A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned -
Benjamin Franklin

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Aldi vs. Walmart

With gas prices so high, I tend to weigh up whether shopping at several places is going to save me money. However, WalMart and Aldi are usually situated quite close together. Here are my thoughts:

Aldi's dairy products are considerably less than WalMart (sometimes a dollar or more) and well worth the extra trip for staples such as bread, milk, yogurt, butter. Recalls like the eggs last year didn't include Aldi's farms.

Aldi uses their own brand products so coupons won't be of any use.

Produce is cheaper, but usually pre-packaged and unless you are going to use it the same day, I don't recommend buying fresh fruit and vegetables. Having said that, recently our Benbrook WalMart has less than stellar quality produce and I purchased celery which looked fine on the outside, but rotten underneath the first couple of layers. Same with strawberries and other items I have purchased. Other WalMart stores in the area seem to have fresher produce.

Cereal is cheaper in Aldi, but again, it's their own brand.

I haven't bought meat very often at Aldi. One package of beef I bought, that looked fresh, when opened was two different pieces of meat. The meat shown through the package was wrapped around darker colored meat that was obviously older.

It's worth making a list of things you buy regularly and checking prices at a variety of stores.