Sunday, September 21, 2014

Broke? Hungry? Try Aldi Grocery Stores

Whenever our budget gets tight, we find ourselves shopping at Aldi.  It's a remarkable international chain of small grocery stores.  They manage to beat almost every other grocery store and big box chain on food prices while offering some excellent selections.

Aldi Sign photo by Julian Budke [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)]
Radio consumer advisor, Clark Howard has noted the similarity between the business models of Trader Joes and Aldi on his radio show.  Both stores offer a wide variety of house brands and few, if any, well-known national brands.  However, I've observed that while Trader Joes tends to offer a perceived health-food oriented selection of groceries, Aldi concentrates on basic food that every hoisehold needs.

So far, Aldi has proven great for bacon, premium chocolate bars, frozen pizzas, and ice cream.  In other words, for the basic food groups.  I've found their produce to be just acceptable.  But, if you are looking for ripe avocados they are a better bet than conventional grocery stores.

Before you go remember to bring a quarter for a cart deposit and your own bags.  They are a no frills store.


Sunday, September 14, 2014

Money Saving Tips for Football Season.

Football season is a great season for saving money.  While lots of businesses try to convince you to spend more money during football season, my money-saving technique for the season is actually very simple.  Are you ready?  Here it comes.  During football season, you should simply sit on your ass and watch football.



If you want to eat during football season, McDonalds has a box meal with 2 Big Macs, 4 small fries, and 20 McNuggets for only $10.99.  You don't want to eat like that every day, but it is a great deal.  In Atlanta, it is marketed as a Falcons box.  We tried it and it was good eating.