Bargains Before Our Eyes

My wife and I hadn’t been in an Aldi grocery store for decades, until last night. We went in an effort to find another way to cut spending. My earlier memories of Aldi consisted of a disorganized store of cluttered boxes full of junk and low-quality foods.

But that’s no longer the case, at least at the store where we shopped, which is only a few years old. I suppose we’ve become food snobs, preferring to shop for all-natural choices at inflated prices.

But imagine my surprise when I discovered natural trail mix, lean ground turkey, 100 percent juice, and name-brand fresh fruit and vegetables, all for a much lower price than at the grocery chain down the street, and certainly less than the health food store across town.

Selection is limited and some of the cool stuff isn’t stocked regularly, but we found a lot of healthy bargains at Aldi. It took us a while to get the hang of renting a shopping cart for a quarter and paying six cents for each paper sack to haul away the goods, but those are smart ways the store keeps costs down.

At six miles away, Aldi is the closest grocery store to our house. I think we’ll be making fewer trips to the health food store, which is 15 miles from where we live.