What's not to love about Aldi?! If you you are sitting there behind your screen reading this and going "meh." Then you my dear madam (or sir) have never been.
Aldi is a NO frills, no BS grocery store. Every aspect of your shopping experience is designed to keep the most amount of money in your pockets. For example, one thing I am a MAJOR fan of is their shopping cart strategy. You put a quarter into a small device on the row of "locked" shopping carts, and it'll release a shopping cart for you to be on your merry way to frolic upon the low prices on all items in the store. And after you're done shopping and have dumped all the goodies in to the trunk of your car you bring the cart back where all the other carts are to get back your quarter. It may seem like a silly, punitive strategy, but it works! Even though its just a quarter, everyone wants it back, and as a result all the carts ALWAYS get returned to the carousel. You'll never have the nightmare of returning to your car surrounded by a gang of angry carts, or worse seeing a cart that slammed into your rear end. So that little quarter saves you headache, hassle, and keeps prices LOWWWW, since Aldi doesn't have to worry about paying for car/cart related casualties. (Plus, you get a little more exercise this way haha).
Again, like mentioned before Aldi does whatever it can to keep prices low. I'm talking about there have been times where I got a dozen eggs for 90 cents milk for $1.20, and bread for $0.69-- and no they weren't radioactive, broken or molded lol. That being said, another way they keep their prices low is that YOU BAG YOUR OWN GROCERIES, and you PAY FOR THE BAGS. Buying bags is of course optional! And you are more than welcome to reuse your own bags!!!. Another way people "bag" their stuff (because lets be honest, you're probably going to forget those reusable bags all the time lol) is via "boxing" their stuff. This means that all the products that aldi has is not lined up in shelves. It's available in open-faced boxes. Once these boxes are emptied of its contents the staff will clear the boxes out-- OR you can just grab these boxes for yourself and fill your groceries in them. I prefer boxing my stuff :)
YES Aldi is super cheap, but it's ALWAYS organized. You will never find yourself fighting through a jungle of produce strewn on the floor.
But what about you mavericks with a panache for the finer or exotic things in life? Maybe you're doing Paleo, maybe you have an allergy to Red 40, maybe you just like going against the grain for no reason at all. Have no fear, your Aldi genie is here. In the last couple years there has been an exponential explosion of organic products in Aldi's aisles. Organic fresh produce, organic canned produce, cereals, pasta sauces, frozens, snacks, Grade A FRESH organic maple syrup, three types of goat cheese, agave syrup, ALMOND FLOUR, ALMOND MILK, ALMOND BUTTER you name it, You want organic baby kale no bigger than an inch in diameter for under $3? You'll find it! You know those exotic yuca-taro-sweet potato vegetable chips that you find for almost $8 depending on the size of the bag? Yeah. Generic organic version here, ~$2.89. You want organic AND hispanic Menudo beans? how about low-sodium Tajin seasoning?
Maybe you want the Supremo Chihuahua cheese BUT IT HAS to be the mega size? THIS IS WHERE YOU FIND ALL OF THESE, pay with a $10 and still have a few cents to spare.
The only reason why I gave this a 4/5 is simply based on this Aldi's size; its a little smaller than a few others I went to so I was unable to find a couple items (like freeze-dried strawberries), but those items are so obscure that it doesn't affect most people, and if you really want it that bad, another location will definitely have it.
TL;DR: Come armed with a quarter for your cart, no frills shopping experience; clean and organized, but grab an empty box if you stumble upon one to fill your groceries in them because Aldi is a self bag philosophy. They take only cash and Visa. Come here no matter what your budget is, diet is, organic/allergies etc. YOU WILL FIND IT and you will still have a fat wallet after. read more