tomthumb said:
We combine a Tesco/Aldi shop each week buying the best value at both and are quite happy with the outcome and avoid the local shop as much as possible as 20 euro there vanishes with just a few items.
Never use spar centra and the like, robbers . Our shop is now Tesco/Aldi but we do aldi fortnightly. I find Lidl a bit icky and awfully crowded and find Aldi quality is that bit better on average and its easier to get thru with sprogs .
Aldi are great for fruit and veg by west of ireland standards or else the local fruit n veg shop .
We use a local butcher for meat, we bought a freezer and buy a lot of aldi freezables as well as chuck the meat in.
The one thing
I TOTALLY HATE about Tesco and Dunnes is their Bob the Builder promotional ambushes for young kids, piled high where you cannot avoid it. I burst meself laughing one day when a tot crashed a massive pile of spaghetti cans in there with spiderman logos or something . Normally I take the 2 year old down the Dog Food and Booze aisles while Mrs T does the aisles where the Bob the Builder and Starwars sh1te is displayed .
Aldi has no bob the builder/starwars sh1te on display where two year olds will see them .....fair play to them , or chocs at the tills in their eyeline . Its a lot easier to get sprogs thru the place quick without a tantrum erupting .
In tesco I wait for stuff like the monthly 2 x Douwe Egberts coffee for the price of one specials , that kind of thing , and buy 10 at a time , lasts forever . Same with nappies and wipes, wait for brandname at 20c per nappy before I buy. Wait for giant bulk packs or multipacks of babywipes and buy (huggy wipes are great , pampers crap)
Aldi nappies rock 19c each , super quality .
Aldi chocolate rocks and the ice cream too
Once you get use to the multipack method you save a fortune on branded stuff, some multipacks are monthly , some quarterly , some rarer.
It takes about 3 months before you see the results or multipack shopping and then the price of the average shop drops but the cupboard at home does not look so bare ....ever
Aldi baked beans (great) were at 20c one week, I must have bought 50 cans which lasted 4 or 5 months (I think)