to shop there. I could not justify spending an extra £30 each week in Morrisons. Luckily our local Aldi and Morrisons are opposite each other. I go to Aldi first then cross the road for anything I couldn't buy there.

I love it and the quality of everything is vastly improved since they first opened in the UK.

Yabu. It's much cheaper and I find the fruit and veg to be much better quality than Tesco/Asda. I was in Lidl earlier - my kids love blueberries and a punnet is only £1, but a punnet the same size is £2 in Tesco. Lidl's in-store bakery is awesome, too.

Not for me either cheap and nasty x

Swapping our weekly shop from Sainsbury's to aldi literally halved it. So Yabu. Quality is better too.

the cheese is cheaper at iceland the meat is cheaper at farmfoods im gluten intolerant so thats pretty much all i can eat apart from the fruit and veg which is short dated and in too small of packets

tesco bogof are great one for me one for the foodbank/friend in need etc

the one that's local to me is not cheaper on a lot of things when i was single i shopped there for a little while but it still makes more sense for me to shop elsewhere they have very little food i can eat for a price i can afford to pay

Yanbu. I tried it once and I'd really rather never try it again. Sure, the fruit and vegetables were cheaper BUT you get less in a pack and what you do get doesn't last AT ALL. I thought "oh wow! 60p for cherries! I'll have to get four punnets of them." Thinking they'd last a good five days like other supermarkets cherries, they were squishy and mouldy after two days. The food waste was dreadful from there.

They also don't stock most things we buy. Vegetarian but use dairy free milk and spread. They sold neither. They also didn't sell quorn or really any frozen meat free selection. There was fruit and veg and items I'd imagine every supermarket would sell, they didn't. Also bread, no seeded bread or pitta breads of any sort. So we had to get half there for £40 and the other half from Tesco for £60. We didn't save anything, in fact it cost us more.

I imagine there's good savings on biscuits, chocolates, crisps, cereal etc. but we don't buy much of that so it was useless for us. It's also a fair distance away so it doesn't seem worth it at all. I get fed up of people advising I try Aldi because it's so incredible and it's saved them so much money. Yes, I did try and it was rubbish so no thank you.

I agree with bornfree. Tried local lidl for first time in years last week and it was rammed full of cheap junk - biscuits, crisps, fizzy drink, processed meat and cheese. Got some okay fruit. Was pleased at price of rye bread ( which DP cannot live without) but realised it was cheaper because smaller than same brand at Tesco. No Aldi nearby.

Chortling at "I wouldn't feed a dog the food" :D

I mainly buy fresh ingredients as opposed to packaged things, they're v cheap and taste the same. Perhaps if you buy lots of ready meals they're not as nice? Wouldn't know.

I can comfortably feed dd and I on £30 a week and that's inc booze (for me, not dd), and lots of cheese, naice ham, pate (has anyone tried the venison and pheasants ones in the little jars?? Omfg!), snacky things for dd, brioche etc. It would cost double or triple that in tesco.

But yes, perfectly happy for everyone to start thinking its shit, hate crowds when I'm shopping

My aldi sells quorn, seeded bread and pitta breads etc, maybe it depends on the store?

Tried both Aldi and Lidl recently , both are a good 30 minute drive though so difficult to justify every week , not just the time but the fuel.

Aldi was awful , absolutely filthy and piles of stuff in the middle of aisles piled up , a health and safety nightmare .

I prefer Lidl and certainly the bread and cheese were great , also lovely jam .But I bought some Angus beef burgers and they were about 50% gristle and pretty horrid .Also the prawns were off within a day .

I admit I hate supermarket shopping and do buy veg mostly at the farm shops and meat at the butchers , we are lucky living rurally so have lots of farm shops etc

We love our local Aldi. We cook most meals from scratch, and compared to Tesco we find the stuff we buy is as good quality and a good £20-30 per week cheaper. Plus it takes half as long to do a shop because (a) you don't have to walk as far, (b) you can remember where everything is and (c) you don't spend time trying to work out the best deal.

I don't recognise some of the descriptions of filthy, untidy stores with rotting veg and meat that goes off before the use-by date. Maybe some stores are badly run, but the ones I've used are fab!

I often wonder reading these threads how much the stores differ. Both our Aldi and our Lidl are perfectly fine, not dirty or crowded and the fruit and veg are nice. Staff in both are very friendly and chatty.
I prefer Lidl overall, mostly because of the bakery. I just discovered that they now have a proper rye bread and it is actually really nice.

I've saved approx £30 a week shopping at Aldi, I love it. Tend to do my weekly shop there and then top up once a month or so at Morrisons or Sainsburys for stuff I can't get at Aldi. Works for me, I'd rather have the money in my pocket. And as for the pp who said she wouldn't feed a dog food from Aldi.....what utter food snobbery and crap

We save approx £30.00 per week using Aldi, like Igneococcus says I wonder how much stores differ because I dont recognise the problems with the fruit and meat that other people have mentioned. Our store is always busy so maybe has faster turnover. Still will shop around other stores for good offers and certain brands but as thing stand I cant see me going back to one of the other big 4 for my main shop.

I have not been to Aldi much but I have shopped at Lidl for about 3 years. I go about once a month to stock up on the things I like. What is annoying though is how the prices have risen sharply on the more popular items, making them marginally cheaper than elsewhere instead of much cheaper.
These days I mainly buy washing liquid, softener and our favourite juice, which is now 99p instead of 59p.
As I use all the main supermarkets I am pretty good at stocking up on special offers when I see them, surprisingly some of the more high end ones have the best offers.

I think it does depend on the size and location of stores.Neither chain has many branches in our region and both in our local town are small convenience store size , probably less than a quarter of the size of the local Tesco or Sainsburys .The aisles are very very tight and certainly in Aldi most people seem to park trolley in the middle and then walk back and forth because there is only one trolley width between the aisles , probably this is why the floors are black with dirt and grease.

Lidl is a little better but still small with a very small carpark,I do think some of their prices put the big supermarkets to shame though.

I don't know if my Aldi is just small or small and crap. I don't like it at all, hence my name

Our Lidl is lovely. Only annoying as sometimes they dont have what I need. Love the cheesy topped ciabatta rolls and the crisps. Tend to shop more at Tesco as I can get it delivered.

i think it probably does depend on where the shop is. Where I live aldi and Tesco are clise to each other and are engaged in a price war. I also notice that more and more things that I could only get in Tesco are becoming available in aldi, and are cheaper there.

We have quorn and soya / almond milk in ours.

I can do a full shop there, especially now they stock Diet Coke!