I Miss Aldi

Or Aldi's as I would always call it, mostly to infuriate my wife. Or The Aldi's if i was feeling especially devilish. But anyway, there are no Aldi grocery stores in New Mexico, and I miss it. If you don't know, Aldi is the no frills cousin of Trader Joe's. The Aldi we have in the US is actually Aldi Sud (south) which broke off from Aldi Nord (north) which operates Trader Joe's in the US. The company was started in the 40's by two german brothers, who divided the company in 1960 over cigarette policy.

Aldi doesn't have everything you need for grocery shopping, but the stuff it does have is CHEAP. They keep costs down with very minimalist shelving and displays, charging for bags and carts (you put in a quarter to use a cart, and if you return it, you get your quarter back) and using minimal staff. Plus many of their staples are their own house brands. We always found things like cereal, snacks, milk and eggs to be very inexpensive, and worth going by Aldi first before we had to go to the regular grocery store. Of course this is annoying to have to go to more than one place, but if you are trying to save money it really helps.

They always carried a $2 bottle of red wine that we swear is much better than most of the expensive stuff out there. Trader Joe's is really good for this as well, though most of their stuff is considerably more expensive, as they cater to a wealthier clientele. Food costs are much higher in Albuquerque than they were back east, in general, and we would certainly welcome an Aldi here. We were sure they would have one around the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, but alas! Though an Aldi is coming in the future to Mesa, it has not yet arrived. However, food costs are even less expensive in the Phoenix area than they were on the East Coast!