I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed by the rising prices in Morrisons, and so, somewhat inspired by Martin Lewis’ discussion with Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 about cutting your shopping bill, I decided that this weekend I’d try and food shop at Aldi. I didn’t expect to be able to get everything I wanted from there, but on Saturday lunchtime along I went with my shopping list, to see how much of it I could cross off. Normally I avoid supermarket shopping at that time on a weekend (I always try and get to Morrisons soon after it opens as whenever I’ve been unfortunate enough to be there later on a Saturday it’s been murder) but Aldi was not too busy at all. I was quite impressed. I managed to get about half of my list and I worked out that I saved around 25-30% on what I would if I’d bought equivalent items in Morrisons. On Sunday morning I zoomed around Morrisons with a mini trolley and picked up the remainder of my list.
I think I’ll try and do a similar thing as often as possible. Although it’s a little bit more hassle going to two shops, it didn’t actually take up that much more time up in total, and I think the savings make it worth it. And there hasn’t been anything I bought from Aldi that I’ve not been happy with or I’d say is particularly worse quality than Morrisons. Part of how Aldi keep their prices down is by: not accepting credit cards (only debit); not offering baskets, only trolleys; not having so many staff in stores; charging for plastic carriers; mainly stocking ‘own label’ products; ‘no frills’ display of produce in stores. None of that bothers me – I rather just pay for the food anyway.
Some of the best Aldi buys were: 10 little bottles of not-at-all-bad Premium French lager for £3.29, 350g of mushrooms and 250g of cherry tomatoes both 59p (and nice too!).
I think I’ll go down to Lidl next time and see what they have.