Today, I will convince you that Aldi is better than any other grocery store!
We should set the record straight: here, you’re going to read a lot about how Aldi is better than any other store out there. Call Aldi however you want: entitled, nepo-baby, the product of 21st century consumerism. I’ve heard it all, and frankly, I don’t care. The naysayers can keep their overpriced national brands and cavernous, soul-crushing superstores.
I just think it’s the best out there! And if you tell me you’ve never been there before, well, I won’t believe it anyway! Because that grocery chain is too good to miss out. It’s a foundational part of modern, smart shopping. To ignore it is to willingly throw your money away while getting a less exciting experience. So, let’s just assume you’re here to have your mind changed, or at the very least, to understand what all the fuss is about.
If you’re not joking and you’ve actually never stepped foot in an Aldi before, I will tell you a couple of things worth knowing about. First of all, it’s a wildly popular discount grocery chain that operates in over 1,500 locations in the United States alone, and thousands more worldwide. While it’s more popular in Europe, especially its home country of Germany, plenty of Americans still remember the day an Aldi location opened in their city. It was a momentous occasion, a turning point in the local grocery landscape.
They have it marked on a calendar. The company was founded in the 1940s by two brothers, Karl and Theo Albrecht, who took over their mother’s small food store in Essen, Germany. Their core philosophy was simple from the start: offer a limited range of high-quality items at the lowest possible prices by cutting out all unnecessary costs. They decided to part ways in the 1960s after a dispute over whether to sell cigarettes, and split the company into two: Aldi Süd (South) and Aldi Nord (North). Both companies managed to expand globally, with Aldi Süd taking control over the stores in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.
However, Aldi Nord operates the Trader Joe’s chain in the U.S., which it acquired in 1979. This is a fact that blows many people’s minds. Yes, your two favorite quirky, budget-friendly grocery stores are family. Trader Joe’s has fewer stores, but somehow it’s better known, often seen as Aldi’s more whimsical, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing cousin. Even if Aldi lacks the same level of brand-name recognition among some demographics, we still love it, and we think it’s the best out there for its unapologetic focus on efficiency and value.
Surprisingly or not, Aldi has plenty in common with Trader Joe’s, beyond their shared parentage. It has extremely low prices, and it stocks a very limited selection of items. This isn’t a flaw; it’s a feature. Aldi also carries around 1,300 of the fastest-moving grocery items, whereas most conventional grocery stores sell around 30,000 items, and sometimes upwards of 50,000. This curated selection eliminates decision fatigue and ensures that what you’re buying is popular, fresh, and moves off the shelves quickly.
With fewer items, stores can be smaller, which also means lower rent and electricity costs. The entire business model is a masterclass in ruthless efficiency. Besides, you won’t even find too many name-brand items because over 90% of what Aldi is selling is under its own private-label umbrella. This cuts out the middleman and the expensive marketing costs associated with national brands, allowing Aldi to have incredible control over quality and price.
However, the shopping experience differs a lot in these two stores. At Trader Joe’s, happy, chatty employees roam the aisles, handing out all kinds of samples and assisting shoppers. It’s a very hands-on, high-service environment. Aldi, on the other hand, embraces a more utilitarian, do-it-yourself ethos that is central to its cost-saving strategy. Don’t expect to be coddled here; expect to be empowered to save money.
At Aldi, you will find items displayed in the cardboard boxes they were originally shipped in. This saves immense amounts of time and labor, as employees don’t have to unpack and stack every single item on a shelf. You also have to bag your own groceries, and Aldi will charge you for the bags if you forget to bring your own. This encourages recycling and reduces waste, while also saving the company money on providing free bags. There’s a dedicated, long counter space past the register for you to take your time bagging, away from the pressure of the checkout line.
There’s a 25-cent deposit required if you want a shopping cart, even if you’ll get your quarter back by returning the cart to the corral. This brilliant system helps Aldi save more money, but that money is presumably passed along to customers at lower prices. It’s not a charge for the cart; it’s a deposit to incentivize you to do the work yourself. Think about it: you never see stray Aldi carts littering the parking lot, and the company doesn’t need to pay an employee to do a “cart-run” every hour.
It was meant to reduce the cost of hiring employees to round up the carts from the parking lot. But don’t be scared by the chain’s frugal nature. Every single one of these quirks is a deliberate choice designed to lower overhead and pass those savings directly on to you, the shopper. It’s a partnership: you do a little more, you save a lot more.
If you’ve ever driven past the blue and orange sign and wondered whether it’s really worth your while to venture into an Aldi store, here are a couple of reasons why you absolutely should:
You could easily feed a family of four with 25 meals for less than $150.
And when I say this, I don’t mean peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every single night. Not even close. Aldi’s prices are low enough to fill your cart with enough food to make almost a month’s worth of dinners for only $6 a meal. This isn’t an exaggeration; it’s a well-documented reality for countless budget-conscious families who have discovered the power of shopping at Aldi.
The fact that you can make 25 balanced, varied, and delicious meals for a family of four people for only $150 proves exactly how many wonders come with the Aldi magic. Recipes might also include turkey chili, roasted red pepper chicken with a side of seasoned rice, a hearty spinach frittata for a “breakfast-for-dinner” night, and, of course, homemade macaroni and cheese that tastes a million times better than the boxed stuff. You can also whip up things like black bean burgers on brioche buns, spaghetti with meatballs using all Aldi ingredients, or a flavorful sheet pan dinner with sausage, potatoes, and broccoli.
You can buy organic and stick to the budget.
Aldi’s organic selection, primarily under their Simply Nature brand, definitely doesn’t rival the sprawling offerings you might get at Whole Foods, but it might include plenty of the basic ones (and a couple of not-so-basic products) that are much cheaper than other similar offerings at supermarkets. This makes clean eating accessible, not a luxury. You don’t have to choose between your budget and your desire for organic foods.
Among organic items, you might find milk, grass-fed beef, yogurt, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, pasta, pasta sauce, cane sugar, instant oatmeal, frozen fruit, and even blue corn chips. They also offer organic apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, free-range chicken broth, and organic salsa. The list keeps growing as Aldi continues to respond to customer demand for affordable organic options.
For instance, a 5-ounce package of organic spinach is only 50 cents, which is $1 less than the packages of the same size at many other area supermarkets (Walmart included). That’s a massive saving on a staple item. I’ve consistently found that their organic produce, like carrots, apples, and salad mixes, are priced at or below the conventional prices at other stores.
A 10-ounce container of organic cherry tomatoes was $1 less at Aldi than other supermarkets, and so was the 10-ounce package of organic frozen blueberries, which are perfect for smoothies. The savings add up incredibly fast. A weekly organic grocery bill from Aldi can easily be 30-40% lower than the same haul from a traditional supermarket.
You can easily find inexpensive specialty items.
For a store with such a limited selection, Aldi has way more than its fair share of items that would tempt any foodie out there to buy, well, everything. This is where Aldi truly shines and shatters the “boring discount store” stereotype. And that’s why I stand by my belief that Aldi is better. The Specially Selected brand is where you’ll find these treasures.
For instance, gourmet cheeses like brie and goat cheese cost around 40% less than other cheeses at other supermarkets. You can regularly find imported delights like Gruyère, Manchego, Irish cheddar, and even truffle-infused cheese for a fraction of what you’d pay at a cheese counter. Aldi also sells fair trade coffee for 33 cents per ounce, in a variety of roasts and origins.
Moreover, Starbucks charges around 88 cents per ounce for its fair trade coffee. And Aldi? Well, Aldi stocks sweet potato and quinoa chips, rosemary crostini, blue cheese-stuffed olives, German pickles, artisanal pastas, high-end olive oils, and mascarpone cheesecake, and I’m not even close to the end of the list. Don’t forget their incredible German chocolates and seasonal treats during events like “German Week,” which are authentic and dangerously affordable.
You can get gluten-free products for less.
Gluten-free versions of food items usually cost twice as much as their other counterparts, as Consumer Report research showed. This “gluten-free tax” can be a huge burden for individuals with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. Even if you’ll pay more for gluten-free products than other conventional items at Aldi, the discount grocer’s LiveGfree brand is usually at a lower price than national gluten-free brands, and the quality is fantastic.
Moreover, their award-winning line also includes products like bread, bagels, general Tso’s chicken, cereal, pasta, crackers, cookies, cake mix, and, naturally, frozen foods like pizza and chicken nuggets. It’s one of the most comprehensive and affordable store-brand GF lines available anywhere. For instance, a 16-ounce box of LiveGFree gluten-free baking mix is less expensive than a box of Bisquick gluten-free baking mix at Walmart, and makes incredible pancakes.
You could find a couple of Trader Joe’s knock-offs.
Trader Joe’s is famous for its selection of, let’s say, unusual items. And by unusual, I mean things you wouldn’t see anywhere else. It’s part of its charm. While you might not find some of the most popular Trader Joe’s products, like Speculoos Cookie Butter, at Aldi, you could even find guacamole tortilla chips and sparkling lemonade! The family connection between the two stores sometimes shows in their product development.
Also, if Thai lime cashews sound interesting to you, then you’ll be happy to find out that they also come at a lower price. Moreover, Aldi even has jalapeno ketchup, which is a dead ringer for a similar Trader Joe’s product. You’ll often find similar takes on seasoned nuts, unique chip flavors, and frozen entrees, making Aldi a great place to check if your Trader Joe’s favorite is out of stock. Given all this, we can easily say that Aldi is better, especially since you don’t have to fight the notoriously crowded Trader Joe’s parking lots.
Bonus: You could buy cookies that taste just like Samoas at Aldi.
If you’re a big fan of Girl Scout Samoa cookies, you can easily get your fix year-round with some Aldi-exclusive Benton’s Caramel Coconut Fudge cookies. They are a shockingly accurate and delicious dupe. But it doesn’t stop there. Benton’s also makes a Peanut Butter Fudge cookie that tastes remarkably like a Tagalong and a Fudge Mint cookie that will satisfy any Thin Mints craving.
And do you want to know what’s the best part? One package of Aldi cookies costs a minimum of 50% less than a box of Samoas. You get more cookies for less money, and you don’t have to wait for Girl Scout cookie season to roll around. You know, it’s something to think about! It’s a win-win situation for your wallet and your sweet tooth.
A little extra tip from me to you!
Now, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve convinced you to at least try shopping there if you’re not an Aldi aficionado like me. Well, here’s another thing: You will need to make lists. But first, a crucial tip for any Aldi trip: always, always check the “Aldi Finds” aisle. This is a magical aisle, often in the center of the store, filled with a rotating selection of limited-time items that change every single week. It’s a treasure hunt. You might find anything from patio furniture and German power tools to winter boots, bedding, kitchen gadgets, and seasonal decor. These items are often of surprisingly high quality and priced incredibly low. It adds an element of excitement to every shopping trip—you truly never know what you’re going to find.
Okay, now for the lists. There are plenty of them. And since I already shared with you my favorite grocery shopping spot, I feel the need to complete my mission and share with you my other big secret: my grocery shopping list method. First, go here and check out the magnetic notepads that I use every weekend. You see, they have different patterns, which is the key to my whole system.
Well, I use every single pattern depending on what I need. It’s a code only I understand. Some days, I’ll pick the notepad with bananas on it for, well, fruits and vegetables. Other days, that same banana notepad stands for dairy and cheese. The one with the floral pattern might be for pantry staples like pasta and canned goods one week, and the “Aldi Finds” hopefuls the next. It keeps things interesting and forces me to really think about what I’m buying. You get the gist, don’t you? It’s my own little shopping ritual, and in a world of boring errands, a little bit of personalized quirkiness goes a long way.
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