On Sunday, I discovered the joy of Aldi’s food market.

I first heard about Aldi’s in college when an old boyfriend at the time teased me for not even knowing what an Aldi’s was. He called me the “little rich girl” who had no concept of what cheap grocery-shopping was. Granted, my mom did the grocery-shopping in our family so it was never on the top of my list of concerns, and in college I lived in a dorm half the time. Still, he told me about it and it was soon forgotten.

Not long ago, my good friend Andrea was raving about how much she loved shopping there for her family and that there was an Aldi’s real close by in our town. Intrigued, I decided to try it out this weekend.

There were several things I immediately loved about this grocery store.

• It’s the closest store to my house, especially if you take the side roads through the neighborhoods. It practically spits you out right into the parking lot.
• The store is small with maybe five aisles max. This might seem like a limitation, but I have this weird anxiousness about huge stores. We normally shop at Meijer because of their prices, but if I can’t get through my list in about 20 minutes, I start to feel totally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of aisles, products, and choices.  I have even rushed out without finishing my grocery list (haha, that’s totally weird, I know). Aldi’s, simple and compact, had what I needed and I didn’t need to scan fifty shelves to find the best price or the best kind. They just had one and it was cheap and it was good.
• Their produce was GOOD! I was actually surprised. I got peppers, onions, broccoli, bananas, strawberries (99 cents! Compare that with like $3 a box at Meijer!), and corn on the cob. It was all very fresh.
• Above all else, it was cheap. I got everything I needed for $40 and usually I spend close to $70 per trip. Nothing on my list was over $3.50 and I got meat, frozen pizzas,  and lots of produce, among other things.

Needless to say, I feel much better shopping here as we try to save on money and keep our meals simple and healthy. It’s just my size and suits our tastes. I highly recommend it.