AIBU to think I will save money by going to aldi??

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A new aldi has opened near my work and I am really looking forward to shopping there and saving money on my weekly food shop.
I already have a lidl near my work but I just cannot bear going there as the queues are so long and also I don't find it to be much cheaper than tescos?
I normally spend about 250 pounds a month on groceries in tescos / sainsburys
To any one that shops in aldi, are the queues aa bad as lidl? In my lidl they only have about four tills open at a time, hence the queues? Is aldi the same?
Also what foods are good to buy from aldi and what should I avoid???

We have just done a full shop for a family of 4 for a week at Lidl with a few additions for just under £100. Along with usual weekly fruit, veg, bread etc etc we also got 2 bags of chicken breasts which we aren't due to use this week at all but good to have in the freezer as it's cheaper than fresh, big pack of washing powder that will easily last the month, 2 bottles of their perfume which I love, a bottle of gin and a nice bottle of red wine (so lots of stuff we would maybe buy once every month). We can usually do a weeks shop for 2 adults 2 kids for around £70.

I've just been shopping at Aldi. I needed 4 things, 4 pints of Milk, loaf of white Bread, Eggs and a box of cocopop ripoffs.
Milk.. there were no 4 pints, had to get 2 2 pints.
No white bread so put 50/50 in basket.
None of the boxes of 6 free range eggs.
Cocopops there were three boxes, 2 split and one damaged..

I put it all back and went to Lidl..
Got everything with no issues.

A question about the Trolleys in Aldi -do,they have the shallow ones as well as the deep ones? (Shortie here who,can’t reach into the bottom of a deep trolley )

A question about the Trolleys in Aldi -do,they have the shallow ones as well as the deep ones?

Yes they do at ours.

The best thing about Aldi is the speed, no faff just a quick and simple shop.

The worst thing is having to pop somewhere after as they don't have all the extra bits I need - like herbs, certain sauces etc.

For the most part, though, I find Aldi pretty good. Avoid their tuna though it's awful. Do check out the cheese and cold meats section!

Oh Aldi don't tend to have toilets for customers, so consider that before taking small children!

Aldi is great. I get anxiety at the checkouts but I lob my stuff into my bags as the cashier scans them to avoid the repacking shelf, everytime I do this I am reminded of a MN thread where a poster said they did this too and had thier arse handed to them about it and told they were entitled and rude. Good times.

Oh Aldi don't tend to have toilets for customers, so consider that before taking small children!

I think that might depend on age of store. The older one next town over doesn’t, but the new one in the nearest town does.

@AccidentallyRunToWindsor I always pack as I go! It's about being super organised when loading the trolly and belt, and having bags ready!

I repack at the side no matter what supermarket - I don't use a car so like the make sure all the bags are packed in a way I can carry them without anything or any bags breaking.
V common in Europe

I have 2 Aldis near me and they both have customer toilets, but they aren't very old stores.

Oh and the wine, despite the hype, is crap.

Depends what you get of course, but the Animus Douro is excellent for £5 (Portuguese red).

Quite a few of their other wines are also rated well by wine bloggers and Decanter.

Eg: www.thedrinker.co.uk/aldi.html
midweekwines.co.uk/whats-hot-for-summer-at-aldi/
www.decanter.com/wine-reviews-tastings/aldi-wines-336761/

Some of the wine is superb. I always get their sparkling Chardonnay now at Christmas instead of champagne. It’s lovely and dry and crisp. And obvious the price is right!

Their Toro Loco red that everyone raves about for the price is just ok, I think. Nothing special. I’d rather spend a bit more for a better standard.

I think you have to just give it a try and see what you think. I've tried it and I just don't get it at all. Really narrow aisles so you are bashing into other shoppers. Awful tiny checkouts with scanning done at lightening speed. Quality varying from week to week. You always get what you pay for imo.

It’s their Exquisite collection Crémant de Jura. I defy anyone not to find it delicious. I much prefer it over Prosecco these days.

@CurlyhairedAssassin Yes, the Cremant is great and I agree with you about the Toro Loco, drinkable but nothing special, spend an extra pound or two for something better. (Although considering it costs 3.99 I suppose the fact that it's not awful is a pleasant surprise, I don't agree with the rave reviews though). Was also a bit disappointed with their Malbec, also okay/drinkable but have had much better.

I love aldi! Was a total Tesco girl at heart until my friend badgered my to try Aldi hated it first time tried again and am hooked. I travel to the next town to go. I tend to go on a Monday morning it's sooo quiet tills are fine and staff do not rush you through they will wait until your ready there is no big drama about this at all. Straight into trolley go over to packing bit pack it up and off to car. This is all with a nearly two year old Houdini who can be a monkey at times.

I love all the food meat fruit veg the only one thing I don't and can't replace it my lurpack Aldi do a norpack but it's not the same! The kids didn't like their version of cheese strings however when I was in there at the weekend they had proper cheese strings.

Anther tip by going on Monday morning straight after school run is that a lot of the meat is reduced ( from the weekend) and has 50% off so I buy it and put it in the freezer. Flowers are also good. Please try it I save a fortune! Also alcohol wine, gin is good

Aldi is fine but like Lidl they don't sell everything so I find it best to go 1-2 times a month and stock up on what they do well (basics like oil, flour, canned goods, cereal, toiletries etc) and go to Morrison's 1-2 times a week for meat, fish and veg (Aldi's seems to always be rotten by day 2) plus the the things Aldi doesn't stock or I forgot

Oh and their wine is a bit hit or miss, especially if you are a bit of a wine snob, their Provence rose for instance was the same price as Asda but nowhere near as nice, perhaps a niche requirement, plus their beer is no good according to dh, I suspect tasted blind he wouldn't be able to tell but he see the label. The best deals are had by shopping around let's face it if you have the time inclination

Aldi do a gorgeous sauvignon blanc called The Forgotten One.

DH and I are semi retired. We are not old enough for our pensions yet but have pared down our bills to the bare minimum. Shopping at ALDI means our food and cleaning stuff bill comes to under £150 a month for the two of us - and we eat well

This means we both need to work only a few days a month to ensure we get our bills paid

More time for caravanning!

I love Aldi. If I meal plan, I generally can do a full shop for my family of 4 for less than £30. We eat pretty humdrum stuff though, spag Bol, pizza, homemade burgers, homemade soup, etc. I cook from scratch, only have one lunchbox to fill as DD still gets her school lunch for free, and DH and I will take either leftovers, or if he doesn’t want them or soup, I buy the fajita meal kit for £2 with some wraps and that’s 2 days lunches for him. Lots of fruit and yogurts in that as well, not the super cheap ones, either, as they like the muller crunch corner dupes.

I decided to go to Aldi today after reading this thread. I'm not sure if I was just unlucky with the store I picked but it was not a good experience at all.
There was no room in the car park so we had to park about 200m away in a public car park. Carrying the shopping back that far was not fun at all. The aisles were too narrow and full of people who seemed to want to block off as much of the food shelves as possible to anyone else using their bodies, trolleys, extra wide double baby buggies etc etc. I didn't actually get any meat as I couldn't get to it without practically climbing over someone to reach it.
The freezer section was quiet though - probably because about 80% of the freezers were empty. It honestly felt like we were in the middle of a food rationing crisis.
I saw a quite a nice looking paella. It was the last one left and I found out why when I picked it up and got covered in tomato sauce from the split packaging.
The teenager at the till threw my shopping at me quite carefully though and wasn't too fast as he needed to concentrate on his non stop conversation with his friend on the next till at the same time. I think his multi tasking slowed him down a bit.
The food I did manage to get seems ok and the prices were ok but it was really not a satisfying experience at all.
Is Sunday afternoon a bad time to go or is it just this particular store?
We have a Lidl being built nearby which should be open soon. I'm hoping that will be a better experience. I'm sticking with Tescos for now though that's for sure. 😂

Lindy2

That's he sort of thing I often find at Aldi.
It's kind of like a chain of food car boot sales. Elbows at the ready to get near what you want.

Sunday does seem to be the busiest day in my local Aldi.
Evenings are wonderfully empty and peaceful.

My local Aldi car park is relatively small in a High Street where there isn't much other parking, but, because the time spent inthe shop is much quicker, the 'turnonver' of cars is also much quicker, so, even when all spaces are full, you don't have to wait long before someone leaves.