You could say one of my hobbies is grocery shopping. I love food and I love cooking so of course I love spending time in a grocery store. I went to Whole Foods one time and spent a good 45 minutes just looking around. I didn't buy anything because the prices are insane, but it was pretty to look at. Which leads me to this post, which was mostly spurred by my curiosity about price differences between Winn Dixie and Aldi.
Winn Dixie has been my go to grocery store for several years now. I was pulled in by the renovation of their Longwood, FL store which is super close to my house. If you're familiar with Winn Dixie, you know their stores had kind of fallen into the less than desirable feel...not the greatest atmosphere inside. They've recently re-done most of their stores and my WD is lovely. The produce area, my favorite part, is bright, spacious and full of great selections.
The other big draw that got me shopping at WD was their Fuel Perks program. Each week, certain items are marked with Fuel Perks. For example, for buying one bag of spinach, you could earn 5¢ off a gallon of gas. There is no limit to the amount of Fuel Perks you can earn in one month, but they do start to expire at the end of each month if you don't use them. And for every $50.00 you spend, you automatically get another 5¢ added onto your total off per gallon of gas. I've spent as little as 28¢ per gallon of gas before! This is good for up to 20 gallons of gas at Shell stations. It's been a big help in regards to the gas budget.
PRO TIP: The wine and beer section usually has discounts up to 50¢ per gallon! This past holiday season I racked up close to $2.00 off per gallon of gas thanks to the beer and wine purchases I made.
A third thing that drew me to WD was their customer reward card. It's a free card you get that allows for automatic discounts on items, lets you load coupons directly onto the card and is the card you swipe at the gas station to get your Fuel Perks!
You can learn more about Winn Dixie HERE.
Needless to say, I'm a pretty loyal WD shopper for the reasons listed above, plus many more! But I was intrigued by this Aldi option. I had seen people post online about the great deals and heard friends talk about it, but to be honest, I had kind of a skeptical opinion about it. Was it clean? What was the selection like? Were the items close to their expiration date? These were sort of unfair assumptions since I had never been inside an Aldi before, so I decided to give it a try. Mostly because I am always looking for ways to save on my grocery budget!
I went to their website to find the location nearest my house. You can check if there's a location near you HERE.
Once I was on their website I learned a few quirks about how they manage to keep high quality products at a lower price than other stores.
First, I noticed that in order to get a shopping cart, you need to make sure you have a quarter! They have a system in place that encourages people to return their carts and not leave them in the parking lot. Return your shopping cart to the front of the store, get your quarter back! I now have a quarter that lives in the cup holder of my car that I refer to as my "Aldi Quarter."
Second, they didn't accept credit cards. Only cash or debit. Although in looking at their website again, it does say they take major credit cards so maybe this has changed since I was there last?
Third, remember to bring your own bags! They do have paper and plastic bags for sale if you forget your own. The cashier places all your purchases directly back into your cart and there is a Bagging Area where you bag your own groceries after you check out. This is actually kind of fun because, let's be honest, when does the person bagging your groceries ever do it exactly how you would like it? I mean, come on...10 cans in one plastic bag!?
There are several other ways that Aldi can cut costs and you can read about them on their website.
So, one day I decided to head into my local Aldi to see what the fuss was about. I had a basic idea of what my "pantry" items cost me at WD and was surprised to see that Aldi had them for lower prices on most of the items! Me being me, I decided to take this another step further and actually do a price comparison research trip.
I wrote down my basics that I always have on hand, or purchase often enough to be curious about the prices, and headed into both stores. PRO TIP: Not all stores sell exactly the same size of an item. If you're not reading the UNIT PRICE of items, please start! Even if you only shop in one place, this trick will still save you money!
Sneak Peek of Part 2 of this post!
Once I had my side by side comparison done, it was easy to see Aldi was coming in cheaper on many of my everyday items. OK, fine, but what did their products taste like? Another way Aldi keeps their prices down is by stocking their own brand of products. You're not going to see many name brand items at Aldi.
My next step was to actually purchase a variety of my most used items to see how they rated in the taste and quality department. Note, I checked the expiration labels on everything and they were all as you would expect in any other grocery store. Nothing that was about to go bad in 6 hours.
Got home and over the next few days I tried my Aldi milk, eggs, chicken stock, ground turkey, almond butter, tortilla chips and various produce. I was pleased with it all!
Overall, my Aldi shopping experience was a great one and I am glad to have discovered it! This is not to say I am never shopping at WD again. I do love those Fuel Perks and their produce section does have more variety. And, you can't beat the location. The WD is less than a mile from my house and Aldi is six miles away. If I just need a few items, or I need something fresh from the deli department, WD is the winner. If I have the time and I am going to stock up on essentials, the trip to Aldi is worth it.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this comparison. I'll break down the costs of roughly 40 different products that I consider to be staples in our house and see which store comes out on top!
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