I don't know why I haven't done my shopping there before

I spend at least £150 a week in Sainsburys ... and was fed up of every trolley full costing that much, by the time we had milk delivered, extra bread extra, a couple of bags extra in the week.. we are spending about £750 a month on food

So I went to Aldi, i didn't get everything there, but I got a trolley full for £60

So far nothing has tasted any different from Branded stuff...like I only like helmans Mayo...but theirs tastes the same...their white chocolate is gorgeous...veg really fresh and tasty..washing power works fine and smells nice.

Oh and I got their pull up nappies too ... I think they are usually the same price as Sainsburys ones, but were on offer, so only 11p each (sainsburys are 15p each and huggies about 32p!) ... she has done her best to shat out of them...but they held in even a really big sloppy one

Honestly I am kicking myself now for thinking that I wouldn't like what they sold.

I spent another £10 in Sainsburys on ham and a few bits I like from there, but seriously even if I save £50 a week thats over £2500 a year

So anyone who hasn't tried it...give it a go, I was really shocked at the difference in prices.

We only have Tesco, Sainsburys, M&S, Lidl or Asda in N.Ireland. Asda prob the cheapest and there isnt one in our town. We always use Tesco as Stu gets 10% discount.

Im always jealous of al the cheap supermarkets you guys seem to have. Id love a home bargains. Morrisons/wilkinsons? sound good.

We trying to save money atm too and are switching to Tesco brand were we can. Things like biscuits/yoghurt etc you def cant tell! Has to be heinz beans/ketchup or coca cola but

I quite agree Lisa!! We do a big monthly shop from Tesco, to get the stuff we do like and the little extra luxuries. Te rest of the month we top up our fresh stuff with Lidl (I think Lidl do some branded stuff, wehre as Aldi do all their own, though I could be wrong). I have even switched from Pampers to their nappies as they are about £5.18 for 54, and even cheaper than I can get in Costco.

Some of their stuff like their red leicester cheese isn't as nice as Tesco own, but their coleslaw is delicious. Now we have done this for a while, we now know which items we dont like etc and some Lidl stores have even started doing fresh bread.

On the down side they don't do home delivery, but you can be in and out in 20 mins!!!
xx

Is Costco Costcutters? Like a Spar/Vivo local shop?

I love Aldi but we just dont have the time to go there and get a big shop, we rely on buses xx

snoopy21 wrote:

Is Costco Costcutters? Like a Spar/Vivo local shop?

Costco is like a trade warehouse but if you work in the public sector or have your own business you can join (about £30 per year). You can get some real bargains but you have to buy big packs of things. They sell absolutely everything, its ace!

I always see the Aldi advert and want to go there but i've never seen a big one to do a proper shop only a tiny one with nothing in. There's got to be one in Milton Keynes somewhere, I'm going to find out. We're getting really annoyed with our shopping. We went to Asda every month fine in Sussex, but we have two Asdas near us and neither one seems to stock the things we want. We end up going twice or 3times a month or popping in the crappy tesco down the road and spending more money.

BabyMilly wrote:

snoopy21 wrote:

Is Costco Costcutters? Like a Spar/Vivo local shop?

Costco is like a trade warehouse but if you work in the public sector or have your own business you can join (about £30 per year). You can get some real bargains but you have to buy big packs of things. They sell absolutely everything, its ace!

Sounds like our Makro. Dont know if you have it?

snoops makro is the same kind of thing i think. Im probably gonna start getting tesco delivered, or getting my mum to take me shopping when she goes lol, to lidl!

i must try this, there is a aldi and a lidl both near the asda i go to..

i hate tesco, when i used to do a big shop there it used to cost way over 100 for a full trolly, asda it will be baout 70-80 quid so much happier!

Defnitly give it a go Becci! Even if you dont get it all the savings are nuts!

I wish I could see what it would have cost in Sainsburys but I left my handbag at my mums! I will add it up and let you know what the difference was!

I love Aldi, and its taken me years to get Chris to shop there......but he know actually PREFERS a lot of the items over tesco & asda.

He used to shop at m&s before he met me , and he even prefers some of the stuff to them.

Because they dont have a lot of the 'eye turners' that helps me to spend less on its own!

We love the frozen duck legs, the chilled lasagne, the chocs, the icecream, and the 'antipasti' bits

I shop at aldi all the time, cant afford tesco any more and i get everything i need and more for about £70 every 10 days-2 weeks, just have to buy bread and milk etc every day.
I love it there x

think i might go do my shop there tomorrow now just to see how i get on x

I will have to try it again, been a long time since I went x

i shop in lidl all the time and get loads for about 60 quid if i go to morrisons its like 130 for the same stuff and i too prefer a lot of the food from lidl xx

we have been gradually buying more from lidl/aldi (they are both right next to each other and fairly big stores), am i being ridiculous though, i worry if i do a whole weeks shop we might not like anything and then starve?!!

Weve got Lidi now other then tesco & sains we dont have nothing unless we fancy a 20min drive to do a food shop x
Think i might try Lidi x

Ditto Lisa!!!

We are a family of 3 and we probably spend well over £100 a week at Sainsburys and then topping up at Waitrose once or twice a week. We can afford it but over the last year I am so much more money conscious (actually I've never really been money conscious before) and I hate buying things now if I feel I'm being ripped off or if I can get it cheaper.

We have a Aldi store just a minute from Sainsbury's. It opened about a year or so ago and I've never been in it.

After reading your post Lisa, I told my husband that we are going there this weekend to have a look around and see if we really can start to save money on our shopping bill because what we spend is just ridiculous. I might as well go into my purse and throw some cash in the rubbish bin, that's how I feel about it all right now.

This post is just what I needed to give myself a kick up the you know what.

Tania. x

Were does the Aldi food come from? Is it foreign brands. Sorry if I seem a bit thick but Ive never been in lol.

Amandaplus2 wrote:

Were does the Aldi food come from? Is it foreign brands. Sorry if I seem a bit thick but Ive never been in lol.

I thought that...but not necessarily, its things made for Aldi - so they get whoever they want to make their products and then brand them as their own - much the same as Sainsburys label stuff as theirs

The thing is I reckon half the stuff is made by the same companies as 'branded stuff' anyway lol - most of the packaging even looks the same. Their shampoo looks just like Pantene! Loads of other stuff seems the same too!

This is what the site says

''We buy the best for less, so you can too

Buying power
Our day-to-day items cost less because we buy them in great volume. And because we buy them from the same, hand-picked suppliers (whose products are sold under our own labels) we are able to negotiate substantial discounts – savings that we then pass on to you. Supermarkets buying ‘big name brands’ can’t do this.

No-nonsense approach
Many high street supermarkets spend huge sums of money on fancy displays and gimmicks in order to persuade you to buy. We don’t. Our store layouts are simple, so you can find what you need for the kind of prices you want.

Quality comes first
Our buyers are experts in their field, from fresh fruit and veg to electronics and fine wines. They instinctively have an eye for which products from around the world represent the best quality at the best prices. But don’t just take our word for it – both the grocery industry and consumer media keep on showering our products with the highest praise and top awards.''

Tarn wrote:

Ditto Lisa!!!

We are a family of 3 and we probably spend well over £100 a week at Sainsburys and then topping up at Waitrose once or twice a week. We can afford it but over the last year I am so much more money conscious (actually I've never really been money conscious before) and I hate buying things now if I feel I'm being ripped off or if I can get it cheaper.

We have a Aldi store just a minute from Sainsbury's. It opened about a year or so ago and I've never been in it.

After reading your post Lisa, I told my husband that we are going there this weekend to have a look around and see if we really can start to save money on our shopping bill because what we spend is just ridiculous. I might as well go into my purse and throw some cash in the rubbish bin, that's how I feel about it all right now.

This post is just what I needed to give myself a kick up the you know what.

Tania. x

I do actually feel like that is what I have been doing all these years! I don't for one minute think i will get everything from there as some stuff like t-bags, coffee, ham etc I am quite fussy and have my preferences, but for the amount I'll save at Aldi I don't mind making an extra trip as Sainsburys is right by my house anyway.

We can afford it too..and before we had Izzy spending that much was nothing..but even though we can afford it I still don't want to spend it lol cos it annoys me to spend more than i need, I hate feeling like Im being ripped off...and really I now feel like Sainsburys and the others do that cos so far nothing from Aldi has seemed any different! Dan went ages ago once and he moaned and said there wasn't much choice...but to be honest I liked the fact I could go in and not be faced with 1 million different brands of everything - I did the shopping in about half the time and that was with me never being there before, so I am sure I can take even less time!

Thing is though, even if we save £2500 a year..it probably wont feel like it unless I put the difference away somewhere, so I think each month i will put some aside, so we notice the savings more.

I'm off to Aldi now as Izzy is bed...I need my chocolate fix...no joke the white choc from there is divine! (Im not just going for choc lol, I aint that bad ... I need juice too )

Thanks Lisa will deff try it. I usually go to Sainsburys and seem to spend a fortune. It would be great if people can mention things they have tried and found to be good and other things not to buy x

Stuff I think is fab is fruit and veg, bread, sausages, cereal, chocolate, washing powder, biscuits, crisps (the hoola hoops were the same as the 'real' ones!) big bags of sweeties lol, frozen things (like fish in puff pastry), eggs

TBH Amanda - I have not had anything that I thought wasn't just as good as Sainsburys/other brands!

As I said though I don't get tea/coffee/ham from there, just cos I like branded tea/coffee and I like the taste the difference ham, or fresh off the deli

I went today! I got a big pack of mince thatI can split into 4 for £2.50, some potatoes, bread, broccoli (grown locally) bag of apples,White chocolate (as recommended by Lisa) milk, chicken pieces, sausages, fabric conditioner, fresh orange juice all for £16. Would of cost me loads more at Sainsburys