Guilty Pleasure: Aldi

For those of you out west who do not have the privilege of shopping at this store, Aldi is a European grocery store that is wickedly cheap. It's honestly the perfect business plan. They manufacture their own brands so they don't have to pay any trademark fees and can produce them fro cheaper than normal brand names. You also have to deposit $0.25 to use a shopping cart. I know that sounds weird, but you get it back when you return the cart and that allows them to not have to hire someone to gather up the carts. You also bag your own groceries and you have to bring your own bags or purchase them there- all of these things making weekly groceries far cheaper than anywhere else. I have come to use Aldi a lot more lately because I just can't seem to stretch our money at the normal grocery store as far as I used to, as the prices keep rising. I don't buy everything there, like meat, but that's because I usually just buy in bulk when it's on sale at the regular grocery store and its cheaper that way. Aldi stores are about the size of 3 convenience stores- so pretty small, but it only takes one person to run the whole store, so they have hardly any overhead costs. Probably my favorite part of Aldi is that there isn't a ton of variety. I know that sounds weird... why would she like a store that doesn't have very much variety? But I love that there is only one ketchup. I know that when I need ketchup, there is only one option and it's always the cheapest and I don't have to compare ounces to prices like I do regularly. I can shop SO much faster there because there is less ground to cover and less homework for me to do while I'm there.