Aldi:101

I have nothing but good to say about Aldi. At first glance of your local Aldi grocery store, it doesn't look like much. The first thing I noticed about the shopping carts is that they were outside, and locked up until you put a quarter in them. I thought that paying a quarter was a crazy concept, and who would pay a quarter to use a shopping cart. I figured I would play along and pay the quarter to see what this grocery store was all about. Once you enter through the automated doors, the aisles are wide for easy maneuvering of two shopping carts. Merchandise is stacked on either side of the aisle on crates in their original shipping boxes. Prices for the merchandise are either above the item on a price board that runs the length of the aisle or directly in front of the merchandise.

When you've made all of your purchases and are ready to check out, be ready for the fastest checkers you've seen in your life. They quickly move your merchandise from the conveyer belt to the basket and once you pay for your groceries, with cash, check, or another form of accepted payment (they do not take all debit and credit cards) you move your basket to their counter for bagging your groceries. They have paper bags ($.05 each) and plastic bags ($.10 each) available for purchase if you didn't bring your own bags with you. Occasionally there will be empty boxes on the counter that can be used to box your groceries up as well for easy transferring from your cart to your car.

Once you get past the fact that you have to pay for your shopping cart, bring your own bags (or pay for theirs), use an acceptable form of payment, bag your own groceries, and put your shopping cart back at the cart return for your quarter it should turn out to be a good shopping trip.

Random Thoughts:My "Aha!" moment

I started couponing more than 2 years ago, and really began to understand what it meant to coupon after about a year. I guess I'm a slow learner. A typical shopping trip for me prior to understanding coupons would be walking into a store with about three coupons, and if I was lucky I would have four or five coupons. I would pay the $2.99 for the toothpaste and hand over my $.50 coupon. Now I wouldn't even dream of paying that much for toothpaste, deodorant, or shampoo. What I couldn't figure out is why I wasn't saving all the money that all the other couponers were.

My coupons came from the Sunday inserts and I always only had one of the coupons so I couldn't capitalize on a sale if something I needed was at a good price. My ahha moment came when my mom started giving me her coupons and then I had two of each coupon, and then I figured out if I bought the item while it was on sale and used a coupon it would make it an even better deal. I then started asking my family for their Sunday inserts if they weren't using them to get even more savings.

While I don't save the hundreds of dollars that we've all read about, we have started saving 10-25% off of our grocery bill by using coupons, watching sale prices, and shopping at other stores. Another goldmine for us that's worth mentioning that has helped reduce our grocery budget is by shopping at our local Aldi grocery store. Aldi provides a low price on staples that we use everyday and the majority of what we've purchased is the same or better quality than the name brand item that we would purchase at our local grocery store.