Saving Money at the Grocery Store

OK, so in one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that we love Aldi. Now if you don't know what an Aldi is, just google them and check out their website. Basically they are a discount global grocery store chain.
Some of the ways that they save money are:
- by having small stores ran by just a handful of employees
- offering only 1 brand of each item offered (you don't get to choose between Green Giant and Aldi brand canned veggies, you can buy the 1 brand they offer)
- most of their fruits and veggies are sold "in bulk" (so they sale apples in bags, so you don't chose this apple or that one, you choose the bag of apples that you want.)
- when you get to the store, you have to put a quarter into the little lock to get a buggy (but you get the quarter back after you return the buggy when you're finished unloading your car. This keeps them from having to employ buggy-boys to retrieve buggies in the parking lot.)
- they do not offer free bags to take your groceries home in. You can take an empty box for free or you can purchase plastic, paper or reusable/green bags.
- they only accept cash and debit cards (so they don't have to deal with bounced checks or fees to run credit cards)
- they do not accept coupons because everything is already discounted

OK, so I'll give it to you that it's a little quirky, but if you can get over the quirks, you can save some serious moo-la. Handyman and I take the boys and go to Aldi once a week to load up for the following week. We will pretty much always have a buggy full of groceries to feed our family for a week. I am consistently getting out the door paying between $80 and $100 for groceries each week. Now if I run out of paper products too and need more non-food items I have crept up to the $120 range. For the things that Aldi does not carry I will usually make 1 trip to Wal-Mart each month to stock up on those random things (Folgers Gourmet Supreme Dark Roast Coffee, Pampers Swaddlers diapers for night time use, baby formula, and a few other random things) but generally speaking, we spend approximately $400-$500 a month on groceries.

Now I know that some people have their thing with name brand items and I'm not going to knock name brand items. There are some that I love and will not waiver from. What I will tell you though after having worked with food packaging companies many years ago is that in most cases, generic label food items are the exact same as a name brand food item, simply put in a different package.  And just think about your fresh fruits and vegetables. Does it really matter what sticker is put on that orange you are buying? An orange is an orange no matter where you buy it. So why not buy it where it's cheapest?

So the lesson here, if there is an Aldi near by, give it a shot. I have also heard good things about Save A Lot stores. I know some small towns tend to offer a privately owned discount grocery store, it may just be the thing that saves you big bucks! If nothing else, if you love going to your big chain grocery store, then try the generics label items, shop based on the sales paper and use your coupons!