I tried to resist, I really did. If you had told me at the beginning of this year I would be a regular Aldi shopper I would have told you that you were off your tree. My first grocery shopping experience left me feeling harassed, confused and desperate for a glass of wine – at 10am! It was brutal. I returned home and swore I would never bother putting myself through the chaos again just to save a few dollars. After sharing my experience with you all I received so much encouragement and handy tips that I decided to give it another go. With a little more preparation I could see my naivety in jumping in and assuming I would be able to just suddenly start shopping at Aldi as if it were like switching between Coles and Woolworths. It is a different world filled with unknown brands, haphazard product placement and of course the frantic race to get all your gear back into your trolley at the checkout before it avalanches. But the numbers don’t lie and after some nerdy spread sheet tweaking I discovered that we had spent $1000 less this quarter on groceries than we had the previous one. Winning!
As I become more familiar with the products I find that I am actually favouring many of the items over their big chain counterparts and I am buying a lot of products that we had done without previously because of the hefty price tags. Snack foods of all variety’s have a much stronger presence in our house now which may or may not be a good thing and there have been many new meals that have become regulars which is a welcome change to the usual repertoire.
Some of the most significant money savers have been the baby and cleaning products. After some initial apprehension I have completely done away with using Huggies nappies (even at night) which in itself is saving us a small fortune. I cannot believe the difference in the price of cleaning and bathroom products that have a nasty habit of all needing to be bought in the same week. There is also a novelty factor that comes from discovering little gems like their sliced cheese and the satisfaction I get every time I go in there and feel like I am ‘getting it’.
If I had crunched the numbers and seen that we had saved a couple of hundred dollars I couldn’t be sure that I would see the value as there are still items that I prefer to buy from the bigger supermarkets. But these items are getting less and less each month and I can definitely think of better ways to spend that $1000!
