I swear every store should have shopping carts that you have to deposit a quarter to use. I have never been to an Aldi and seen their parking lot filled with carts its a thing of glory. Where I live the neighborhood kids hang out and ask to take the carts back, which I’m happy to let them do

or to pay a deposit for the shopping cart

I’ll second your produce trepidation. I once made the comment to someone that every time I went into Aldi at least one produce bin was moldy. I was challenged on my assertion so I made a point to verify for the next two months. Every time I went, around twice a week, I snapped pics of something in the produce…

One of the best things about Aldi is that they will open more registers if the line(s) get too long. It’s spoiled me for other stores (looking at you, WalMart.)

I was about to comment the same about Produce. For whatever reason, their produce just does not keep.
Bell peppers especially always go bad quicker than ones I buy from Walmart.
Onions as well, tried buying a bag because we use them frequently but they still went bad before we were halfway through the bag.

I’m a…

My wife and I buy all of our produce at Aldi, and very few processed foods. I guess it depends on what your staples are...

They used to offer good deals on laptops and tablets as a part of a weekly special two or three times a year. I haven’t seen much as of late, with a turntable being the last big electronics thing they carried locally.

Fun fact, Trader Joe’s started in California, but is owned by Aldi Nord, and Aldi is owned by Aldi Sud (North and South). The brothers that founded Aldi split the company in the 60s over a dispute on the sale of cigarettes.

Our local Aldis takes cards now. They have taken debit cards for quite some time, but they started taking credit earlier this year/late last year.

We did ALDI when I was a kid and there’s only one thing that I remember years later to not buy - sliced American cheese. You include cheese on the list up there as a good thing, but I would include a big caveat here (as should probably always happen when discussing American cheese vs actual cheese).

I’d say these recs are pretty solid, however I’d exercise caution when it comes to fresh produce. When shopping aldi I find I have to be more careful about making sure the strawberries don’t have fuzz and that onions don’t have bad spots - more so than shopping at TJ’s or Giant Eagle etc...

I would also mention that…

Meat shipped in from an off-site facility? As opposed to all those grocery stores with cattle ranches out back?

We shopped at Aldi’s out of necessity for years (can’t wait for the one that’s supposed to open near us in our new location). Some of the frozen food is decent, especially any special deals. I also liked the stir fry mixes quite a bit—also, salsa and cottage cheese and salad mixes. Really, we liked most things edible…

Maybe they are rolling it out slowly in certain areas based on demand.

The Aldi’s in my area recently started accepting credit cards.