ALDI

The new Aldi in Loxahatchee Groves has a great selection, including several gluten free options not found at the Royal Palm Beach store. Very happy to drive a little further for a better selection of products.

Think of Aldi's as the estranged brother of Trader Joe's. The abbreviated history is that Aldi's and Trader Joe's were owned by German brother's who fell out over whether or not to sell cigarettes. One headed the chain that became Aldi's and the other chain became Trader Joe's. While Trader Joe's has great prices, Aldi will beat them and just about everyone else's prices every time. You can still signs of that German heritage all over Aldi's like in their German line of products called Deutsche Kuche, which offers offers beer, chocolate, roasted coffee, and uncured Bavarian bratwurst.nnIf you want to save money on groceries Aldi's is a great way to do it. In order to bring you those low prices Aldi's has instituted some cost cutting measures. If you want a cart you will need to bring a quarter and to get your money back you need to return your cart from the parking lot back to the store saving employees from having to collect the carts. You will also have to bring your own bags or pay for theirs. Lines will most likely be long because they keep their staff to a bare bones minimum. Best of all is the check out. To get people through the line more quickly they will literally throw your groceries into the cart they keep chained at the check out. You will frantically try to grab your items out but will never be fast enough. I used to just carry groceries around the store in bags I brought but getting my own cart has made the checkout process a lot smoother so now I always keep a quarter hanging in an Aldi's keychain made for that purpose attached to my purse.. I have noticed that a lot of stores are leaving carts where the quarter slot is locked in the parking lot for shoppers but not at this store.nnThe more I shopped at Aldi's the more I save and now I have become a regular shopper. Thanks Rachel for turning me on to the Aldi Nerd Community Groupon Facebook which gives me tons of great ideas. I end up stopping an Aldi's at least once a week wherever I end up. This week it happened to be at a brand new store in Loxahatchee Groves which opened on January 28. It is right near all of the agriculture fields in Loxahatchee so they won't have far to look for fresh produce. It's growing in all the fields right down the street.nnAwesome score of the week was finding boxes of the chicken schnitzel. I wish I could have bought every box. I haven't seen these since October fest. They are perfectly breaded crunchy chicken cutlets. You can eat them as is or put them on top salads, add sauce, or chop for tacos. You can use them a million ways and they are so easy to cook. I also scored my favorite French roast K cups which is sometimes hard to find and their Girl Scout knock off Samoas which are only $1.25. The not so good is that all of the Aldi's I have checked this week are out of the cheap bags of spinach, they only have organic and no bagged salads. That is the Aldi life, sometimes you win and sometimes you end up back at Publix. In any case thanks to Aldi I have cut my grocery bill by at least half and I am eating a lot healthier too (except for those Samoas). I love Aldi's, especially when I find a brand new one.