| | |

The Cheat Sheet You Need For Saving Money at ALDI

The Intentional Mom Planning System is where you need to start with our incredible collection of product options. It will help you establish the basics for your life & home so you’ll finally have a plan, save yourself time, and go to bed feeling like you accomplished something every day (because you did). Save up to 60% HERE!

ALDI is one of my favorite places to shop. In fact, ALDI is a frugal girl’s best friend. Although, maybe not all the time. ALDI can be a great place to save money, but as I have focused on feeding my family of 10 for just $350 a month, I have had to learn about what things save me money and what things are things I want to walk away from.

Did you realize that groceries are often the number one expense in a family budget? In many families, more money is spent on groceries than on anything else!

I work with students every week, teaching them everything I know about saving money all over the place. After all, I managed to make ends meet when our super-sized family had to survive on less than $25,000 a year (there are 10 of us!).

If you could cut your family budget in half, how much of a difference would that make in your life?

I would bet it would make a big difference.

The first step is having a budget, actually. And you’re in luck. Join my FREE 5-day budget bootcamp below. With a new email for 5 days, you’ll create a budget step-by-step by the time you finish! Just enter your email below to get started STAT!

[convertkit form=5048020]

So now, let’s talk about ALDI.

I have been an ALDI shopper for years. Over time, I have compared their prices to the same things at a variety of stores. As a result, I have a list of things that I do and don’t buy there. And, I’m sharing it with you!

Here’s the cheat sheet you need for saving money at ALDI

save money at aldi

(this post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you)

These are the things that generally ARE a good deal at ALDI

Dairy:

I like ALDI for milk and eggs. Occasionally I buy cheese there if I need it and can’t find it on sale. If I can combine a sale and a coupon, cheese is generally less expensive at a regular store. Yogurt is also cheaper in almost all cases, and so are things like half & half and heavy cream. Although I don’t have personal experience, I have had others tell me that specialty milk like almost milk is cheaper there.

Snacks:

ALDI is an awesome place to buy chips, chocolate, graham crackers, and saltine crackers. However, I find that cookies, granola bars, and other sweet snacks are cheaper at a regular store when using a sale and a coupon.

Breakfast items:

Although their selection is limited, ALDI is often the cheapest place to buy cereal. There are times when you can find it in a store on sale and using a coupon for less, but for the most part you can always know that the cereal you buy at ALDI will be a great price. I also buy oatmeal at ALDI. Cereal bars, any kids of cakes, or other pre-made breakfast item is not generally a good buy at ALDI.

Baking supplies:

I find these are almost always all a great buy at ALDI. Flour, sugars, oils, baking chips, spices, marshmallows, and just about anything else you might need for baking are all priced great an ALDI.

Prepackaged foods:

ALDI is great for soup, canned vegetables and fruits, pasta, sauces, and refried beans are a great price. Tortillas are a great value, and so is a variety of ethnic foods. If you eat hot dogs, they are often a great price, and so is lunch meat for sandwiches if you can’t catch it on a sale.

Frozen foods:

Aldi has great prices on frozen vegetables and fruits, pizzas, french fries, and even ice cream. From a frugal standpoint, many of these things are cheaper to make on your own, but if you are buying them from a store, ALDI has great prices.

Organic and specialty items:

ALDI has an ever-growing selection of these items. And, when compared with regular stores, they will almost always be cheaper. It is worth taking a walk through the store every time if you are looking for these things. You will almost always find something new every time you look.

Produce:

Many produce items are cheaper at ALDI than other places, but I find I often have to look the items over more carefully at ALDI than at other places, checking for freshness.

As long as you are willing to look carefully and are buying produce that is nice and fresh, the prices at ALDI are quite good for produce items.

Breads:

Breads, buns, and rolls are all great options to buy from ALDI, however, you can always make these cheaper at home. When compared with a regular store, you will usually find better prices at ALDI. We are lucky to have a bread outlet nearby. Do you? They have amazing prices!

Wine!

They have awesome wine at awesome prices!

These are the things that generally are NOT a good deal at ALDI

Paper products:

These aren’t horrible at ALDI, but I get any paper products like toilet paper at Walgreens or CVS for the best prices. Generally, I do not buy these things at ALDI.

Toiletries:

Things like soap, shampoo, and other things like this are not cheapest at ALDI.

Meats:

Meats like ground beef, chicken, and pork will almost always be cheaper at stores other than ALDI.

This list of what to buy and what not to buy at ALDI is far from inclusive of everything they carry. Prices will also vary some, but in collaborating with others, the things to buy and stay away from are fairly consistent among us all. Wondering what to buy and what not to buy at ALDI? This cheat sheet is a great place to start.

Similar Posts

13 Comments

  1. This is so useful. I will definitely be shopping at Aldi’s. Today, I only purchased five items but I could see the price difference. I pinned this article to my saving money board on Pinterest.

    1. I’m so glad you find this helpful. It truly is just a matter of knowing what the best deals could potentially be. Aldi is one of my favorite places!

  2. I would say shop around for your meat. The Aldi in my town is usually cheaper for meat than the regular stores. Different places different prices perhaps. But overall a great list. I love Aldi.

  3. Have not had a bad experience with the produce or meats at Aldi’s. Always walk away with money in my pocket, but growing up my mom taught us to shop around to find the bargains. Now-a-day if it’s not one stop shopping people don’t want to be bothered.

  4. I love Aldi and I shop from my nearby shop. But when I have a time then I usually shop it online as it saves money.
    I have checked this site for coupons and it really worked you can also go with this site to shop grocery items at cheap prices.

  5. I have to disagree with meat being cheaper elsewhere. Unless you find a great deal on clearance, meat is almost always cheaper at my Aldi. Chicken breasts for $1.60 a pound or ground beef for $1.99 a pound, compared to $2.30 for chicken and $2.99 for ground at Walmart here. I also stock up on ribeye steaks when they’re less than $6 a pound at Aldi. I’ve never had a bad experience with their meats, either.

  6. Granted your response above was 10 months ago, but unfortunately, this is what I found when investigating your links to Zaycon Fresh – and since I’m absolutely positive you’re already aware of it, I’m mostly posting this to save others the disappointment of going there and getting a “this page can’t be found” type response.
    When I clicked your affiliate link, that’s ptecisely what I got – the page couldn’t be found. When I went into the URL and took out the personal information applying to you, and just left the website ID, I got the following –
    “It is with deep regret that we inform you that as of June 25th, we are suspending business operations.

    Zaycon Fresh has put forth monumental efforts to endure recent challenges but conditions are such that this suspension is necessary.

    Updates will be forthcoming as we are able to provide them.”

    I was somewhat disappointed, as my daughter and son-in-law have provided us with 7 grandchildren starting in 2003, and I was hoping to find something she might find helpful. Shes a SAHM, and is also an RN. She and her husband, a certified Family and Marriage Counselor, are also home schoolers, and she’s way into involving the kids in self-production of things they want, lots of DIY, cooks everything from scratch, does tons of food preservation. To the point where on the Tuesday following everyone’s attendance at a family reunion pitch-in picnic about 150 miles north of their home that previous Saturday, on Tuesday she took the kids out to a “You Pick” strawberry farm in the morning, picked 7 or 8 flats of strawberries, prepped and cooked them tinto jam, fruit leather, frozen whole and cut berries, etc, etc. Then, sometime in the middle of the night on Tuesday or very early Wednesday morning, went into labor with grandchild #7, whom she delivered at home later in the morning, after her husband returned from an overnight business trip first thing Wednesday morning!! She had insisted on Saturday at the picnic that she still had a couple of weeks to go, but, I could tell by looking at her that baby was “packing his bags” because he’d already gotten his eviction notice!! ? And I’d figured as a nurse, and experienced mother of 6, she’d have been on top of things like that more than me! But, I guess it’s also the ability to see things from a more objective position too! She was relying on past history with her others, forgetting I think, that each pregnancy can be as different from another as possible, and that none of them can be anything like another. In any case, we got a fine healthy grandson (#5) of 7 total, and she also got a freezer and pantry shelves full of strawberry products she and the kids did themselves!
    Anyway – I didn’t intend to get so far off track, but there you are! Ive been an Aldis shopper myself since 1982! I was introduced to them by a coworker at my job working as a CNA for a very small nursing home, where most of the 40 patients were somewhat self-care, but others needed eveything done for them. It ran the gamut.
    Anyway, during this time, Aldis was as extremely basic as they could get. No fresh meat, no produce, no “middle aisle” non-food products, no wine, beer, specialty or need for “organic” foods. Just basic pantry staples, dairy, some cured meat products – lunch meats, hot dogs, bacon, sausages – and cheeses, canned biscuits and that sort of thing. Some snack cracker type products. Plenty of boxed and canned foods. And frozen. Some paper and cleaning products, but not much personal care type products. And I had a grand total of $40 per week with which to feed the four of us – husband, a 2-1/2 year old daughter, and a 12-14 month old son. And diaper both kids. I wont go into the all the economics I went through back then to decide disposables were going to be a better choice for us, because that would make a novel. Just leave it say it was.
    Anyway, I did plenty of scratch cooking and basic food prep, which ended up getting me a couple of jobs later. And this was with my husband working full time as a transmission mechanic. And we still qualified for a portion of food stamp benefits. Not a full “book” mind you, but some. Any was a help, as I used them for nothing but good foods. Dairy, vegetables, fruits, meats, good cereals, and so forth, as I needed my cash for nonfoods, and other things thay I didn’t have stamps to cover. We ate ok, just not fancy. Any cookies, cakes, etc., I made from scratch. I didn’t work full time for very long, as my childcare wasn’t as reliable as I needed it to be. And it cost me more of my income than I liked. We only had one car, and that made the logistics challenging. But, we made it through, and Aldi is what made an enormous difference. They had no scanners, no real electronics yet. All the prices were on signs on the shelves, or up on the wall above the stacks of products. The cashiers had to memorize every price in the store, and had to do weekly ring-up tests to show that they were ringing up customers accurately. Every price, that is, except for the occasional short term special, and they had price sheets at each register for reference. They printed very basic price sheets that were stacked in racks by both doors, and they were arranged by category of food. Baking supplies, meats and cheeses, eggs and dairy, breads, buns and rolls, etc. I always kept one at home so I could use it to make my grocery list each week. I got to the point where I knew the prices as well as they did. My kids grew up on a lot of Aldi foods, as well as from other stores. They did fine!
    I still have groceries bought from Aldi, when my husband goes out every Saturday and does our shopping. I’m disabled now, and have been for several years, and don’t drive, or walk far anymore. I’d much rather do our shopping myself. I did so much of our shopping on a spur of the moment, or “impulse” in a more accurate phrase, but i never made a wreck of our budget doing it. And we ate well. He doesn’t always have the intuitive way of shopping that I do, because I still do most of the cooking as well. Inspiration hits me at odd times and I’ve always done well following it! I like what Aldi has become over time. It’s certainly a store that if I absolutely had to pick one primary store for all my grocery shopping, it would be Aldi.

Comments are closed.