{"id":4258,"date":"2015-05-15T19:31:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T01:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.eastfist.com\/?p=4258"},"modified":"2015-05-15T19:31:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T01:31:59","slug":"shopping-at-aldis-grocery-store-what-i-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/15\/shopping-at-aldis-grocery-store-what-i-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Shopping At Aldi’s Grocery Store What I Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Chongchen Saelee<\/p>\n

My goal today was to spend under $50 for 2 weeks worth of eating (for myself). This is what I bought:<\/p>\n

\nTampico Citrus Punch\t\t$  1.45\nPep Farm Goldfish\t\t$  1.85<\/i><\/b>\nVariety\/Choc Donut\t\t$  1.89<\/i><\/b>\nChicken Drumsticks (x10)\t$  3.31\nOrganic Spring Mix\t\t$  2.49\nOrganic Spring Mix\t\t$  2.49\nOJ FC w\/ Calcium\t\t$  1.69\nSteamable Cal Med\t\t$  0.99\nString Cheese\t\t\t$  2.79<\/i><\/b>\nSteam Mix Veg\t\t\t$  0.95\nOJ FC w\/ Calcium\t\t$  1.69\nReg Marshmallows\t\t$  0.89<\/i><\/b>\nFrench Bread Pizza\t\t$  1.99\nFrench Bread Pizza\t\t$  1.99\nG Bears & Happy Cola\t\t$  0.95<\/i><\/b>\nLimes\t\t\t\t$  1.29\nFruit Snk Natural\t\t$  3.69<\/i><\/b>\nSC&O Potato Chips\t\t$  1.49<\/i><\/b>\nCondensed Tom Soup\t\t$  0.59\nCondensed Tom Soup\t\t$  0.59\nCondChknNoodleSoup\t\t$  0.59\n\nSUBTOTAL\t\t\t$ 35.65\n 6.98\t2-Taxable @5.500%\t$  0.38\n28.67\t1-Taxable @0.00%\t$  0.00\n\nAMOUNT DUE\t\t\t$ 36.03\n\nTOTAL\t\t\t\t$ 36.03\n\n21 ITEMS\n<\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Already, I knew I fucked up my strategy by impulse buying too much junk food. I’ve bolded the shit I could have avoided and bought some real nutrition value in some fruits or something more vital.<\/p>\n
What I wasted money on:<\/p>\n
\nPep Farm Goldfish\t\t$  1.85\nVariety\/Choc Donut\t\t$  1.89\nString Cheese\t\t\t$  2.79\nReg Marshmallows\t\t$  0.89\nG Bears & Happy Cola\t\t$  0.95\nFruit Snk Natural\t\t$  3.69\nSC&O Potato Chips\t\t$  1.49\n\nSUBTOTAL                        $ 13.55\n<\/pre>\n
Holy shit. I wasted $13.55 on junk food!!! I could have bought a good bag of potatoes for $4. And another bag of apples, oranges, or bananas. Whoops, not smart. I wanted to get some tangerines, but those were sold out. Those would have only been $2 for a bag. I see why they are sold out.<\/p>\n
Anyway. That’s all learning process.<\/p>\n
Regarding Marketing Tricks by Aldi<\/h2>\n
I don’t want to get too political, but there’s a reason why people MUST shop at Aldi. It’s because they have NO CHOICE. And that’s what will keep them coming back. If you visit the Aldi website, you’ll notice they are no-frills, so everything about how they run their business has been optimized for maximum efficiency. But that doesn’t necessarily give an overall friendly vibe. I don’t mean to lessen it for hardcore Aldi customers, but sometimes you really want options.<\/p>\n
First thing I noticed about Aldi’s seemingly CHEAP snacks, say yogurt covered berries for $0.89, is that it’s mostly full of air. The actual food content is literally just a handful, enough for a gulp. Whereas, if you go to a big box store like Walmart, they will sell you a portion that’s more reasonable, about 5-10 handfuls for a dollar more, about $1.89. So which one actually has better value? Walmart does. Sometimes, poor people get tricked by the number, and that’s why they stay poor. They may actually think they’re smarter for shopping at Aldi, which is the main psychological trick.<\/p>\n
Another thing I noticed is that most of Aldi’s “affordable” foods are junk foods, knick-knacks with no real nutritional value. This is why it is so cheap. If you really want to get out of poverty, you need real fuel, nutritious fuel put into your body so you can work and get out of the ghetto. Most of the customers I noticed at Aldi were all poor and floppy, literally out of shape. They aren’t feeding themselves with useful fuel and they’ll keep getting stuck in that cycle. However, that’s not to say Aldi’s is a complete candy store. I noticed the 3 fridges of eggs were completely sold out. Those are the smarter shoppers. If anything Aldi’s is really good for is getting those vital nutrients: milk, eggs, meats, breads. Just try to avoid the other 80% of junk food, sodas, snacks, etc.<\/p>\n
Moral of the Story<\/h2>\n
Aldi’s in an ideal world would be really efficient. Walmart obviously is trying the same thing with customer self-checkout. The companies are trying to test limits of customer honesty and save themselves big money. But the problem with being too efficient is it doesn’t give a user-friendly vibe. At least with Wal-mart, you can rest assured they are literally open 24 hours so you don’t have to rush there within “rush hours”. Also, Wal-mart will guarantee you exponential variety of products rather than bare necessity few.<\/p>\n
However, Aldi’s is awesome if you need those vital nutrients for an affordable cost. Just avoid the majority of junk food with attractive prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Chongchen Saelee My goal today was to spend under $50 for 2 weeks worth of eating (for myself). This is what I bought: Tampico Citrus Punch $ 1.45 Pep Farm Goldfish $ 1.85 Variety\/Choc Donut $ 1.89 Chicken Drumsticks (x10) $ 3.31 Organic Spring Mix $ 2.49 Organic Spring Mix $ 2.49 OJ FC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-artistic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastfist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}