After reading what Melissa had to say here, I realized we live in a food desert, while I have the means to drive ands shop elsewhere, unlike the people Melissa talks about in her post, it is a pain to drive 30 minutes or more 1 way, then shop and drive back home. I would much prefer if I could even get most of my food closer to home and maybe only do a once a month "travel" shopping. SO.... I headed over to ALDI the other day, now I have shopped at ALDI before, but never with the mindset of can this be a replacment place to shop? More often I see fruit or veggies in the flyer on sale and run to grab just those things. But here is what I found,
1st our ALDI is SMALL, so the selection was not good and I did not find anything in the "pantry" or frezzer sections that I would buy.
2nd I was happily surprised on the amount of fruits and veggies they had and they were super cheap.
Bananas $0.93 for 7
Strawberries $0.99 or a pound
Limes $0.99 for 7
Cantaloupe $0.99 each
Tomatoes $1.49 for 7
Green Peppers $0.99 for 3
I bought more, but you get the jist... Now I would still need do go some where else for most of the shopping that I would need to do, but I could run in to ALDI for fruit and veggies and it is only a few blocks away and it is a easy in out type of store.
On the other hand I stopped at HYVEE while my son had an appointment and boy howdy do they have an awesome "health" food section. I used to shop there when we lived in Iowa, and they just built on close to us, and by close I mean 1 hour away. My other option in Woodmans, they have an awesome selection of anything and are pretty cheap. but the are 40 minutes away, But if I was only going once a month, that would not be that bad. my other choices would be Wal-Mart, But I pretty much hate them, so I only go when I HAVE to. We also have a Target and a Jewel, both that I shop at but are not for everyday shopping if you are trying to be frugal :)
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi
