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.
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| 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.
