Aldi Love

On our way to the eastern shore last weekend, we saw construction for what looked like an Aldi going up. We looked at each other and crossed our fingers. Sure enough, on the way back home 2 days later, the sign was up. I just love seeing the selection at new stores, and this means I can now get my Aldi fix on my way to the beach!

One drawback to Aldi is that when you are craving some name brand junk food, like Pepsi, Doritos, Oreos, etc., you are pretty much out of luck. They generally don’t have these brands, although I have seen Coke, Utz, and Old Bay. So maybe we need to hit the Giant or Harris Teeter about quarterly to get our fix. But when I see that it’s $90 for half a cart full of stuff, I think I can live very happily with my Aldi finds, like Friendly Farms greek yogurt, Specially Selected poppyseed dressing, and 59 cent eggs. If you haven’t tried shopping at Aldi yet, I can only assume that you don’t have one within 20 minutes or you don’t like to save money. Sometimes the stores aren’t always in the most desirable neighborhoods, but you are in and out so quickly that it’s not much of an issue. If Aldi would pay me to taste and review their products, I think I’d pretty much have my dream job. They have a pretty good blog going.

Here’s the catch. It’s not for everybody. If you have to have expensive fancy products, you will not like Aldi. If you like huge stores with lots of selection where you have to compare price labels for which brand is the cheapest, you will not like Aldi. And if you like an attendant in the parking lot collecting carts, then Aldi is so not for you because you have to pay 25 cents to get your own damn cart! Guess what, you get the quarter back and the parking lot stays clear because even a quarter is enticing enough for the patrons to want to put their cart back in an orderly fashion.

I mentioned not having to decide which item on the shelf is the cheapest. Everything is cheap! I don’t even look at the price when I put something in my cart. When you get to experimenting, you will get to like certain labels better than others, like with pasta sauce and salad dressing. And you don’t have to go without. They have all the basics and extras like gourmet cheeses and organic produce. You just have to embrace the simplicity and be OK with them not having broccoli that day. But a gallon of milk is $1.59 so you’re good.

Part of me doesn’t want to share my Aldi love because I don’t want my store to get too crowded. But I want them to stay in business, so I am sharing my view with the world. My Ohio cousins shared their Aldi love with me, and now I am passing it on to you, happy readers. You’ll thank me one day. Or you’ll just continue to think I am one crazy Aldi lover.