Aldi's verse Save A Lot?

[SimplySaving]

We have been shopping for most of our groceries at Aldi's for the past year now and we love it. We have trimmed our grocery budget in half. Recently we also discovered Save A Lot. Save A Lot seems to have a lot more name brands than Aldi's. Some things were cheaper and some things were more expensive. Does anyone know more about the differences between Save A Lot and Aldi's?

[savelikedave]

Generally I've found that Aldis is cheaper if they have what you are looking for. Save-alot has a little bigger selection, but is a close second price-wise to Aldis.

[msi56]

Aldi is generally cheaper because they have brands that are specifically made for them only, which keeps the costs down. Similar to the way that Coles and Safeway have cheap home-brand products mode only for them by a particular company.

[MoneyHoney]

I shop Save-a-Lot for "no salt added" canned vegetables and canned tomato sauce. Save-a-Lot's pricing for these items beats anyplace else I've shopped. (Aldi's doesn't carry them at all.) I've also found Save-a-Lot's pasta prices lower than Aldi's.

[disneysteve]

We don't shop at either, but we did just get a new discount chain in our area: Bottom Dollar. Our experience there has been similar to what you've found between Aldi's and Save-a-Lot. Some items are cheaper. Some are more expensive. I don't think there is any store that is always cheapest on every item.

Bottom Dollar has had a couple of really great sales since they opened. But the regular prices on those items are higher than at our regular non-discount grocery store.

If spending as little as possible is really important to you, make a price book a la Tightwad Gazette and do your shopping at 2 or 3 or 4 different stores, traveling around to get all of the best prices. We used to do that years ago. Personally, we no longer have the time or need to do that so we generally stick with one store - Wegman's - that has excellent quality and overall good prices on most items. We'll stop somewhere else occasionally, usually to pick up a sale item or a store brand that we happen to really like.

[irmanator]

I used to do a mental pricebook (i am good at remembering prices) when gas was 1 somthing a gal. Now it just isnt worth it. With the combination of cutting costs and eating organic, my happy medium is also Wegmans.