Aldi?

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm a bit of a snob; the problem is that I am also frugal cheap.  Now that I am in charge of a household, I'm looking here and there for ways to save money on things that I have to buy every week...like groceries.

Before Lila was born, I decided to figure out where to buy the cheapest groceries.  I compared Wal-Mart, Target, and Trader Joe's.  If you haven't checked out the results of The Great Grocery Experiment, click on over here.  Because of those findings, I pretty much primarily stick with Trader Joe's for all of my food purchases.  Sometimes, though, I still find myself spending more money than I want to on groceries each week. So a little while ago, with much prodding from Johnny, I decided to go to Aldi.  

Aldi has a little bit of a stigma here (and by "here" I mean in my brain) as being cheap, low quality, etc. etc.  But this is my second week of doing the majority of my grocery shopping at Aldi, and I have been pleasantly surprised.  The store is definitely bare bones with few name brands and fluctuating produce quality, but I have gotten some great deals on some great things.

I'm not going to do the Great Grocery comparison with this one because Lila only lasts so long in one location, but here are a few suggestions I have for shopping at Aldi:

1. Buy their meat.  I would say that I save 30-50% buying meat there.  I did some "research" online, and it seems that their meat is the same quality as local grocery stores, so nothing to fear.

2. Chocolate!  People rave about their chocolate because it's apparently a German owned company.  So go all out...it's only a few quarter after all.

3. I would normally say, "Buy their milk!" because it used to be $1.99, but now it's up to just under $3.  That is still cheaper than most places, so I will say, "Buy their milk" with no exclamation point.

4. Carbs...cereal, crackers, bread, sugar (unless you're a Costco bulk buyer like myself), go for it at Aldi.  

Besides those suggestions, make sure that you bring your own bags and a quarter for the shopping cart.  You have to put a quarter in the shopping cart to use it...they say it keeps the parking lot cleaner because people don't want to leave their quarter in the cart, so they put it back.  I will agree; I ALWAYS get my quarter back.