Category: Bargains

And It. Was. Delicious!

So last week I posted about how I’ve been experimenting with ALDI shopping for the last few months. What I didn’t tell you when I posted that was part of my reason for posting was that I was looking forward to your comments to see how you felt about ALDI! Becauuuuse, at the end of last week I got to take a trip to ALDI headquarters in Batavia, Illinois for a fun demonstration at their ALDI Taste Kitchen! Since I was already an ALDI fan, I was super-geeked out about going, and I have returned an ever bigger ALDI enthusiast!

The ALDI team started out by assembling a small group of bloggers for a “Switch & Save” taste test. We tasted identical items – one ALDI brand, and one name-brand, to see if we could tell which was which. We tried a variety of drinks, snacks, and cheeses, and I couldn’t tell the difference at all! The ALDI brand tasted as good as the name brand every time. And of course, the ALDI label items typically cost about 30% less!

Next, we sampled some fabulously tasty holiday-themed appetizers. Here’s Liz from ALDI telling us about the delicious taste experience on which we were about to embark!

My favorite was the Thanksgiving in a Bite. OMMZeees!! It’s ridiculous! You’ll be able to get the recipe on ALDI’s website starting October 31st. Start a countdown for this blessed event now.

Just when I thought I’d experienced culinary perfection, the ALDI chefs served us an amazing holiday dinner! A ham with a balsamic-apple cider glaze, the most divine green bean casserole you’ve ever had, and au gratin potatoes I might shove my grandmother out of the way to get to.

It was all crazy good! Cray-to-the-zee! And all prepared with food and ingredients from ALDI!

 

The next morning, after we slept off our food hangover, we got to go on a tour of an ALDI store.  This might’ve been my favorite part of the whole event! I learned so much, and the very coolest thing I learned I thought it’d be easier to tell you about via quick video:

Check out any box or bag of product you have from ALDI and count the bar codes! Isn’t that genius?? I can’t believe I never noticed that before!

Part of the reason ALDI can keep their prices so low is that they run their stores with 3-5 employees at a time instead of 50 bajillion. With only a couple check lanes open, lines can get long. But these multiple bar codes keep cashiers moving your items down the line lickety-split and keep check lanes moving at lightning speed! Also, ALDI employees ALL cashier as well as stock the store, and even part-time employees get full medical and dental benefits. Say what? Can I have a job in about 4 years when Jonah goes to kindergarten, please ALDI?

While on our store tour, we each picked up a secret ingredient to take back to ALDI’s test kitchen because we were about to embark on a guacamole challenge!  I LOVES me some guacamole, as you may remember – and my secret ingredient was sour cream. Not very creative, I know, but the list of ingredients they already had in the taste kitchen was extensive! We had a blast making our guac!

We had a taste test and voted for winners and MINE DID NOT WIN. Which, as I’m sure you realize, is a travesty! But I got to have lots of good guac so I let it slide. Then, we moved on to lunch, which was an amazing all-ALDI taco bar! The pork carnitas were to die for!

Everything we ate while we were there was 100% ALDI product and 100% FABULOUS! I couldn’t have been more impressed with the chefs or the recipes.

After lunch it was time to go. I was anxious to get home to my babies but sad to leave because in real life? No one drives me around in a town car and prepares gourmet meals for me!

I got home Friday night and Sunday afternoon I ran out to ALDI to do our week’s grocery shopping. I tried a few new things based on my experience – like ALDI’s chocolate syrup. I am a DIE-HARD Hershey’s fan, but I really like the ALDI brand! And it is $1.39 compared to $2.08 for the Hershey’s so I think this mama is switching brands! Crazy, right?

The ALDI difference really IS crazy – the great products, the low prices, and the efficient way they run their stores. I was super-impressed and I’m an even happier ALDI shopper now!

So, for those of you who haven’t…did I convince you to give ALDI a try?

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I wish it was. ALDI, I CAN BE BOUGHT. *Wink, Wink*!

If you’ve been reading here awhile, you know that I loves me a bargain and a coupon.  But with the advent of that devilish show Extreme Couponing, and with the popularity of couponing surging because of all the awesome savings blogs out there, drug stores and grocery stores have really been pullllllling back big time on the sale and coupon opportunities. Gone are the days when I had a huge stockpile of CVS Extra Care Bucks, not to mention toothpaste and body wash! I used to have tons of cereal all the time, and now I’m pretty much buying it week-to-week. It’s sad. S-A-D, SAD! I can still do “ok” with coupons and sales, but alas, I no longer gleefully take a photo of my spoils as soon as I return home from the grocery. Sigh.

So, last spring when I was preparing to head to Mom 2.0 Summit, I decided to try ALDI. They sprang to mind because they were sponsoring Mom 2.0 and I’d been there before occasionally, but since I was having such great luck with couponing, I had faithfully stuck by Kroger for years.  But feeling the pinch of our budget, rising food costs (when did peanut butter get so expensive!?), and lack of sales, I decided to give ALDI another chance.

And I’m glad I did!  Since that time I’ve been going to ALDI about every-other-week. I love the low prices, and the small size of the store is perfect for when you grocery shop with kids, because you get what you need and get out of there in a flash! I’ve loved the quality of the products, too. Here are some of my very favorite items:

Bobby and I go through Splenda like it’s water.  We use it in our coffee and we like coffee. (See also, coffee pictured above, ha!) The ALDI brand Splenda-like product is $1.99 for 100 packets! Do you know how ridiculously CHEAP that is? It makes me ever so happy!  It goes perfectly with their coffee, which is also very good and only $3.99-$4.49 for a pound of whole bean, and we are totes snobby so we like to buy whole bean and grind it. They have ground, also.  We’ve been really pleased with it, and the coffee savings for us is significant. I also love their Fit & Active pasta and the Fit & Active fruit strips (not pictured) are super-yummy and great for my kids’ school lunches. They LOVE them.  They are not pictured because I’m out and need to go get more today, along with their Happy Farms cheese sticks which my kids and I also love to snack on. They are priced way less than  any brand Kroger sells, too.  I eat one of the tortillas pictured above with ALDI turkey lunch meat and ALDI sliced cheese for lunch every day at home. Affordable and yummy!

Anyway, the point is, I am glad I undertook the ALDI experiment. I still go to Kroger every-other-week or so for their Mega-Event sales and to get my must-haves like Hershey’s chocolate syrup (mama needs her chocolate milk in the morning before her coffee, don’t judge!) and I’ve found a really good balance between the two stores.  I’m really happy I made this change because it’s helped our budget out a lot and I’ve found some great new products at ALDI.

So, tell me, all you who are more frugal than me, do YOU ALDI? What are some of your fave products?

I recently rediscovered the Carter’s store – I randomly stopped in there a few weeks ago. I’m always on the lookout for 100% cotton pajamas (50% off the PJ shop at the moment, FYI), and I picked up a few pairs for Sam. Seriously, is there anything cuter than a kid in pajamas?

Actually, there might be – how about a little boy in a puffy vest?

Or perhaps a little girl in a tunic?

Ugh, seriously – so cute.

I don’t know why, but Carter’s had fallen off my radar – I shouldn’t have let that happen, though! They are so frickin’ cute – and of course made well and reasonably priced. Plus, the Carter’s store is always having good sales – much like the one they’ve asked me to help promote this week!

The Carter’s Friends and Family Event is going on now, and until September 30 you can get 25% off your entire purchase online (use code FFSAVE25) or in stores by printing the coupon below. Combined with the Great Big Sale that’s already going on, you can get things up to 70% off.

You can stock up on top, pants and microfleece vests, or tunics and leggings, or just about anything – Carter’s collections are perfect for mixing and matching. The fall weather calls for layering! And accessories, of course.

And to help you stock up, you can enter below to win a $50 Carter’s gift card! WOOHOO! All you have to do to enter is check out the little girls tunics on Carter’s website and leave a comment answering this question: What tunic would you choose for a Carter’s girl this fall?

Go forth and shop! And enter!

In case you were wondering…
Carter’s partnered with bloggers such as me to help promote Great Big Sale. As part of the program, I received product or gift cards. Carter’s believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words, and therefore did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about the products I used. Carter’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.