Tell me about ALDI??

Hi everyone,

So, it's time to take a long hard look at our finances, as August is coming very quickly! August will also bring the birth of our first baby & I feel I am having a bit of a breakdown about our budget!! I know we will be ok, but I still want to save wherever we can! The better we save, the more time I can spend away from work with our precious bubba!!

An Aldi store has recently opened near our place & I am interested in peoples thoughts! I have only been in there once, just for a sticky and I think I would like to give it a go!

I just have to convince DH who is a bit of a brand name snob :(

So, tell me about the good and the bad.....

Thanks in advance,

T

Lol @ your DH...Aldi is FANTASTIC! great value but more inportantly, really great quality! I love living near an aldi, can't recommend it enough :)

if you plan on using disposable nappies on your bub- their nappies are fantastic and great value for money.

We love it. Allot of what they have is repackaged from another company. So thier shampoo/conditioner for example is repackaged from Pantene. They have great specials on this too. I buy all my stuff for spag bol - yummy and cheap!!!

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if you plan on using disposable nappies on your bub- their nappies are fantastic and great value for money.

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:yeahthat: and wipes are great too! They have just started stocking more baby stuff - dummies etc. We love them!

I have two Aldis near me, love them. Some stuff is even better than the branded ones and most is the same just different packaging. The meat, fruit and veg are always really fresh. Just don't go on a Thursday it's their sale day and all the pensioners are lining up at the door.

There was a thread a while back about aldi washing powder killing the motor in washing machines.

im on the other end. im not a huge fan of it, im not a brand snob persay but i do need to have MY coffee and DF needs to have his cheese lol. i would get what i could from aldi's but was finding i still needed things from coles/safeway so it wasnt worth while for us.
dnt get their oven cooked chips...eek!

I only buy things from there occasionally as there isnt one convieniently located mear me but when i do i'm always impressed. You should just buy some stuff from there to make dinner one night and ask your dh how it was - when he replies 'delicous honey' you can tell him it was all cooked from Aldi :D

They are great :) I love all their baby stuff, nappies, wipes, food, yoghurt etc All their staples are great too and I buy all my toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap etc there. Their frozen stir fry veggies are the best too! It's a matter of trying different things and seeing what you like. I definitely save a lot shopping there and I know have "favorites" that I have to go for cos I don't like the woolies/Coles brands :) I also love their "specials" I get their catalogue in the junk mail on Sunday and its the first one I read!

ETA I do still need to go to Woolies or Coles to finish my shop, but I have both Aldi and Woolies in the one centre so it's not a hassle and definitely worth the savings finacially. I'm actually off to do my shopping now!

Their wipes are AMAZING!!! Heaps cheaper that huggies n much nicer! They don't rip, nice and moist! And so cheap! About $3 for 80 pack...

Their nappies are good too, all the snacks n frozen stuff is awesome, don't really like their fruit n veg but it will save you heaps of money shopping at aldi!!

I use Aldi reguarly. I'll visually walk you through the store.

Great for snacks for home and parties, DP likes fishy food - tuna, salmon. Then there is the pasta and sauces.
I think the paper towels and toilet paper is great value. I get the 4 pack toilet paper and I'm particular about ply.
Next is the tooth paste (whitening), soaps, again great value. Then there is the drinks, I get the juice, water and for DP gingerbeer. Followed by the frozen section I get the frozen chips, lasagna. DP isn't too keen on the frozen fish tho.

I get the fruit for my birdie. Much cheaper than Woolies. The cleaning products and baking paper, glad wrap. I still buy spray and wipe, shower cleaner, dishwashing tablets and washing powder from BigW/Woolies.

Ham slices, cheese, ice cream, cake mixes, bread and rolls.

Best part are the specials each week, I tend to buy something new each week. This week is laundry - I'm going to get a new washing basket and the laundry divider. You might be also able to get some of the Christmas specials, I got some more rolls of wrapping paper the other day.

We do the bulk of our grocery shopping at Aldi and we love it :D

Their nappies rock! Their bread is great. Like others have said, a lot of it is the branded stuff, just relabeled ;). Most of the the time we are really happy with the quality of their stuff. You do occasionally find something dud there, but you don't know until you try it. Of course you can't buy everything you need there, I still go to Woolworths to get my fav coffee and a few other bits and pieces.

Oh yes just don't get their laundry detergent! It really does kill washing machines.

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There was a thread a while back about aldi washing powder killing the motor in washing machines.

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i remember that thread, i've never had an issue with their washing powder, and ive had 2 different front loaders (just bought a new one, and we had borrowed a friend's one prior to that) and only used aldi front loader washing powder and fabric softener (cant remember what colour we used to use, but now we use the blue one)
anyways, never had any problems with using it and i've used it for over a year in total now? :dunno: maybe it depends on the machine..

I love Aldi! *some* of their products can be abit hey how ya going, in the sense that they dont taste that nice (they may have changed now, but when we tried them, we didnt want them again.) but that was pretty much only some of the chicken sauces.

My dad is abit of a "brand snob" too lol, and he always says "Oh the homebrand at coles is cheaper/same price than these!" but then you compare the QUALITY to the price you pay in the shops. more often than not, you're paying Homebrand prices for the top of the line quality products, (which has taken him quite a long time to realise lol)

the way we work our shopping is we do our Aldi shop first, (cuz aldi dont always stock everything specifically we want) and then do the remainder of the shopping at either Coles/Woolies/IGA etc. usually it ends up that we do around 95% of our shopping at aldi, with only small remainders at the major chains.

i would however recommend to steer clear of their meats, as they are packed with preservatives.. :s DH's mum bought some mince from their once, and put it in the fridge, and forgot about it, and 1 week later, she saw it in the fridge, and it was still as pink as the day she bought it! :o

Other than that, we find Aldi is a godsend! we save SOOOO much money every week! :) :D

dh and I have a F-Them list and Aldi was the 1st to go onto it LOL it's a bit of light hearted fun we have between us when a business falls dramatically short of even resembling good products or customer service :p Basically our 1st visit into the store was BAD. They didn't have baskets and the trolly's cost money which we didn't have coin and the line was so long at the checkout we didn't bother lining up to get change. So as a business we thought it was crazy that shoppers who fell into that predicament could only buy as much stuff as they could carry kwim. Then we got to the check out and the man was one of the rudest customer service people we have ever come across. We asked if they had bags and he said no so dh asked him if he could stack our stuff so that it was easier to carry and the man said "how bout you stack em yourself" followed by "we're not about that at Aldi" and we were like WTF??? What ARE you about then? Obviously not customer service. We realise that this was one person and others may be better but I went in there again to look at something from the catalouge and the girl I spoke to was also rude so I had nearly decided that I would never go in there again after the one thing I did buy was terrible. It was some frozen pastries, little triangle thingos and inside of them was I kid you not, NOTHING lol they were just pastry with no filling like on the cover of the packet so as for food we won't buy anything from there. BUT having said all of this I went in there just today for the 3rd time in 4 years to buy some disposable nappies. After reading a thread on BB so many people rave about them I thought I'd try them out. I had been using cloth but bub seams to be in between sizes for the ones I have and the huggies are pretty expensive although work great. Anyway bub has got his 1st Aldi nappy on right now so I hope they are good for him too.

The, bread, nappies are great.
The berry and white choc ice cream is soo good.
And they often have really good specials. We bought DS a train set with table for $70, which is really good.

Fresh fruit and veg not so great. A few times we've gotten broccoli there and once cooked it smells and tastes like fish. :sick:

HTH

We LOVE Aldi!

Their mayo (white bottle green lid) is DELISH! as is their choc chip bikkies, scotch fingers, hot dogs ... omg yummo!

Only downfall with Aldi, is you cant buy *everything* we need there. I am fussy with certain things that have to be *whisper* or whatever. But def something we will be doing from now on seeing as bub @ is on its way.

I worked at a well known australian Smallgoods company a few years ago, who did most of the cold meat and hot dogs for Aldi. All product was exactly the same, with an Aldi label instead.....most of Aldi Products are like this. They are also the MOST most strictest companies to supply food too as well as far as quality goes, far above Safeway and Woollies etc.
I love the nappies and wipes more than any other brand!
The Soap is great.
I love the $1.49 liquid Laundry stuff, and have used it for YEARS. (I didn't like the powder one as much though)
I love the Yoghurt.
The Cheese is brilliant.
Chicken products are brilliant!
Flour, Sugar excellent value, bigger sizes.
Cereals, excellent value.
All biscuits etc and YUMMY and cheap.
Kids love their brand "Shapes" biccies, Sultanas and tinned fruit.
Bread is great, only problem I have had is when I have tried to purchase the Turkish Bread...on occasions it has had mould in it, but that was a few years ago now.
Rice is fantastic, same with Tomato paste, spag sauce...

The only let down for us is some of the beef products (a bit tough), and a small portion of the cleaning products.
I love the Diswasher stuff, and dishwashing liquid, Toilet Cleaner, disenfectant, sponges etc etc, but the Spray n Wipe Stuff and Shower Cleaner stuff is not great...

Occasionally Fruit & Veg can be not great, but they always have a couple of items super cheap, so if you can base your meals/lunches around these items for a week you are going great.

You will notice that Coles have tried to match them on prices for things like Coles brand baby wipes, Laundry liquid etc, but the quality is NO WHERE near as good as Aldi.

Update on our Aldi nappies! DS had the 1st one on for a 2 hour sleep this arvo and it held up well, didn't feel 'that' wet when I took it off so I guess it'd hold up overnight. Then not 5 minutes after I changed him we had the ultimate test a huge poop which DS reserves for us every 1,2 or sometimes 3 days lol and it certainly contained it! I think they feel nicer and aren't as bulky as the same kg size huggies (crawler) and therefore they fit better. The huggies ones do feel thicker though. Anyway this isn't a nappy thread so sorry if I've gone on a bit! I'd recommend getting nappies there anyway :D

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if you plan on using disposable nappies on your bub- their nappies are fantastic and great value for money.

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I totally agree, thats all we use in this house, their wipes aswell.. not the thick ones but their normal wipes i LOVE.
DP is a bit of a brand snob at times but he likes their Tuna, some of their biscuits and their baby food is made by HEINZ but is quite a bit cheaper :)

Havent read all the replies so sorry for some dup.

im a huge aldi fan, not so much for groceries but more for their weekly specials and clearance items lol.

they crockery, pots and pans are very good quality. Their glass tumblers are fantastic. I lobe their undies and camisoles too.

their bread is soo soft and delish and so are their mint sticks and gummy bear lollies are extra chewy yummmmm

I also use their liners.

I found their fresh produce not so fresh though and some snacks are tastelss. I will never buy their fish fingers anymore after seeing the fish was from china!!

Wow! Thanks so much guys! This has been awesome feedback! I will definitely be doing a shop there to check it all out!!

Keep the replies coming!!

xox

I wish there was an ALDI in SA! I heard they were building one over here, but have heard nothing since :(

Definitely worth trying things to see what you like. I shop there and at Coles for stuff I can't get there or prefer a different brand and I save HEAPS.
Only things I really don't like are the rolled oats, laundry products (I just don't find them as effective), meats (I find them quite fatty), and the veges are in bulk packs and we just don't need that much of anything all at once. The fruit can be touch and go, but TBH I could say the same thing for Coles and my local fruit shop.
In short, they are worth giving a go. Definitely cheaper. You can also buy a trolley token to keep on your keyring so you never have to worry about not having a coin for the trolley ;) (Some other shops have coin trolleys too btw. You get your coin back when you return it.)