It’s frugal February friends, and having recently been converted to ALDI, it’s time I shared the savings. Sam Shazzam, a Brisbane mother, liked Aldi so much she founded a blog/ Facebook page named ‘ALDI mum’ which now has over 32,000 ‘likes’ with a highly engaged audience. The Facebook page includes competitions, as well as discussions on various ALDI products and experiences. For week 17 of my Mummy Swap challenge, I was an ALDI mum. Here are the results:
I came prepared for my ALDI trip with my gold coin to secure a trolley.
I’m an ALDI fan, but today was traumatic. Sympathetic eyes followed me around the shop as I buried my boys in shopping whilst appeasing them with food bribery: brown rice biscuits (a quarter of a packet), yoghurt (2 sips of a squeeze tube), cheese (two portions)…… teddy tots (3 bags), hot cross buns (1.5), and Easter eggs (6 small eggs)….. It wasn’t pretty (we would have been escorted out if we were at that Sydney shopping centre that’s banned screaming).
Aldi is also a hoarders paradise with weekly specials on various items including electronic goods, furniture, manchester, gardening etc. We bypassed these goods today, although might revisit this section on the 23rd of February for a $250 android tablet.
I did my best to observe conveyor belt etiquette. Kelly from Handmade Tears and Triumphs has a great post on Aldi shopping protocol for novices- basically you have to unload and reload at ninja speed, and then you reorganise your shopping cart over at a bench beyond the cashier once payment has been made. Bags can be purchased, although don’t expect the cashier to assist you with packing- their job is to scan and oversee payment.
Have you ever watched ‘Extreme Couponing’ on Foxtel- where they score crazy amounts of product for next to nothing (except 60 hours of their week spent collecting coupons)? Anyway, they often describe a rush they get from it all. I now get this….. and was on a high with my total today: $120!
That’s a saving of over $50-60! I know this, because I compared the cost to an equivalent list of products available on Coles online (note: used generic when a similar amount/product was available). Add $7-9 for delivery on top of this.
But the euphoria from the savings was short-lived as reality hit that there was no parcel pick-up or home delivery. I had to push the groceries to the car with a chocolate covered 1 year old on my hip, and a 2 year old complaining that he was being squashed by nappies and yoghurt- I shoved an Easter egg in his mouth to muffle the complaints. At the car, I transferred the groceries into a laundry basket I’d brought from home so that putting the groceries away would be easier- apparently that’s what Aldi Mum does (at least that’s what my sister told me).
What I love about the ALDI Mum Facebook page is that she often features stories relating to Random Acts of Kindness (RAOK) at ALDI. Followers share heartwarming experiences such as a random shopper paying for a person’s groceries when they were having difficulty at the checkout, or buying a random shopper flowers at the supermarket. So I joined in and left my coin in the trolley so the next person didn’t have to pay for it 
.
On Tuesday, ‘ALDI Mum’ asked her Facebook followers to share their recipes using no more than 4 ALDI ingredients. Tara Hartwig suggested “400gm pink Salmon [sic- 415grm cans], 4medium mashed potato, egg, breadcrumbs, salt pepper. Combine, patty, pan fry. Can add onion.” So I made this for dinner, although added a few extra ingredients including chopped coriander, 2 tbs sweet chilli sauce, and I rolled the patties in crumbed cornflakes. Made about 25 rissoles.
We only buy Aldi nappies and wipes as they are just so much cheaper, and I think better quality than any other brand of nappies I’ve tried. We don’t get to Aldi as often as I like though, purely out of convenience, but whenever we do make the effort to do a proper shop at Aldi we can leave with a trolley full of stuff, especially household basics, and barely spend $150, whereas the equivalent at Coles would be well over $200. And I have to agree, grocery shopping with kids sucks balls big time!
Agree Kylie, ALDI nappies and wipes are the best next to Huggies- although Huggies can be almost twice as expensive.
LOVE ALDI, the only draw-back is having to go to two supermarkets because of the limited range but both are within 200mtrs of each other so it’s not a huge impost. Love all the European sweets and refer ALDI meat. Love it, love it, love it!
Love the European sweets! Have shopped at Coles once before following my ALDI shop- I hadn’t bagged the ALDI groceries, and just topped up a few items- felt a little guilty walking through the express checkout pushing my overflowing ALDI trolley with my three Coles items! Not sure what etiquette is on this???
I’m always disorganised so when I go to Aldi I have no change for the trolley, so I take in a pram I’ve left in the boot, then I get all panicky at the checkout trying to chuck all the stuff onto and under the pram quickly enough, then of course half of it topples onto the floor and I make a gigantic twit of myself. Nobody has ever given me random acts of kindess there either, just scornful glances. Hmph.
But yeah the savings are good. The only thing I don’t like buying there is tea and coffee because we’re a bit precious with our caffeinated beverages and like expensive brands. Must check out that FB page.
The pram is genius. I think I’m going to have to have the kids strapped in the pram next time, and fit the groceries around them, as yesterday was a headache- if we’d been in that Sydney shopping centre, seriously we would have been asked to leave-
Sorry that you haven’t had a RAOK yet- you can borrow my boys if you like, people will be all over you offering to help you out, as they say ‘I remember those days’ as they tantrum because they couldn’t open the egg carton at the store
I haven’t had ALDI tea yet. Is it inferior?
Aldi nappies and wipes are the bomb diggity. I love the place but agree that tis better to go sans sprogs. Good work on the chocolate bribery, I endorse this wholeheartedly. I do sometimes do the whole shop at woolies because I can’t be arses going to both places to source stuff aldi doesn’t have, and then am aghast at the price. I love Aldi Mum, next time I’m there I will Ty to do an RAOK. xx
Haha I can’t be arsed I mean, not arses. Titter.
I love aldi but hate the shopping experience!!
Am with you Ann… Perhaps you can join Mother Downunder and myself at Aldi on a Friday night- it is the new place to be!
I am a total Aldi convert.
I started small…only buying what I could fit in one bag…I had an irrational fear of the gold coin trolley and the whole checkout experience.
But now I go whole hog! I only have one child to wrangle and he is usually satisfied with a fruit sachet and the shopping list and pen.
I like that Aldi has a good organic range.
And I know it is totally sad but if you aren’t interested in the specials, then Friday night is a great time to go to Aldi as you generally have the store to yourself…and the cashiers seem to slow down a bit on Friday evenings!
I don’t like that I still have to go to Woolies…and that the one bag of stuff I buy at Woolies costs as much as my total Aldi shop!
I’m with you Caitlin- it’s intimidating at first, but once you’ve done it a couple of times, it’s more and more manageable. And thanks for the tip with regard to best shopping times. I will now be spending my Friday nights at Aldi- It’s the new place to be!
We have an Aldi near us here (in Belgium) – it’s nice to know they are the same all over the world! (Except, obviously, the European sweets section is just cheap and nasty Belgian chocolate, as opposed to the real good stuff at the normal supermarket
– we do get excited when they stock Trader Joes stuff from the US, as it means I can stock up on yummy peanut butter, which is otherwise hard to find. I scour the junk mail for that every week.
Our Aldi is right near a hospice for people with intellectual disabilities, and this is where they shop, en masse, on pension day. So the queue and subsequent crazy fast trolley fill can sometimes get a bit tense and awkward…. I have learnt which check-out chicks are the nicest and most tolerant, let’s put it that way!! A few ROAK wouldn’t go astray here.
Love the idea of the washing basket in the boot! Here in Europe, which is largely plastic-bag-free, all self-respecting citizens (except me) have a collapsible crate in the boot, kind of looks like a milk crate, but more light weight. Me, I end up walking around the Aldi trying to find decent boxes that are nearly empty, and then emptying them, so I can take the box home!!
Have never been to Aldi, the nearest one is 150 kms away! Will have to make the trip one day just to check it out, thanks for the heads up on what to expect