You Can Now Find Me At Aldi's...

Oh. my. GOODNESS.   Have you been to Aldi's?  I'm sure a bunch of you have, and are laughing at me, that I'm just now discovering it, but I am indeed, very thrilled.

This morning, the kids and I took our first trip to Aldi's.  Normally I shop at Meijer and Kroger, all the time, every time.  But I saw an Aldi ad, and noticed their produce was insanely low.  I decided to make a list of general grocery items that we needed (snack crackers, waffles, fruit snacks, bread, etc.) as well as a list of produce.  Let me tell you- not only was this store (our Jackson location) incredibly clean and well stocked, but it was the PERFECT size.  It wasn't overwhelming at all- Maeve walked beside the cart and I wasn't freaking out every two seconds that she was lost.  It was such a nice grocery shopping experience.  I ended up picking up more than was on my list, because the prices were so awesome. 

At the end of our trip, Maeve had so much fun loading the groceries into boxes and bags on the little table at the front of the store.  And I had quite the high from my very low receipt :)...

Here's a quick rundown of items I got:  1 cucumber, 2 avocados, milk, cheese, 2 packs of crackers (cheese its), 2 packs of animal cookies, veggie straws, 2 packs of waffles, bag of onions, 2 mangos, cantaloupe, 2 boxes of fruit snacks, 3 hand soaps, 1 ice cream, 1 pack of ice cream cones, 4 boxes of cereal, 2 frozen concentrated lemonades, 1 pack of yogurt, bananas, hot dog buns and chips for- 35 bucks (35.87 to be exact).   Then me, being the dork that I am, decided to divide that number to see on average, how much I spent per item-  $1.02!    Notice, I didn't get any meat- I do still have to go to meijer and get my meats, but otherwise, we are stocked up and ready to roll for the week- on 35 bucks.  I am way too excited about this :)

And because I'm an even bigger dork, I came home and (after fixing my kids a nice lunch of cucumbers, bananas, cheese and turkey) I looked up the prices of some of the items I got at Meijers- just for comparison... here's what I came out with, best buy wise:

• Hot dog buns- on sale at meijers for 99 cents, regularly priced at Aldi for 79 cents!
• mangoes- 99 cents at meijers,  50 cents at Aldi (50% off!)
• chips (like lays) 2.00 on sale at Meijer, 1.39 at Aldi
• frozen juice concentrate- on sale at Meijer for 99 cents, Aldi- 69 cents
• Waffles- 2.50 at Meijer, 1.99 at Aldi
• I'm not sure how much avocados are at Meijer because they weren't in the ad, but Aldi's had them for 84 cents this week...  Usually at other stores, I find them 3/5.00 or sometimes if its a great sale 5/5. 
• Cantaloupe was a buck and the cucumber was 70 cents. 
• veggie straws- at Meijers they're 2.99, today at Aldi, they were 1.49!!!  (these are eaten like crazy in this house... so it was a good find for me!)

Oh and here's my favorite part about the store- the milk and produce ALL come from Michigan and are hormone free. 

Also- did you know that Aldi's is owned by the same company that runs Trader Joe's? 

I am so excited to start shopping regularly here... definitely for produce!  

And that's what made my day today :)

Happy Tuesday ;)