Aldi's

Another trial day for the frugalista. I went to Aldi's. My mom has come back from Aldi's often with weirdly packaged items, like canned green beans with an image of green beans riding a fork together on it. I was never amused.

Here is what I learned:

1. You must have a quarter to get a cart. You get the quarter back when you are done.
2. You must bring your own bags. These days it is pretty common to do so, but people at Aldi's have been doing it forever. Lots of people tend to swipe empty pallet boxes as their "bag."
3. It is by far the cheapest option. I suppose by not having to pay someone to corral carts or bag groceries you are cutting out labor.
4. Aldi's is owned by the same parent company as Trader Joes. This makes me a little less skeptical that they are cutting prices by below income labor, but who knows.
5. You must have cash or debit. There will be no credit card purchases at Aldis.
6. Sometimes, if you are the last customer in the store for the night they will give you food they might otherwise throw away for pennies. I was given two coffee cakes.
7. Closing time is 9 pm, but that means through the door. They will still let you shop until you are finished. (I assume within reason).
8. You can buy all your groceries for a month for around $100. After purchasing everything on my "once a month cooking" list I ended up spending a little over $80 and was only needing to go to another grocery store for 5 more items. Parsley, Waterchestnuts, French Bread, Wild Rice, and Linguine.