Recently we started shopping at Aldi. When we first moved to Texas there were no Aldi stores here. About one year ago the first Aldi store in our area was opened and we went a few times, but it wasn’t quite in our regular rotation of stores. Then after talking with my sister (man she’s getting a lot of mentions isn’t she? Clearly I need more friends) and finding out that she does about ninety percent of her shopping at Aldi; I decided to give it a try. On out first trip we spent about $90 and the second trip about $75. They didn’t have everything that we needed and we ended up going to HEB or Kroger to get the few missing items and also for a few other incidentals between trips. I think we still ended up spending less money that when we were doing all of our shopping at HEB and occasionally Kroger. But I didn’t know for sure that I was saving money, so I decided to find out. First things first, I had to come up with a menu for the meals we were going to eat. I settled on the following (after talking to my sister…maybe I’m just lazy?).
Spaghetti with Italian Sausage
Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
BLTs and fries
Chicken Stir-fry
Once I got to the store I also bought some other items for Miles
and for our lunches. My spoils!
Here is the list broken down by category:
Pantry: bread (2), tortillas, beef broth, red pepper and tomato
soup, chili beans (meant to get kidney beans), spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce,
penne (2), crushed tomatoes, corn muffin mix, brown gravy packet and ranch
dressing packet.
Produce: potatoes, green grapes, carrots, green bell peppers,
tricolor bell peppers, tomatoes, plums, cherry tomatoes and blueberries.
Freezer: fries, garlic knots (2), peas (2), broccoli, mixed
berries and peaches.
Dairy: milk (2), vanilla yogurt, sliced cheddar, shredded cheddar, and eggs.
Meat: chicken thighs (2), turkey Italian sausage, ground turkey,
breakfast sausage, roast and applewood smoked bacon.
Snacks/Miles: rice crisps (2), applesauce pouches (3), teddy graham crackers, single serving green beans, and raisins.
My grand total: $113.79. Sadly for me they charged me twice for the teddy graham crackers and did not ring up my cherry tomatoes…maybe I won and maybe I didn’t, but I didn’t have the time to go back and resolve this problem. Also you can subtract 25 cents because a nice lady in the parking lot gave me her cart and refused my quarter. Do you like the crinkling of the receipt...all Miles?
Now for the comparison. Since I did not have an accurate price for
the cherry tomatoes I cut those from the list. Kroger did not have plums, so
those were cut. Neither HEB nor Kroger had a similar product to the single
serving green beans and I must have blacked out and missed the teddy grahams at
Kroger, so I also cut those from the final list.
New total: $101.34.
Other notes: for the chicken thighs and roast
I took the price per pound of those items and multiplied buy the exact amounts
I purchased at Aldi. HEB and Kroger only had 24-ounce packages of the same kind
of bacon so I went with those numbers; Aldi had a 12-ounce package. The other
meat options had same size packages at the other stores so I went with those
prices. Now for the shredded cheese, the bag at Aldi was for 3 cups, at Kroger
and HEB they sell 2 cup bags, so I would have needed to buy two to get the
minimum amount. I hope those are my only caveats. Oh yeah, I have two amounts
for each store, the first is using only store brand items and substituting
brand names if there was no store brand option. The second amount is using only
brand name items and substituting store brands if there was no name brand
option. Okay, here we go.
Aldi
|
HEB
Store brand
|
HEB
Name brand
|
Kroger
Store brand
|
Kroger
Name Brand
|
|
Amount paid
|
$101.34
|
$130.34
|
$149.06
|
$128.96
|
$152.52
|
Amount saved
|
$29.00
|
$47.72
|
$27.62
|
$51.18
|
|
Percentage saved
|
22.25%
|
32.01%
|
21.42%
|
33.56%
|
I honestly didn’t save as much as I thought I was going to, but
the numbers are still pretty damn good. The amazing part, to me, was that Kroger and HEB, at least for these
items, ran pretty close. If I ever do this again, I might not do both HEB and
Kroger, it was waayyyy too much running around. If you are interested I can
share the spreadsheet with all the exact prices that I found. Also, if you are
interested, maybe that lovely sister of mine can do a mini version at
Aldi and Giant Eagle for you Ohio peeps.
Where do you get the
best deals? Hit me up in the comments below. Happy reading!
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