CitroJim wrote: ↑14 Aug 2017, 15:12
I must make a confession here... I've started shopping in Aldi - not for the specials but for the food...
I have to say it's all most excellent and so cheap too.. I'm saving a fortune
The quality is above reproach.
Although we're doing a bit better now that we've cut our travel costs significantly (thanks Ion!
) we've often found ourselves a bit tight in the ££ department the last couple of years so instead of shopping at our traditional Asda and Tesco (which we considered to be cheap and slightly more upmarket respectively
) we started using Aldi and Lidl a lot... and also found ourselves pleasantly surprised.
I would say of the two we find Lidl better partly because it is closer to us, but there are certain items they have that Aldi don't have, so we don't use Aldi very often anymore. Lidl also have more "brand name" items if you want those in the same shop as the cheap stuff, for example they'll carry Pepsi max as well as own brand whereas Aldi only have their own brand colas. I think the meat in Lidl is also a bit better than Aldi.
A surprising amount of Lidl own brand stuff is very good - I'd say more so than Asda own brand stuff. For example the Lidl cheese slices I much prefer over the more expensive Asda ones, and they have recently started stocking our favourite Cathedral city cheese which was previously a trip to Asda or Tesco. My favourite bag of crisps comes from Lidl and is also the cheapest! We tend to do most of our shopping now at Lidl which is saving us probably 40% over Asda, which is not super expensive to start with... for the few items that Lidl don't have (mainly things like gluten free) we then do a small top up shop from Asda for just those items if we need them.
Lidl are also famous for their bargains on tools, a couple of weekends ago they had a massive amount of genuinely useful and decent looking tools on display and I was gutted that I didn't have a pocket full of disposable income to buy several of the items on display for use on a rainy day..