Aldi tips

[Char22thom]

I'm excited because there is a brand new Aldi opening less than a mile from me and it looks HUGE, am going on Saturday and I'm wanting to swap my monthly shop from Asda/tesco to Aldi but DH is worried about quality, can you lovely mumsnetters give me your good Aldi swaps? TIA x

Aldi is better than Tesco for quality, on everything imho. Just go, try and see what you like.

I love Aldi and have even got DH to venture in there recently. I have to admit that some of my purchases at the beginning were blatant but some introduced 'gently'. By this I mean decanting the Aldi own brands into an empty bottles/jar of the branded version and I would wait and see if anyone complained or even noticed. When no one noticed that the barbecue sauce,Weetabix, hobnobs were different I stopped the decanting business and all is now well. Try their Skyr yoghurts-their best recent addition and the Caviar face cream of course. Happy shopping!

I've only been disappointed with two things I've bought from Aldi.

One - toothpaste. It was runnier than I prefer but still did the job. The other was the fat-free natural yogurt, again, slightly runnier than I prefer.

Apart from those two, I find it's miles better quality than Asda and Tesco.

My best tip is to avoid the middle aisles of wonder if you need to stick to a budget, otherwise you'll find you'll blow it on the special buys.

Honestly, there's no point in giving you swaps because it's all good. Some of my favourites are:

Moser Roth chocolate, all of it.
The mini brioche rolls.
Aldi's version of frubes - I freeze these for the DC.
Chocolate orange pudding thingy in the fridge.
Garlic wraps.
Apple and raspberry juice (fridge).
The Magnum dishwasher tablets work better in my dishwasher than Fairy and Finish.

Honestly, just go for it. Why not decide to commit to doing one shop there of everything you'd usually get from Tesco, rather than trying to cherry pick, and see how you get on?

Moser Roth chocolate is very good

Actually most Aldi stuff is pretty good and a trolley full is significantly cheaper than it is from Adsa or Morrisons

Just do your full shop and if there is something you specifically want and can't get then pop to your usual supermarket just for that but Aldi covers most bases with there selections so you should be ok

I would only avoid the evil smelling washing liquid, and stuff like light bulbs, cleaning materials , dishwasher kit etc is cheaper in wilko or home bargains. But for food (price and quality) bog roll, booze and no annoying loyalty cards/excessive choice/ staff facing up they are unbearable . in and out in 20!

Load the belt heavy stuff first, have money ready and the packing bench is for packing not for covering in kids who have forgotten what their feet are for.

If you buy the blue ikea bags, off eBay if you don't live near an ikea, you can open them out in the trolley and throw it in quickly thereby avoiding the packing shelf.

Tesco food is shit so you'll be happy with aldi food.

I use the cleaning stuff because it's not tested on animals 🐰

The cava is good, it ought to be vinegar for £4.49 but it's lovely.

I can't think of anything that's awful, the single malt wasn't great but you probably don't buy a bottle of malt whisky every week.

One has recently opened by us - its fab. We have liked everything so far, except the porridge oats (more husks in there than in Asda smart price, and its no cheaper) but aside from that everything has been great quality. I'm pleasantly surprised by the total price each time I go. That is comparing it with Asda (who I also rate quite highly, our local store is well managed).

I do a full shop at aldi, apart from sweetcorn! It's FAST at the checkout: pile the stuff in your trolley, then pack at your leisure on the shelf

Most things are great and you will save a fortune. Nappies are brilliant, the almat green box of washing powder is so cheap and cleans really well. The washing up liquid (check for the good housekeeping award,)

Only thing I find I prefer branded is ketchup gravy granules and sweet chilli (prefer blue dragon,)

Also u usually buy pesto but prefer more expensive brands

Other than that- you cannot go wrong

I'm not keen on the baked beans. They're the only thing i've found that we've not liked. I get mine 4 for £1 from Lidl. And mixed beans from Tesco.

I buy the 50/ 50 bread, pasta, rapeseed oil, basmatti rice , passata, lots and lots of seasonal fruit and veg, meat - i subscribe to the newsletter and generally get the 5 on offer, it helps to mentally plan my meals by knowing the offers before I shop. Bread flour, food colouring, baking powder, bicarb, dishwasher tabs, tissues, toilet roll, kitchen roll, toilet cleaning blocks (I like the lemon ones you pop in the cistern and have frothy water for a week or so and the toilet smells nice and stays clean). Cottage cheese, smoked salmon, grated low fat cheese, mozerrella, pancetta, squeezy yogurts. Flowers for £2 a bunch are lovely. The DC like the biscuits for packed lunches and imitation brand crisps like the fake wotzits and fake quavers at 10 packs for £1. The cheese biscuits and fake ryvita are good too.

Herbs, spices, gravy, stock, frozen chicken breasts for casseroles and currys, DD likes the mini microwave pizza and they're bloomin convinient to have in as an emergency. Oh and long life milk.

Absolutely adore their genuine Greek yoghurt, so much better than Fage and around 1/2 the price. Brioche buns are lovely, fresh fruit & veg, body wash 39p, crisps such as skips & hula hoops (their brand) 10 for 99p and no difference.

Oven chips are vile though as is their mayo (Lidls are mayo the best I've tasted). Things like loo roll, washing up liquid, floor cleaner etc all decent quality. It's trial & error.

Dh prefers the beans to Heinz now, I wasn't expecting that at all because all of mil food is branded stuff.

The Kir royale was nice.

We do 98% of our shopping in Aldi with a small top up shop at Morrisons.

All the cereals are good, bread at 45p is great. We make use of the Super 6 fruit and veg offers. Their crisps are fine, as are yogurts and cheese.

Look out for the 29p veg at Christmas- massive bag of potatoes for 29p.

And the wine is pretty good too!

Their 'essentials' mature cheddar £3.79 for a block the size of a house brick is just lovely, (and we love cheese so much we go to cheese festivals). Also Norpak butter is a decent substitute for Lurpak at half the price.

We prefer the Aldi frozen fruit for smoothies to Waitrose's.

My best tip, learned on MN is to avoid packing anything in the shop, just have big bags/boxes ready in the car boot and put it straight into there.

....not so good if it raining ,and also needs space to get to the boot. In a tight aldi car park reversing out is even more dangerous than normal.

Some of the stuff is good, but I certainly wouldn't be able to do a full shop there,nor would i want to as the choice is too limited.
Most of the specially selected stuff is ok, the fruit and veg do not last anything like supermarket stuff.

everything is good, apart from the ground coffee which is vile! We buy everything else there except for a couple of branded things which they don't stock, like Rose's lime juice, Worcestershire Sauce. Oh and the cat won't eat the wet cat food from there. Fussy bastard.

Caramelised onion tart is to die for, salmon and spinach gratin likewise.
Washing up liquid and Almat washing powder are fine.

We tried the chocolate gateaux last week. £1.69 from the freezer section, it was divine!

I like everything apart from their Nutoka chocolate spread. That is disgusting.

Brookland yoghurts are lovely
Mosses Roth chocolate
Garlic slices
DD loves the chocolate pastries, comes in packs of 8 I think
Belletti prosecco is divine
DH likes the Montepullucio red wine, less than £4 a bottle
Saxon toilet wipes are good, we go through a lot with DS
DC don't like the Aldi chocolate spread either
Specially selected biscuits and crackers are fab- rosemary crackers

Can you get everything you need at Aldi? There's a new one 5 miles away and I want to try but am scarred from trying the local Lidl and having to finish the shop at Mozzas anyway as no soya milk, no soya yoghurt, frozen fruit had added sugar, etc

I shop between ALDI and Lidls, we have 2 of each in my town.

I like pretty much everything in both. Do look at the veg though as some you can tell are not up to quality.

My mums ALDI runs out of stuff pretty quickly and it's a large one.

I can pretty much get everything there and have been saving loads :) have totally embraced the whole, try it and see approach and have to say its working, even DH who can be a fussy so and so has commented on how good it is, and the fact that we saved enough money on our last 2 weeks shopping that we could have a takeaway on Sat night ( we couldn't have afforded to otherwise) definitely encouraged us both back to Aldi!!

We have a new one near me so went today and they had a ton of gluten free stuff which was ace as I now have to follow that - includes honey cornflakes (£1.99), chocolate cake mix (£1.29), mini blueberry muffins (£1.99), bread (£1.49), snacks and tortilla chips etc!

Got tons and it all came to £49! Much better than Lidl in my opinion.....

That's interesting as I'm dairy free and prefer gluten free but haven't managed to fond any products in my new one 😣