What I buy at Aldi

One of my readers(Hi, Gail!) was asking what good buys I’ve found at Aldi’s, and I thought maybe I should just list it all in a post. I’m sure this list will expand with time(I keep finding more good deals there!), but I’ll list what I’ve gotten hooked on so far.

Honestly, almost everything at Aldi is priced really well…their everyday prices match nearly every good sale price I can find, and also matches or beats most warehouse prices as well.

Aldi sells some pre-packaged items like frozen meals, and macaroni and cheese type things, but I don’t usually buy those kinds of items and so I’m not equipped to report on their quality or pricing. I generally prefer to buy ingredients instead of prepared items, and what makes me so happy about shopping at Aldi is that I can find good deals on more unprocessed foods like oatmeal, milk, cheese, spinach, eggs, fruit and the like.

Pantry Items

Oatmeal- a large canister of this is only $1.79! A small one costs that much normally.

Crackers-most of them have been really good, and they’re very inexpensive. The animal crackers are especially tasty.

Cereal-I buy the shredded wheat almost every week(it’s Joshua’s favorite cereal). It’s $1.79 a box, which is cheaper than a sale price.

Dairy

Milk-the price varies depending on the fat content, but even whole milk is less than $3

Butter-this is $1.99 a pound, which is the sale price I used to look for, and is also the same price that Costco sells it for. I’m thrilled to have this available at Aldi, though…now I don’t have to look for sales, and I don’t have to buy 4 pounds at a time like I did at Costco.

Cream Cheese-$.99/8 ounces. Again, this is the sale price I used to look for, and now I don’t have to!

Block Cheese-this is usually $1.99 or less for 8 ounces. It’s rare to find cheese that cheaply on sale anywhere else.

Sour Cream-$.99/16 ounces

Large Eggs-$1.45/dozen

Produce

Fresh Express Spinach-$1.39/bag. This is WAY cheaper than I’ve seen it anywhere else, even on sale.

Romaine Hearts-$1.25-$2.50/three hearts

Grapefruit-these vary between $.19 and $.49 apiece. The cheapest I’ve seen them anywhere else has been $.99 each.

Grape Tomatoes-$.89-$1.50/pint. These go for $3 and up elsewhere.

Really, almost all of their produce is worth buying..cucumbers, broccoli, sweet potatoes, pineapples, strawberries and a lot more are sold at prices that are right around the loss-leader prices I can find at other stores.

Meat

I haven’t bought a lot in the way of meat at Aldi so far, but most of their meat prices are as good as or nearly as good as the loss-leader sale prices I usually look for.

Their frozen seafood is priced well…for instance, wild-caught salmon is only about $3.50-$4 a pound. I’d have to pay twice that for farmed salmon at a regular store.

Frozen Foods

Frozen fruit(good for yogurt smoothies)-these vary, depending on the type of fruit you buy, but they’re a good deal.

Frozen OJ concentrate-$1.25/12 oz. I love how cheap this is. It costs $2.25 and up at Weis.

I will occasionally buy a box of ice cream novelties. Everything we’ve had so far has been good, and they’re SO much cheaper than anywhere else.

Non-Food Items

I haven’t ventured into the non-food aisles all that much yet. I have bought the ibuprofen(only $.99 a bottle!), and the large pack of toilet paper, but that’s about it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything I buy at Aldi, but hopefully it’s enough to give you an idea of the sort of deals that can be had there.

If you have some favorite grocery items at Aldi, feel free to share by leaving a comment.

Oh, and has anyone tried their laundry detergent? I’m curious to know if it works well.