Is Aldi still that much cheaper than Sainsburys? If so, is their stuff any good?

I usually spend around £30-40 a week in ‘burys and buy very little ready-made stuff.

Yes and yes! 🙂

Depends how long and far to drive there.

Saving £4 only works if you don’t have to spend £3 driving there.

Also depends how much of the extra is then wasted too.

We shopped at Sainsburys. About 18 months ago we switched to Aldi for most of the shopping with a small list of branded items that we still get at Sainsburys. It’s saved us loads of money.

The quality at Aldi is great.

Forgot to mention that Aldi is so much quicker than a “normal” supermarket.

The Aldi and Saimlnsburys are around the corner from each other, so travel distance not an issue.

What things do you still get from Sainsburys?

we tend to use home bargains for cleaning products etc., that is way cheaper.

Forgot to mention that Aldi is so much quicker than a “normal” supermarket.

Ahh the speed checkout game. They scan as fast as they can and we load the trolly as slow as we can

I’ve done secret shopping in the past and Aldi was one of our clients.

On the tills, they have to scan a certain amount of items in a certain amount of time, can’t remember the figures. Also, they have a policy where if there are 2 or more customers waiting beyond the end of the conveyor, they have to open another till.

That’s why you will see a member of staff filling shelves then ” jump on ” to get the queue down then return to the shelves.

I do 95% of my shopping at Aldi. Some of the frozen veg is horrible and tasteless so I go elsewhere but the fruit is fine and most of the stuff comparable to big brands are really good.

We shop at both regularly. The meat in Aldi is very good, as well as things like packaged pizza and ready meals. They also do great European style foods. However they aren’t as cheap as you’d think as their package sizes can be different. They are cheaper for a lot of things though. Their bread is very nice and a good price too.

However I think their fruit and veg is not good. It can be cheap but doesn’t stay fresh very long, noticeable going off/soft/mouldy quicker than the Sainsbury’s stuff bought at the same time and in the same fridge (we share a fridge and we still get fruit and veg from Sains after trying Aldi). Their apples/oranges aren’t great I don’t think. Bananas are the same though. 😉

I think the main reason people spend a lot less in Aldi is lack of selection. Not a bad thing but if you’re the sort of person easily lured into buying premium brands or fancy ingredients (none of us are immune but to varying degrees!) you can end up spending loads at the traditional supermarkets just through having more choice!

A friend of mine changed to shopping at his local co-op as even though the products were way more expensive they saved money as there wasn’t much choice and they didn’t get lured into buying loads of the fancy stuff they used to buy in Sainsbury’s!

It’s trial and error with Aldi/Lidl food, remakes of certain branded food can be equally as nice or better.

But there is plenty of remakes, for example their peanuts are bland compared to KP nuts.

Also, find that there is less impulse buying at aldi and fewer 3 for 2 or 2 for £5 type deals which are often false economy and push the basket price up

We top-up with the following from Sainsburys:

Dried herbs / spices
Fresh herbs (Aldi do sell fresh, but not always in stock)
Flat breads
Pasta
Red/white wine vinegar

I’m sure there will be other stuff but I can’t think of any now.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/aldi-shopping-list

For reference.

A few years go I used to try ajd shop there, I was never been impressed with the quality of some of the bagged fruit and vegetables from Aldi, they don’t last very long and are often bruised or damaged – if you see them stacking the shelves you will understand why.

I’m not sure if it’s any different now, I do go in but rarely.

Yeah less impulse buying of food at Aldi, but there is many a time I’ve come out with some Muc-Off lube I don’t really need and another pair of gloves ” just in case ” when I’ve already got loads.

I’ve always found the choice is so small at Aldi that I couldn’t buy a weeks shopping so had to go to a real supermarket to finish off the shop. That is just a waste of my time so I’ve not been back since.

doesn’t save us money shopping at aldi/lidl compared to asda. I get my shopping delivered too, can’t be arsed going to the shop.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncQsOui1ya0[/video]

I find Lidl saves us about 25% ish over tesco. The trick is findings the things that are good and keeping to the simple things. Top up what you can’t get at tesco or such like.

Define choice. Aldi sells everything a ‘proper’ supermarket sells, you just don’t get the bewildering and utterly pointless choice of 27 different varieties of tinned tomato’s. You just get one type of tinned tomato’s, one type of Corn Flakes etc. By and large the Aldi brands taste as good as the main brands you might buy in Sainsbury’s – sometimes different, but you do get used to them. Either way it’s quality – it’s German and Germans don’t do crap quality. However some items I just can’t do without like Heinz Ketchup, HP Sauce, Colmans English Mustard, but that is down to personal taste, nothing wrong with the Aldi brands. But just about everything else is as good if not better than the Sainsbury’s or main brand equivalent.

Generally the meat is better than Sainsbury’s, but i’ve cashed in some of the savings on the weekly staples and started buying meat from a Butchers, which is in a different league, and not much more expensive as you might think.

One of the other benefits from having a more limited choice is that you don’t pick up those spontaneous extras’s which do add up. Also a big shop now takes about 40 minutes as opposed to an hour and forty minutes – so Aldi gives you back time too, and you can’t really put a price on that.

My weekly ‘staple’ shop in Sainsbury’s used to be about £100 to £120. In Aldi it can be as low as £40 and rarely much above £50. Full on Christmas shop minus meat was £70 this year. The last time I got my Christmas shop from Sainsbury’s it was over £200 so when you look at equivalency a saving of about £100. It all adds up through the year.

I put my retired in-law’s onto Aldi last year and they have funded this years annual holiday purely from the savings between their Sainsbury’s and Aldi shops.

So yes – savings are significant.

Always mystified by these threads cos our local Aldi, and any other I’ve seen, sells random items apparenty dumped out of the back of a truck from Bulgaria. You couldn’t plan a menu and then go shopping as you have no idea what they actually have for sale on a given day.

We were never that impressed with the place. The fruit & veg seemed to go off too quickly. When I looked closely at what we had spent we hadn’t actually saved much. We then had to visit a proper supermarket afterwards to get the things we couldn’t get, or didn’t like the quality of. (Quite a lot…).

And after seeing the way the staff at our local Aldi berated & humiliated an elderly lady for failing to conform to their efficient checkout system, I sort of vowed not to shop there if I could help it. Apparently your not allowed to take a hand basket through the checkout, so all your items (& a basket can hold quite a few items), have to be loaded onto the belt. You then have to pack as quickly as they scan & inevitably start piling your items into bags on the floor.
I recently had the misfortune to have to pop in to our local branch (by order of Wife), & see that the staff now wear headsets, seemingl to spend all their time chatting loudly to each other; making you feel awkward for daring to interrupt to ask after the whereabouts of the razor refills. (They don’t stock them apparently, so the condescending young lady informed me, the razor has to be binned once you’ve used the two included refills).

To be fair, I think our local one is an exception, but we prefer to shop at a proper supermarket.

You couldn’t plan a menu and then go shopping as you have no idea what they actually have for sale on a given day.

You maybe can’t but pretty much everyone else can as they sell just the same stuff as any other supermarket.

You maybe can’t but pretty much everyone else can as they sell just the same stuff as any other supermarket.

Well, as I said, the only one in my neighbourhood doesn’t.

Very limited choice and hit and miss quality at the few aldis I’ve been too. Maybe you could get used to it and work around it to save money but I don’t find it worthwhile.

then have to pack as quickly as they scan & inevitably start piling your items into bags on the floor.

Or reload your basket and pack.at the packing station

I’ve done secret shopping in the past and Aldi was one of our clients.

On the tills, they have to scan a certain amount of items in a certain amount of time, can’t remember the figures. Also, they have a policy where if there are 2 or more customers waiting beyond the end of the conveyor, they have to open another till.

Talking to staff who work there they get paid above average but are expected to work all hours and days even days off to cover, managers can be run up late at night and early morning and told to open a store many miles away and stay all day 12 hour shifts , theyre also timed oon speed of scanning and how long it takes to serve a customer, take to long and uits retraining and a visit to the managers office, they say.

Fresh fruit goes off very quickly because its not chilled like tesco/sainsburys

Switched from Sainsburys to Morrisons, then Aldi with Sainsburys top up. Each time getting cheaper, better quality, and quicker.
It helps that our Aldi and Sainsburys are over the road from each other so Sainsburys top up can be done without driving again.

hh the speed checkout game. They scan as fast as they can and we load the trolly as slow as we can

Why would you deliberately inconvenience yourself, the employee, and everyone in the queue behind you? Do you also insist on paying with exact change while emptying £25 in 2ps over the whole checkout? “Ooh, I don’t use these new fangled credit cards and I’ve stuck to coins for 40 years as a protest against getting rid of the pound note.”

The whole idea of Lidl / Aldi is that they scan the stuff straight into the trolley or basket and then you pack it into bags at your leisure on the big shelf at the front of the store. More people served, less time wasted.

The whole idea of Lidl / Aldi is that they scan the stuff straight into the trolley or basket and then you pack it into bags at your leisure on the big shelf at the front of the store. More people served, less time wasted.

KWIK SAVE where doing the same 40 years ago, and no scanning staff memorised all prices.

They went bust

KWIK SAVE where doing the same 40 years ago, and no scanning staff memorised all prices.

Correct. Partly due to Aldi and Lidl coming in but actually being better.

Yes, somebody has to…..

I’ve always found the choice is so small at Aldi that I couldn’t buy a weeks shopping so had to go to a real supermarket to finish off the shop. That is just a waste of my time so I’ve not been back since.

This.

Very limited choice and hit and miss quality at the few aldis I’ve been too. Maybe you could get used to it and work around it to save money but I don’t find it worthwhile.

….. And this.

You maybe can’t but pretty much everyone else can as they sell just the same stuff as any other supermarket.

Not me. The few times I have done a ‘big shop’ at Aldi I have not been able to get everything on my list. Not talking about a specific brand either, actually not being able to buy any type of the product wanted.

Define choice. Aldi sells everything a ‘proper’ supermarket sells

No they don’t.

Tried ours a few times but as stated, always had to go elsewhere as well to finish the shop. Also, the Aldi version of quite a few products I tried were below an acceptable standard in my opinion. Meat was good, as were some of the bakery items but a lack of customer services when an electrical item went wrong was the final straw. Oh, and ours is on the outskirts where as the two ‘big’ supermarkets are town centre and much closer.

Don’t get me wrong, if you can be bothered to visit a couple of shops or do without certain items and are happy to have stuff that’s nearly as good as the branded kit then I know you can save some cash by doing the bulk of your shopping there and the majority of what you buy will be decent enough but for me the few extra quid I spend going to one shop that’s more convenient is well worth it.

Just to go back to the original question… the nearest supermarket to the village I used to live in was Sainsburys and I used to shop there. I then tried Morrisons and was amazed at how much cheaper a trolly was.

So given the choice I’d choose Sainsburys over Aldi (Although probably visit both) but would/do use Tesco or Morrisons over either.

Fruit and veg does go off more quickly, but when I shopped at Sainsbury’s I threw alot more fruit and veg away because I over-bought. Because Aldi is more local I buy less fruit and veg more frequently. Nothing wrong with the quality of the stuff.

You get all the choice you want. it is not hit and miss at all. If you want a specific species of Bolivian Red Pepper, or Outer Mongolian Flava bean, then you might struggle at Aldi, but if you just want normal stuff then there is nothing you can’t get at Aldi. A typical Sainsbury’s store is three times the size of a typical Aldi store because they sell 6 different brands and varieties of everything and have a pointless fish counter that sells frozen fish and a pointless deli counter that sells you the same olives you can buy in little tubs off the shelves and the same cheese you can buy off the shelves, but for more money. There is no such pretence at Aldi.

Aldi is a bit rough around the edges and a bit chaotic. It does take a bit of getting used to – it’s not the middle-upper class experience some want or are used to but if you want to pay a significant premium for that additional service, then fair enough. It’s all about choice at the end of the day. I’m quite happy to ‘rough it’ a bit for the significant savings.

You get all the choice you want. it is not hit and miss at all.

That’s not been my experience unfortunately, I’ve been in with the intention of a spag bol and they had no tomato puree, when it has been there previous weeks. Gone in to buy ingredients for a winter stew and they had no parsnips, when they’d been there previous weeks etc etc.
This is probably the biggest single thing that annoys me about them, you go in with a plan and a list and some single item missing blows the whole thing and you end up putting stuff back. That’s the draw back of only having a choice of one of everything.

We use our local Lidl, about a mile away so we walk there or OH klunks down, and it’s just loads nicer than the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the Asda in the town centre.

Ok, my experience has been different, maybe it varies from store to store. Staple stuff like that has never been an issue at my store and on the odd occasion there hasn’t been something on the shelf it’s just because it’s not been replenished and asking one of the staff there, they go into the store and come back with the item. But that is not an unheard of experience at Tesco and Sainsbury’s though, i’ve been caught short there occasionally.

Oh and most recently, their only curry sauce (nowt special but good enough), usually 5 or 6 flavours to choose, last time 1, dopiaza. This was early in the day aswell, not 8pm.