Two Quarters for the Price of One at Aldi's

Beau-Hunkly and I are now routine grocery shopping buddies.  Things are getting too comfortable for him.  Its time to shake things up a bit.  We are going to Aldi's.

We hop in the Prius.  "To save gas on our errand," he tells me.  Well trained, I think.

If we want to do Aldi's supermarket right, we are going to need a quarter.  He doesn't have a penny on him.  Well trained.  We dig around in the glovebox and find $0.38.

If you have never been to Aldi's, the quarter is essential.  It's necessary as a security deposit if you want to use one of their carriages.  BH is perplexed by this.

"We are being nickeled and dimed to death already," he says.  "Next they are going to charge us for grocery bags."

Got it covered, I tell him as I swing our reusable shopping bags over my shoulder.

We enter the store.  It's a plain box store with white paint and gray tiles.  It's clean and well-lit.  There is no Muzak piped in through speakers and no one handing you a sales flyer. There are no shelves, just a bunch of wire racks like you buy at Home Depot.  The food is conveniently left in the cardboard shipping boxes with big holes cut in the front for easy access.

"What the heck," he whispers under his breath.  "It's a little, ah, basic in here."

We start picking off items from our grocery list.  The same rules apply, but now he is repeating them back to me. 

"Not on the list," he says to me as he pushes the cart past the generic Cheez-it's display/packing box.

We finish I record time, and manage to heap the whole cart for $182.00.  This might seem like a lot but we used to spend $300 a week at the grocery store, so this is great news.  We start packing up our groceries, because at Aldi no cute bagger to load our food into grocery bags.

BH keeps suggesting that we try to get all the groceries back into one cart.  It's the Engineer in him.  "Stop making a scene," I hiss.  "We need His and Her carts."  I grab my half full cart and book it for the exit, hoping he will follow. 

After loading our stash into the Prius, we met at the carriage holding area.  As I slip my cart onto the lock, I retrieve the return deposit quarter.  He smiles as he does the same with his return deposit quarter.  

The Fortins turn a profit.

My two cents: try a discount grocery store - one cart in and two carts out.