I'm an Aldi junkie. All of my grocery shopping and most of my other shopping that can be done at Aldi is done there and I've been doing that since before they

I'm an Aldi junkie. All of my grocery shopping and most of my other shopping that can be done at Aldi is done there and I've been doing that since before they started taking credit cards (credit cards were recently added in March or so of this year). I switched to this behavior after analysing my grocery bills -- family of 6 -- and discovering that they seemed to be an outsized portion of our budget. Generally, I don't have time to coupon (and I don't subscribe to news papers so finding coupons online was my only option). After analysing a few bills from Kroger, I discovered that basically any item that wasn't purchased with a coupon or wasn't on sale "with card" that month was marked up to "full price". We switch to Meijer (a Walmart like chain) and found our bills drop, generally, by about 20% because items, when averaged, were priced lower. I had avoided Aldi because I had the impression that they were "lousy quality", but out of desperation, we tried it. What we discovered was that everything* we ordered was less than the lowest price we could find elsewhere. Aldi shopping generally involves buying "Aldi brands", which were "hit with a little miss" -- the kids love the Chicken Nuggets (more than Costco's brand) and we all hated their maple syrup. On produce, though, was where the biggest surprises were. My kids fight over grapes and Aldi carried them at the lowest price, and only carried the small green or small red grapes (we're partial to green). Small grapes are sweeter and these are these taste like candy. That pattern repeated with every fruit, vegetable, and meat (we can't find pork chops this good at any of the general grocers). Some things, like the cheap-o frozen pizzas that I'm partial to, are larger and less expensive (Momma Cosi's brand is $2.50 or less and compares with Tony's Pizza at $3.00 or more but the Aldi pizza is larger and tastes better). I might be able to do better with coupons, but this saves me time and it reduced by grocery spend by 60% without affecting the kinds of food I purchase (the kids prefer their knock-off Coco Krispies and Cinnamon Toast Crunch to the actual brand). Then there's the shopping experience: some parts of it feel strange to an American ($0.25 deposit to get a cart being the one you notice immediately -- or having to bring your own bags/bag your own stuff[0]), but once you get past those small things, the rest of the experience is great. The stores are well organized and the cashiers are the fastest (they're timed) and check-out is quick regardless of the length of the line. I've never seen more than two employees in a store any time I have ever shopped and I'm convinced they run them on about that many people most of the time, but it doesn't impact service. Then there's the non-grocery items. The best blender I own was one I purchased for $20 from there. I am currently leaning against a $5.00 pillow I purchased from there and my laptop is sitting on a bamboo "breakfast in bed tray" I got from there for $10. Last year, they carried the Wanhao i3 printer (same as Maker Select v2 from Monoprice) and I picked up two Broadlink WiFi plugs for $5.00/piece on the 50% off rack in January of this year. [0] If you're a "go green" type and have discovered that those reusable bags require an obscene amount of use before they cover the environmental cost you can do what I do: every Aldi I have ever visited has a storage area for empty boxes somewhere near the front. Take as many as you need and use them to get your things home. They also have no problem with you consolidating boxes on the shelves to get extras. I haven't brought a bag into Aldi in over a year because I find it more convenient to use the boxes -- they fit more, they stack better in the car and make it easier to unload everything when you get home.